SUSE
openSUSE Leap 15.3 Released for Public Beta Testing, Download Now
Submitted by Marius Nestor on Wednesday 3rd of March 2021 02:29:35 PM Filed under
openSUSE Leap is openSUSE’s regular release that follows the development cycle of the SUSE Linux Enterprise operating system. As such, openSUSE Leap 15.3 beta comes with packages from the SUSE Linux Enterprise (SLE) 15 Service Pack 3 (SP3) release, including the Linux 5.3 kernel.
This kernel version is maintained by SUSE and introduces support for AMD Navi GPUs, new IPv4 addresses, RISC-V improvements, and compatibility with the Intel SST (Speed Select Technology) used in Intel Xeon servers.
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openSUSE Leap 15.3 Reaches Beta Build Phase
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Wednesday 3rd of March 2021 02:25:16 PM Filed under
openSUSE Leap has entered into the beta release phase today for its 15.3 minor version.
This openSUSE Leap 15.3 version is a solidified release that focuses more on the building of the distribution rather than refreshing the distribution?s packages, but there are some significant changes to the distribution.
Many of the packages will remain the same as those in openSUSE Leap 15.2 with a bit of hardware enablement and security backports. An updated version of glibc brings some Power10 support and the Xfce desktop users will have the new 4.16 version. The distribution also gains adds s390x architecture.
The biggest change for this release is how Leap is built and its relationship with SUSE Linux Enterprise. Leap transitioned to a new way of building openSUSE Leap releases in the fall of 2020 through a prototype project called Jump. The Jump prototype was used as a proof of concept, but no longer exists; it did prove to work at building a distribution and bringing the code streams of both openSUSE Leap and SLE closer together. The proof of concept was implemented for building the release of openSUSE Leap 15.3 as seen in the beta release today. Building Leap on top of binary packages from SLE, which was part of the rationale for the Jump prototype, allows for easy development on a community release to be put into production on an enterprise release should the need arise.
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openSUSE Review: A Linux Distro for the Practical User
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Wednesday 3rd of March 2021 12:06:22 AM Filed under

When looking for a Linux distro, it’s easy to lose sight of the important differences between distros and get overwhelmed. The subtle differences can make all the difference in choosing a distro, and that’s where distro reviews like this come in. Here we discuss a long-standing member of the community that’s less common on the desktop but is still an excellent choice for your desktop in our review of openSUSE, a Linux distro for the practical user.
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One thing I don’t much like about openSUSE is the relatively old kernel it’s using. 5.3 is in the range where it’s borderline if it’ll work well with particularly new or obscure hardware, so I wouldn’t plan to install openSUSE on your brand new workstation or laptop. It may have some issues with newer hardware.
Overall, openSUSE is an excellent distro for users wanting to set up a workstation or desktop that’s easy to manage and use but doesn’t have to do anything beyond standard workstation or desktop features. Gamers may not like openSUSE because of the older kernel.
I hope you enjoyed our openSUSE review. Make sure you check out some of our other Distro reviews, like GhostBSD, Clear Linux, MX Linux, and ArcoLinux.
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PostgreSQL, GNOME, Rubygems Update in Tumbleweed
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Friday 26th of February 2021 08:40:18 PM Filed under
Slonik fans are excited for this week’s openSUSE Tumbleweed snapshots as PostgreSQL has a major release in the rolling release distribution.
Snapshot 20210224 brought in the new postgresql 13 version. The new major version brings in highly requested features like parallelized vacuuming and incremental sorting. PostgreSQL brought some security enhancements with its extension system that allows developers to expand its functionality. There are also improvements to its indexing and lookup system, which benefit large databases. PostgreSQL wasn’t the only major version updated in the snapshot; the utility library ndctl jumped two versions to 70.1, which added firmware activation support. Other major version updates were made to liberation-fonts 2.1.1 and perl-Mail-DKIM 1.20200907. The Advanced Linux Sound Architecture package updated to version 1.2.4, which provided some plugin updates and Link Time Optimization fixes. Among other packages to update in the snapshot were bind 9.16.7, libsolv 0.7.16 and debugging tool xfsprogs 5.9.0.
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openSUSE Breeze Dark Plasma Style
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Wednesday 24th of February 2021 12:19:02 PM Filed under

I am happy to say that I now have published my openSUSE Breeze Dark Plasma Style for the world to use. If the color scheme I have previously release is any indicator of interest, there will be a few dozen that download it and that is good enough for me. I will be quite content if at least two others check this out. I am just happy I have finally navigated my way through using the Plasma-SDK, Git and the Plink.com site to make this happen.
