12.3 Release

Opensuse 12.3 gets released tomorrow. Have to admit I haven't kept up with it very well. Anyone excited to get it. Timing works good for me, because I can just load it on ochoCore.

I'm looking forward to it. In the meanwhile I have been playing with Google Chrome. Much to my surprise and gratification, I found that it was built on the openSUSE Studio platform!!!

Still getting around to installing 12.2. It's on my laptop, but still a few problems I haven't worked out. Eagerly awaiting news on how 12.3 will work out.

Just looked and its still 15 hours away @ 6:43 PM central time, so guess I won't download until tomorrow.

Laz is it just the suse version built with studio, or all distros?

The distro name is Cr-OS. It is built around the chrome browser based on Studio. You can find all the info here: http://getchrome.eu/
Looks interesting, but since I have limited interest in cloud base computing I'll just stick to good old openSUSE. I'll get it in a couple of days, as the server will be groaning in the morning.

I thought you were talking about the chrome web browser. I had no idea that other distros were built on studio.

This was the first one I"ve seen. Looks pretty decent too. Regarding 12.3, I couldn't stand it, and downloaded the DVD. Huge! 4.4GB. When the smoke cleared there were only 9MB left spare on the DVD. I got it from the Argonne National Laboratory which has fast servers. (Government has lot's of money.) If interested: http://mirror.anl.gov/pub/
Haven't installed it yet, just reading the notes. You'll be glad to see openSUSE has provisions for UEFI enabled motherboards.

I should have done a better job of looking for mirrors like you did Laz. Started downloading last night and its been running at 45 to 70kb, so its taking forever. Doesn't help that windows update rebooted my machine sometime last night. Still has something like a gig to download.

bdquick wrote:

windows update rebooted my machine sometime last night. Still has something like a gig to download.

That's a real annoying feature in Windows. There is cure for that though,
here is the how-to if you want to get rid of it:
http://www.techfleece.com/2011/03/05/how-to-disable-automatic-restart-after-an-update-in-windows-7-and-windows-xp/

I wish openSUSE made the single desktop CD' available. If the distro gets any bigger, we'll have to go to dual layer dvds.

Well there are the live CDs, that can be installed from. However they do not appear to allow upgrading. There is also the network install cd which is quite small. I know that is welan's preferred method. Personally I'm not patient enough for that.

Laz, thanks for the link to disable the automatic reboot in windows. My wife constantly complains that she's just lost a bunch of work because of this "feature". (I've never been able to talk her into using Linux. ) Maybe I'll be able to get a few points disabling it.

What was it that you didn't like about 12.3? Just curious, as at the rate I'm going I probably wouldn't get around to downloading it until about the time version 14 comes out.

bozo wrote:

. (I've never been able to talk her into using Linux. )
What was it that you didn't like about 12.3?

I know what you mean. Ican't talk my wife into anything new on the computer either. "Way too busy, some other time" after a couple of years I got the message.

I am looking at 12.3 Gnome at the moment. Really can't complain, as it is just 12.2 with some more polish. I still believe this is the best distro to have for all around computing. It certainly exceeds my needs in any event.

Hadn't read up on posts here for a week or two...Been running 12.3 for over 2 weeks now, ATI drivers and all.

I've installed it, but have yet been able to boot it. Seems that my UEFI secure boot is turned on, and I haven't had time to read the manual and turn it off.

bdquick wrote:

I've installed it, but have yet been able to boot it. Seems that my UEFI secure boot is turned on, and I haven't had time to read the manual and turn it off.

I was wondering about how much trouble this would cause. Did you select the disable option when you installed oS? There was a provision for it on the installation DVD.
I believe you can go to the UEFI menu -->advanced section to disable it in the firmware, but then your Windows 8 won't boot.

This is for a different board by ASUS, but procedure should be the same:

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/17058-secure-boot-enable-disable-uefi-2.html#post191536

It seems you can also disable in windows policy as well.

Windows 8???? Heck NO!!!! I went for Windows 7. Wasn't about to deal with that wannabe desktop of tablet tiles.

I was able to boot 12.3 tonight, but I had to go into the BIOS and pick the partition. That's handy. It did not detect windows during install so it was not added to GRUB or auto mounted when starting. I need to try reinstalling though now that I know UEFI secure boot is disabled.

bdquick wrote:

Windows 8???? Heck NO!!!!

Understand you perfectly. 7 is probably my last MS OS. On the other hand my 9 year old
grandson just got a new laptop with 8 on it, and he was able to dance around on it without any help from anyone, having watched the commercials on TV. It really depends on what your expectations are.

Are you sticking with KDE on 12.3? If I understand the implications of your other post, it may go south as well.

Laz wrote:

[
Are you sticking with KDE on 12.3? If I understand the implications of your other post, it may go south as well.

Yes I will stick with KDE. And no it won't go south with wayland. The only part that article was talking about was KDM, which is the login manager. That should be fairly easy to replace.

Well the dual boot is really kicking my backside. About ready to try 12.2 on it.

bdquick wrote:

Well the dual boot is really kicking my backside. About ready to try 12.2 on it.

Sorry you're having so much trouble. UEFI will cause problems for some time to come.
You have probably read the release notes, but just in case see this part;
https://www.suse.com/releasenotes/x86_64/openSUSE/12.3/#sec.123.uefi
The part about enabling secure boot in Yast to have the bootloader accepted is interesting.

My son finally managed to install both Win7 and 8 (Don't ask me why) after updating the firmware on his laptop. So I'm afraid this is many pronged problem.

I've been checking out all the discussion here on 12.3 and now plan to install it but I need to build a new machine myself first as this crawler is showing it's age. I'm going with a fresh install from now on as I still have some issues (none serious) with my 12.2 upgrade and will not fool around with it till I have something new to put it on.

Because of requests, I duel booted the comp. upstairs but everyone still uses Window$.

I gave my disk to my son to duel boot his laptop but I doubt he has done anything with it.

findoctr wrote:

need to build a new machine myself first

You may well find yourself in the same boat as gdquick for the time being. The secure boot issue is not fully solved yet as far as I can see. I'm running 12.3 on a two year old machine, and it seems to be solid, a definite improvement over 12.2. The only problem I have is getting the pacman mp3 drivers installed properly.

findoctr wrote:

I gave my disk to my son to duel boot his laptop but I doubt he has done anything with it.

Because Windows is closely linked with hardware signature, just plugging in the HD may not work out, although Linux might.

Quote :

I'm running 12.3 on a two year old machine, and it seems to be solid, a definite improvement over 12.2.

We haven't bought a new computer in about 3 years so all we have are older machines.

I'm not going for cutting edge or top notch, just something a bit newer than I have.

I try making it a point to attend what is called a "Hamfest" computer and electronics supper sale and tailgate event every spring and I usually come home with a cart load of stuff new and slightly used at a very, very good price. You just have to know what you want and what to look for EARLY!

It's hit or miss and a whole lot of fun so maybe I'll luck out this time. (again)

Well I sat down tonight and did a reinstall. This time went with GRUB2 instead of GRUB-EFI. I noticed that the GRUB2 option provided the "mark partition as bootable" flag. I also made a point to set a mount point in the partitioner for Windows, and all seems to be working well now. Now I have to get everything configured the way I like.