OpenSUSE Leap and Fedora Workstation

[Fragezeichen]

Fonts, DPI scaling, drivers, games,
fonts are one of those issues

Fonts? Look pretty good by default in Linux Mint and LMDE2. On top of that you can even install the Microsoft fonts.
Drivers? Unless you have some really odd hardware, everything usually tends to work quite well on Linux Mint. And if something doesn't work, that's due to the manufacturers of hardware refusing to provide the devs with necessary information for writing a driver , thus it's not Linux that is to blame
Games? Look how many Steam games there are for Linux already. And the number is getting bigger every day.

About DPI scaling I don't really know. There might be some issues, but I personally haven't experienced any problem related to it so far.

[SilverBear]

... In the past I have worked with both Fedora and OpenSUSE, but we're talking about 8+ years ago now.
What I'd like to know now is why would I be inclined to pick one over the other? What are their respective strengths/weaknesses/focuses?
I know I could download them both and give them a go, but free time is not entirely on my side, so I'm looking for some insightful advice from people who know better

I've tried Fedora a few times over the years, and never was able to get a good, stable OS configured to my satisfaction.

I did just try openSUSE Leap last week and had mixed results. "Mixed" because I could not get it to correctly install the proprietary nVidia driver for my MSI GTX 750 vid card --there was conflicting advice in various places in the SUSE wiki, and I apparently followed the wrong method. BUT what did work fine was when I unplugged my monitor from that vid card and into the vga port off the motherboard. My i7 3770k CPU's integrated intel grafix worked fine in booting the DVD, and installing, and first boot of the new installation The problems for me only started when I tried to get it to play nice with my nVidia card and messed it up.

Your system looks similar enough to mine in that regard that you should have no problem with the default open-source intel vid drivers. As was mentioned, tho, the default desktop is KDE. You'd need to go to the openSUSE forums to get advice on the feasibility of changing it to Gnome 3.

[Joss]

@Fragezeichen
I was talking Linux in general.

[Joss]

As was mentioned, tho, the default desktop is KDE. You'd need to go to the openSUSE forums to get advice on the feasibility of changing it to Gnome 3.

You chose the desktop during install

[Pjotr]

@Fragezeichen
I was talking Linux in general.

You were talking falsehoods.

What you said is untrue for Linux Mint, Ubuntu and the Ubuntu derivatives. Which make up most of the market share of desktop Linux....

[Fragezeichen]

@Fragezeichen
I was talking Linux in general.

You have to understand that, unlike Windows, Linux is highly inhomogeneous. There are different distributions for different purposes. There are some that are more user-friendly and some that need some manual tweaking.
As far as the "easier" distributions are concerned, you generally won't encounter much of the problems you described using them. As for the "harder" distributions, there's almost nothing you can't fix with a little bit of reading and trying.

[Joss]

You were talking falsehoods.

What you said is absolutely untrue for Linux Mint, Ubuntu and the Ubuntu derivatives. Which make up most of the market share of desktop Linux.

This thread is about Opensuse and Fedora, hence I was talking in a broader sense (Linux in general) and not Mint/Ubuntu specifically.

[Pjotr]

I was talking in a broader sense (Linux in general) and not Mint/Ubuntu specifically.

I repeat: Linux Mint, Ubuntu and the Ubuntu derivatives have the largest market share of desktop Linux *by far*. So "Linux in general" isn't plagued at all by the flaws you mentioned. It's only true for a minor market share.

[xenopeek]

Okay, let's get back on topic about which distro is a good choice for OP to use with Gnome.

[Pjotr]

Okay, let's get back on topic about which distro is a good choice for OP to use with Gnome.

You're right.

This is what I would use, if I would prefer Gnome 3:
https://ubuntugnome.org/

Select the LTS edition, not the latest short-lived intermediate release:
https://ubuntugnome.org/ubuntu-gnome-14-04-3-lts/

It's an official member of the Ubuntu family and therefore well supported. Furthermore, it has all the advantages of the Ubuntu package base.

[Eraph]

Cheers for the advice guys! I did install Korora on another partition to give Gnome a chance, and I just found myself getting a bit frustrated at little things. I did take some good for it though, and have applied it to my Cinnamon desktop:

• No Launchers - if I want to open an app, I use Super -> start typing, or use the menu. Very clean interface now.
• All Active Apps View - I found this by accident, just mucking about with screen corners there is an option for Show all windows. This can be bound to a keyboard shortcut (it's a wonder it wasn't bound to anything), so I bound it to Super+Tab (It's under General -> Toggle Scale).

I'm hoping better Google integration makes its way into Cinnamon. At least I can mount my Google Drive in the meantime. Maybe I'll give Gnome another try, but at the moment I'm feeling a lot of love for Cinnamon

[Joss]

I played around with Ubuntu Gnome 15.04 a couple of months ago. It was my first experience with Gnome 3 and at first I was put off by how different it was from the traditionality of Windows 7 or Mint.
But then I started changing some things with the Tweak Tool and extensions and it didn't take me long to have a mix of typical Gnome and more classic usage with which I felt comfortable (the result was something similar to Unity). It also is a beautiful desktop out of the box and it only improves with customization.

Workspace 1_002.png

[marouane87]

I gave OpenSuse leap a try and it was painful... I was surprised but the pale new interface (I know you can change stuff, but the first impression is also important). I had several problems: VLC not playing (Only sound), no partitions auto mounting, couldn't use my 3g connection etc... So, I went back to Linux Mint with the new release, home sweet home (If only I can get rid of the update error messages ...)

[Eraph]

Yeah, codecs and driver support seems to be were Mint excels. You're almost guaranteed to get up and running with minimal hassle. And CInnamon is a really great desktop.

[marouane87]

I knew that, but I said it would be a good opportunity to learn, and I installed everything manually as mentioned in the different tutoriels and yet, the problems didn't disappear.
Anyway, I think "leap" needs more time, there's a difference between an entreprise destribution and an every day "normal" user distribution.

[The Dark Side]

Very good news for people who wanted to test OpenSuse Leap. He left one derived great that enables testing Leap on multiple desktops in live session (Cinnamon or Budgie, included, which do not come in the installation of OpenSuse). This derivative distribution is called GeckoLinux, your web site it's: https://geckolinux.github.io/ Enjoy !! Tested Cinnamon and Plasma 5 editions and works great in Live.

And by the way, Korora 23 has already left. Very good, how editing 22, although the issue with Plasma 5 has some annoying details yet. Greetings.

[Eraph]

Good to know! So much variety, there's something for everyone.

I've just discovered BunsenLabs, a spin on Debian, and a community continuation of Crunchbang. It looks very nice. I'm going to have a go at installing this tonight, using the Debian netinstall method and then adding BunsenLabs on top as described in the README here.