If you are interested in making your own Plasma Style, the easiest way to get started with it is going to be using the SDK. It essentially restores some of that Plasma4 functionality to Plasma5 in customizing your desktop. I do wish this little thing would have been better publicized but at least it has been made and I did happen to find it.
Also: Okular: Should continuous view be an okular setting or a document setting?
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openSUSE distributions dedicated page
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Monday 22nd of February 2021 04:52:15 PM Filed under
Previously, it would take someone new to the project quite some time to learn about the distributions and understand their differences. Not every new openSUSE user would know that it's ideal to use openSUSE MicroOS for single-purpose server hosting and Kubic for container orchestration with Kubernetes.
Thanks to a revamp of the openSUSE Project website, now the distributions get a dedicated page at get.opensuse.org. A little work is still needed on the documentation part for each specific distribution. If you would like to help with that, you are most welcome. Join the openSUSE Documentation mailing list and coordinate with what's already being done to improve doc.opensuse.org.
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openSUSE Tumbleweed Gets KDE Plasma 5.21 and Framework Updates
Submitted by arindam1989 on Monday 22nd of February 2021 02:46:08 PM Filed under
The openSUSE Tumbleweed gets the latest KDE Plasma 5.21 updates and associated Framework improvements. Download and update now.
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openSUSE Breeze Dark Plasma Color Scheme Published
Submitted by Rianne Schestowitz on Sunday 21st of February 2021 07:48:41 AM Filed under

About two years ago, I started using Kdenlive to do video editing. The dark theme I had been using, a modified version of the “openSUSE dark alternate” theme, was not getting along with Kdenlive and I had to use the “Breeze Dark” theme to be able to properly distinguish the widgets and such on the application. Shortly there after, I set out to modify the Breeze Dark theme to give me that openSUSE feel I have been enjoying for years. I have made it available on this page of my site but I decided to push it to the “KDE Store” which I previously thought was “look and feel” but is now called Pling. Yes, I am confused but I’m sure I’ll get it cleared up eventually.
The smart thing to do would have been to study and get a good, solid understanding of the history of all this but instead, I have decided to just leave my ignorance on full display. I am using this post as a note or reminder to myself on the process of publishing things for the Plasma desktop in the future. I will be soon, when I can get the little bits and bobs worked out on the specifics as my knowledge gaps are kicking my rear, but I’ll get it figured out soon enough.
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OpenSUSE: Hacking on Texas Instruments TI-86 and Tumbleweed Updates
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Saturday 20th of February 2021 03:52:33 AM Filed under
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Linking a TI-86 Calculator with openSUSE – CubicleNate's Techpad
Since there is a part of me still stuck in 1998, I do enjoy using my Texas Instruments TI-86 calculator for math things. When I have a complex equation that my middle-aged brain just can’t seem to work out, I reach for my trusty old TI-86. It has been a faithful companion that has been by my side, may math crunching crutch for over 22 years. I still have some of the same rechargeable nickel metal hydride batteries from Rayovac that still seem to work.
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The interface is dated and also of older GTK stock so there are some visual issues with the application but it is only a small annoyance. It would be nice to see this application updated with a newer Qt toolkit to make it from this decade.
The documentation on Linux, as to what ports need to be opened for communication isn’t completely clear. I was only made aware of this because of my Arduino fun I have been having. Hopefully, in writing this, I am able to help someone out there find that answer.
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openSUSE Tumbleweed – Review of the weeks 2021/07
Dear Tumbleweed users and hackers,
This week might not have seen the highest count of snapshots being published (only 3, 0212, 0215, and 0217), but for sure we reached the highest count of packages to replace on your system and megabytes to transfer this year (so far). We have few reasons to trigger rebuilds of all packages, and most of the time I do that on a glibc update and when we switch the default compiler (in both cases to make use of new technologies). This week, glibc was the ‘guilty’ one.
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Tumbleweed Gets Newest KDE Frameworks, Plasma
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Friday 19th of February 2021 05:34:07 PM Filed under
Updates of both KDE’s Plasma and Frameworks landed in openSUSE Tumbleweed as part of three snapshots released this week.
The rolling Tumbleweed distribution began the week with Linux Kernel 5.10.12 and has ended it with version 5.10.16, which was the latest stable Kernel when the 20210215 snapshot was released.
