I have just installed OpenSUSE 10.3 beta 2 on my desktop to see how its development is going on. I used the GNOME 1 CD installation. As usual, the installation was smooth, as I already noticed when I tried alpha 7. All the hardware was properly recognized and configured, with the exception of my Ralink RT 2570 wireless card, which was detected and identified, but was unable to negotiate a connection with my router, when I tried to configure it. However this time ndiswrapper was on the CD, so I was able to quickly set up my wireless card.
Installation and updates sources can be automatically added during the installation or using a dedicated tool in YaST. Adding the non-OSS installation source, it’s possible to quickly install various proprietary By means of the YaST Software Manager module, it’s easy to install proprietary packages like flash player and realplayer, or the mp3 enabled Helix-Banshee.
The updater applet in GNOME is still under development, but it’s starting to look nice, with a new improved set of icons and dialog boxes.
The command line interface to the package manager is significantly faster, thanks to the improvements made to libzypp for the 10.3 release. For example, I tried to install xmgrace, using the command ‘time zypper in xmgrace’. The results are shown below (click on the picture to see an enlarged version):
A nice feature I noticed it’s working out of the box is the possibility to write on NTFS partitions, thanks to ntfs-3g.
Another nice feature, not related to the openSUSE development, but which I think is very important for the adoption of OpenOffice.org, is the introduction of the new Chart module in OOo Calc.
Moreover, when a regression line is added to a date set, it is possible to read its equation in the status bar of the application.
While this is not a perfect solution to show equations of the trend lines, because I think they should be put in a text box in the plot, it surely represents an important step forward for OpenOffice.org Calc, especially for students and scientific users.
OpenSUSE 10.3 beta 2 is looking very promising. At the moment I found just some minor issue, and some cosmetic inconsistency, which are surely solvable before the final release. So, good job Geeko! 😉