New OpenSuse 11.4 still tops

The OpenSuse developers have issued a new release and version 11.4 of the Linux operating system is as good as ever.

The big changes in this release of OpenSuse, the community edition of Suse Enterprise Linux, include a speed boost, the new LibreOffice suite and all the latest KDE and Gnome improvements.

One of the things not included in OpenSuse 11.4, is Gnome 3.0. That will have to wait for the next OpenSuse release, as the Gnome development team has not yet released a stable version of their desktop environment. Perhaps, if the Gnome team meets its own deadlines, Gnome 3.0 will be included in the 11.5 OpenSuse release towards the end of the year.

Although Gnome is included in OpenSuse 11.4, it is KDE which is the default desktop. The development decided some time back to use the Plasma KDE desktop as its preferred option.

OpenSuse 11.4 ships with KDE 4.6, a big leap forward over OpenSuse 11.3 which shipped with KDE 4.4. KDE 4.6 adds a host of features, including the ability to script actions using the KWin window manager, as well as making it easier to manage network and Bluetooth connections. Power management also benefits from recent KDE developments and file sharing over Bluetooth is greatly improved.

The KDE 4.6 desktop also has a number of changes which make it better suited to working on smaller interfaces, such as those on netbooks and the like.

Firefox 4 and LibreOffice

As far as browsing goes, OpenSuse 11.4 introduces Firefox 4 into the mix. A final release of Firefox 4 is expected on March 22 but a release candidate is now available and included in OpenSuse 11.4.

However, the big shift for OpenSuse 11.4 is the inclusion of LibreOffice, the open source office suite that was created using the OpenOffice.org base code. Ever since Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems there has been concern that Oracle would undermine OpenOffice.org’s development, with the result of those concerns being the creation of LibreOffice.

Most popular Linux distributions will be moving over to LibreOffice in the coming months and OpenSuse is one of the first.

Virtualisation is a big part of OpenSuse’s enterprise appeal and to back this up the 11.4 release includes Xen 4.0.2, VirtualBox 4.0.4 as well as KVM 0.14.

OpenSuse 11.4 can be downloaded from the OpenSuse website.

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