OpenSuse 11.3 review

OpenSuse 11.3 is the first release with the BTRFS file system (alt name: ReiserFS 5). That was unstable so I continued EXT4 with the more EXT4 stability patches that went into Ubuntu 10.04 (installed that on a laptop and works great). Unfortunately, OpenSuse 11.3 does not like Crossover Linux and enjoys crashing with Winamp or sometimes with the NTFS drivers that came with Crossover Linux, would freeze itself up. It won't crash running Crossover Linux apps in Gnome or XFCE.... only KDE. I know OpenSuse 11.2 should handle [stable gameplay] Crossover Games, but I can't imagine OpenSuse 11.3 handing Crossover Games with Unreal Tournament 2k4, Half-life 2, Monkey Island SE, Elder Scrolls III Morrowind playable.

I like OpenOffice 3.2 as much as OpenOffice 3.1 (Opensuse 11.2) where I do my homework. The games are just as fun. It uses about the same RAM. My old Athlon XP PC from 2003 doesn't like the installation DVD and will shut down upon boot. I'm stuck with KDE 3.5.5 and Gnome 2.18 for that PC.

I installed the 64-bit DVD onto my Sempron 64 PC and it worked without crashing. The install finished the first time. WinApps were stable running on Crossover Linux. All the programs worked. The Sempron 64 PC is as fast as my Pentium IV PC. I used the Pentium IV PC for PC games until 2006 when I got a Athlon 64 X2 PC with a Geforce 8800 GTX.

OpenSuse 11.3 seems to install okay on Turion X2 Laptops since I installed it free for a cousin. WinVista crashed so OpenSuse 11.2 / 11.3 worked. Windows apps didn't yet crash on his laptop to my knowledge.

I finished installing OpenSuse 11.3 on two other 32-bit PCs (Pentium IV and Athlon XP) and the OS installed completely. I own the 32-bit and 64-bit version. Crossover Linux works without crashing for VLC and Winamp on the 32-bits. I prefer KDE.

I like OpenSuse 11.2 a bit better. Requests OpenSuse 11.4 not to crash [on mine] as much with Win Apps emulating! Fortunately, EXT4 rebuilds itself to the desktop shell with any crash. I have proven Crossover Linux crashes only on the Athlon 64 X2 PC. I give it an 9.0 out of 10 for being impressive.

Nice benchmarks for openSUSE 11.3!