openSUSE 11.2 Officially Released

First was Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala), followed by Mandriva Linux 2010.0, and now it's time for OpenSuSE to take the spotlight. In other words, we are proud to announce that openSUSE 11.2 was just released a few minutes ago, and it is our pleasure to offer you a first look at the new features included in the brand-new and shiny openSUSE 11.2 Linux-based operating system. After more than eleven months of hard work, openSUSE 11.2 can now be downloaded for free either as Live KDE4 and GNOME CDs or as installable only DVDs, for both i586 and x86_64 architectures (see download links at the end of the article).

Under the hood of openSUSE 11.2:

· Linux kernel 2.6.31.5; · EXT4 filesystem; · GNOME 2.28.0 desktop environment; · KDE 4.3.1 desktop environment; · X.Org 7.4; · X.Org server 1.6.5; · New artwork.

The openSUSE 11.2 feature tour:

· Next-gen file systems - being stable for some time now, the EXT4 filesystem arrived in the popular openSUSE 11.2 distribution, along with the possibility to encrypt the entire hard drive. The Btrfs is also available in this release; · Dedicated Home partition - implemented in the smart openSUSE installer, the /home partition will be automatically created to offer users a "safer for upgrades/reinstall" system; · Simply beautiful, new artwork - both the KDE and GNOME desktops have lots of improvements on the user interface. There is a very nice boot splash screen for each one, new wallpapers... all green! · Slab Main Menu for GNOME - a very smart menu applet for the GNOME desktop environment, designed by the openSUSE developers and used in popular distributions such as Linux Mint. This GNOME Main Menu allows you to easily search for applications, access settings and programs fast and it remembers the last used apps; · The KDE 4.3.1 desktop environment - exclusively available in the KDE4 Live CD, it brings better support for network connections, better integration of the OpenOffice.org office suite and the amazing Mozilla Firefox web browser. The branding and theming of the KDE desktop in openSUSE 11.2 is the fruit of the openSUSE Project and KDE Project teams' effort; · The GNOME 2.28.0 desktop environment - exclusively available in the GNOME Live CD, it offers an eye-candy theme, a better application for software updates, Cheese (GNOME's webcam tool) improvements, and lots of various improvements to the overall desktop stability and look, in order to prepare the users for the upcoming GNOME 3.0 dekstop environment, which is scheduled for next year; · OpenOffice.org 3.1 - the popular office suite from Sun Microsystems just got better and faster in this new release of the openSUSE operating system. While the OpenOffice.org Writer received improvements to the change tracking and collaboration functions, the OpenOffice.org Draw got major improvements; · USB installation support - with the netbook user in mind, the developers added the ability to create a bootable Live USB stick from the KDE4 and GNOME Live CDs; · WebYaST - even if it's in an unstable state, the new web-based remote administration software for openSUSE systems is now available in openSUSE 11.2; · In-place upgrades - the Zypper tool makes sure that all current openSUSE 11.1 users will safely and easily update their system to the brand-new openSUSE 11.2 release; · Social networking at home - the Gwibber (for the GNOME desktop) and Choqok (for the KDE desktop) microblogging clients will clearly and easily handle multiple social networking websites, such as Twitter or Facebook; · Over 1,000 open source apps - Yes! That's right... openSUSE 11.2 includes lots of software packages, from a full suite of server apps to the most popular desktop programs and development tools; · KDE4 and GNOME Live CDs - openSUSE 11.2 is definitely not a DVD-only Linux distribution. It is also available as a GNOME Live CD and KDE4 Live CD, with included installer!