openSUSE 11.2 Still My Favorite

openSUSE still has the best install script. After dealing with a minor screen resolution issue, the install completed without a hitch. After the reboot, openSUSE ran without problems. However, I did learn one very important lesson.

The target machine for the install was my old Dell Inspiron 8100 with 512 MiB of memory. For years, this machine booted three different distros of Linux that shared a common /home partition. Each distro has always used it own user account name, and it has never changed. When I installed openSUSE as a new install, I forgot to rename my home directory for my normal openSUSE user. I can definitely say that old and new data for your desktop configuration create a mess.

So I created another account, and logged into that account. I then deleted the standard account, without deleting the user directory in /home. I renamed the directory, and recreated the account using the same uid as the old account. Now, everything looks good. The next step is to selectively merge the old data into the new account.

As for the screen size problem, the installer defaulted to 1600 x 1200, which didn’t display correctly. Pressing the F3 key allowed me to change it to 1280X1024, which worked just fine.

I was really debating whether to install Gnome or KDE. I decided to gamble and go with KDE 4.3.1. While I was not impressed with KDE 4 in openSUSE 11.1, I am impressed with the latest version. Best of all, I have a lot more free memory.

While CONFIG_PREEMPT_NONE is still set for the kernel, the video performance is much better than openSUSE 11.1. When I recompile the kernel, I am still going to change this to CONFIG_PREEMPT_VOLUNTARY. What was really great is that installing the kernel source was part of the installation software options.

There is no doubt that openSUSE remains my favorite distro. The install worked, except for my own error, and it connected to the network with the Atheros WiFi card. The new version of KDE works a lot better.