The newest Frameworks 5.79.0 version arrived in snapshot 20210217. As part of the release, Kholidays package updated holidays for Mauritius and Taiwan. The Kirigami user interface framework had fixes to the controls and enhanced some vertical alignments. Removal of the usage of non-UTF-8 string literals were made with Framework’s kcodecs package update. GNOME had some updates with gnome-builder updating to version 3.38.2, which provided support for an --add-policy for Flatpak, and gnome-software updating to version 3.38.1, which updated translations and ignores harmless warnings when using unusual fwupd versions. Three areas of focus were emphasized for the update of dhcp 4.4.2 with changes for dynamic DNS additions, dhclient improvements and support for dynamic shared libraries; the package is now licensed under the Mozilla Public License, MPL 2.0. Multiple PyPI packages were updated including python-greenlet 1.0.0, which requires setuptools to build from source, and python-numpy 1.20.1, which fixed a random.shuffle regression. A major update of perl-Mojolicious 9.01 added an experimental color attribute and an experimental color log environment variable. Other packages to update in the snapshot were Long-Term Support package subversion 1.14.1, filesystem mounter fuse3 3.10.2, pipewire 0.3.21 and git 2.30.1.
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| Review: Artix Linux in 2021
Artix Linux is a fork (or continuation as an autonomous project) of the Arch-OpenRC and Manjaro-OpenRC projects. Artix Linux offers a lightweight, rolling-release operating system featuring alternative init software options, including OpenRC, runit, and s6. The distribution is available in many editions, including Base, Cinnamon, LXDE, LXQt, MATE, KDE Plasma and Xfce. With all of the desktop options, combined with the available init choices, there are 21 editions, not including community spins from which to choose. All editions appear to be built for 64-bit (x86_64) machines. Picking randomly, I selected Artix's Plasma edition featuring the runit init software. The download for this edition is is 1.3GB. Browsing the other editions it looks like most flavours are about 1.1GB to 1.3GB in size, though the minimal Base edition is a compact 618MB.
The project's live media boots to the KDE Plasma desktop. On the desktop we find multiple documentation and README icons. There is also an icon for launching the system installer. The default layout places a panel at bottom of the screen where we can find the application menu and system tray. The default wallpaper is a soft blue while the theme for windows and menus is dark with high contrast fonts.
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Artix Linux is one of those distributions I really enjoy using and yet struggle to review in a meaningful way because it doesn't really go out of its way to introduce new or exciting features and everything works smoothly. The distribution is wonderfully easy to install, offers top-notch performance, and is unusually light on resources. Artix is somewhat minimal, but still ships enough software to be immediately useful right out of the gate. We can browse the web, install packages, view files, and play videos. Meanwhile the application menu isn't cluttered with a lot of extras. The developers clearly expect us to install the functionality we need, while doing a really good job of providing enough for the desktop environment to feel base-line useful right from the start.
Artix does a nice job of balancing performance and functionality while also juggling ease of use against not getting in the way. There is a little documentation, but no initial welcome screen or configuration wizards that might distract the user.
The one piece I felt was missing was a graphical package manager which would have made it easier to build the extra functionality I wanted on top of the base distribution. However, that one piece aside, I felt as though Artix was really well designed and put together, at lease for someone like me. It's not a distribution geared toward beginners, it's not a "first distro". It is a bit minimal and requires command line knowledge. However, for someone with a little experience with Linux, for someone who doesn't mind the occasional trip to the command line or installing new applications as needed, then Artix provides an excellent experience. It's fast, light, looks (in my opinion) great with the default theme, and elegantly walks the line between minimalism and having enough applications ready to go out of the box to be immediately useful. I'm unusually impressed with how smooth and trouble-free my experience was with this distribution and the fact it offers such a range of desktop and init diversity is all the more appealing.
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Alpine Linux Review: Ultimate Distro for Power Users
Alpine Linux is gathering a lot of attention because of its super-small size and focus on security. However, Alpine is different from some of the other lightweight distros we covered on FOSSLinux. It isn’t your typical desktop distribution as it is terminal-based like Arch and is marketed as a “general purpose distro.”
It is currently widely adopted as a Docker container thanks to its ultra-small footprint. However, it can be used for all sorts of Linux deployments that benefit from small, resource-efficient Linux distros.
Now, that statement might feel too generic. But don’t worry, as we have put together an in-depth and comprehensive review of Alpine Linux, giving you a detailed look at what it has under the hood and how to use it. As such, by the end, you should have a clear understanding of whether you should consider Alpine Linux as your next Linux distro.
So without further ado, let’s dive in.
| Programming Leftovers
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