OpenSuse 11.4 review

It feels like a service pack to OpenSuse 11.3. It comes with KDE 4.6.0, Gnome 2.32, XFCE 4.8. The 2.6.37 kernel is supposed to have performance improvements with the big kernel lock missing. EXT4 file system(my favorite) now works more closely with the block layer for less CPU resources. The more reliable EXT4's performance is now close to the much older XFS server file system. I heard Btrfs with compression enabled is noticeably faster then it was in OpenSuse 11.3. OpenSuse 11.4 is supposed to recognize my Radeon HD 5970 GPU which is why i require it (for my new PC). In OpenSuse 11.4, YAST Control Center uses less CPUs resources. KDE 4.6 is supposed to improve performance of the desktop environment (similar speedy difference between KDE 3.4 and KDE 3.5.3) The Dolphin file manager will let you see network shares. The Dolphin file manager has faceted browsing which will allow you to find files via their metadata. KDE 4.6 is supposed to handle OpenGL (competitor to DirectX) very well. Due to this, it would be the best KDE release yet. KDE uses less CPU resources. Xfce 4.8 now has automated screen resolution detection. Xfce menu will support menu merging. XFCE 4.8 allows graphical menu editors like alacarte to work with Xfce. Thunar is ported from thunar-vfs to gvfs. PolicyKit has support in xfce4-session. There are multilib enhancements for xfce4-panel plugins. In XFCE 4.8 The run dialog now runs with the users full session environment. The task list windows can now be filtered by monitor. The XFCE 4.8 has improved multi-head support

Crossover Linux 9.01 Professional handles all my Winamp, VLC, and 2D games. I experienced no WIN32 crashes. The Maximize feature was still messed up, but the video frames per second hasn't been jaggy since OpenSuse 11.2. Also I found that OpenSuse 11.4 only takes the sh installer, because RPM is not compatible. In Konsole, type sh crossover-linux-pro?????.sh


KDE 4.6

Gnome 2.32 is about the same as Gnome 2.30. Libre Office 3.3 has the new abilities of opening Lotus Word Pro documents and Microsoft Work documents. It will now open SVG graphics in Libre Office Draw. The Libre office suite has a search box for looking up components. It has redesigned menus.

I kind of like LXDE too, but I don't know what has changed. I know it uses less memory then XFCE and looks like Gnome on here. All of the later OpenSuse releases since OpenSuse 11.2 have ran slower then Windows XP on my 32-bit machines due to the single core at 1280x768 (via KDM Window manager settings).

I give it a 9.5 out of 10. OpenSuse 11.4 is worth the reinstallation.