SLED 11 SP3 vs SLED 12

SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop SLED Applications
1

I’m about to install SLED, again, after having a HORRIFIC experience with openSUSE 13.2… and I mean, absolutely HORRIFIC: I’ve worked with Linux, personally and professionally, 6 months after it was released in the wild up until today; there were a few couple year gaps here and there, to be sure, but I’m not new to the installation process. openSUSE 13.2 had me stumped and I never once got it working.

What I am wondering: Is SLED 12 a marked improvement over SLED 11 SP3? I’m not a fanatic for GNOME 3.x and was hoping SLED 12 would go a different route; however, since it did not, I’m trying to decide if I will stick with SLED 11 SP3 or SLED 12.

Can anybody please share their thoughts with SLED 12, as compared to 11 SP3? I would certainly love to hear about what applications that are or are not available for 12.

2

Hi
I use both… but do prefer GNOME shell these days. What is your
hardware and GPU?

I’m running arduino (the tarball version in ~/ just had to
add my user to dialout group for access to /dev/ttyUSBn

I use the fluendo codecs for multimedia as well as a few of my own
packages on OBS.

What specific packages are you wanting to run?

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° LFCS, SUSE Knowledge Partner (Linux Counter #276890)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 12 GNOME 3.10.1 Kernel 3.12.39-47-default
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3

Hello again :slight_smile:

Here are some of my standard/desired apps:

[LIST=1]
[]mp3 & restricted codec support, as well as mplayer with ability to play all the familiar codecs, etc
[]Gummi (for LaTeX editing, creation & processing)
[]Arduino - a hobby, I can do without if need be, but not really…
[]PCB & Fritzing - another hobby
[]Ninja-IDE - a wonderful Python IDE of which I’ve grown fond over the years
[]SpiderOak - I was using Dropbox, but I like security, so opted for this a couple months ago
[]gtkpod - I do not own a Windows or Mac system and have a 2nd Gen iPod Nano
[]fglrx - AMD’s propietary driver, which keeps the system a lot cooler, even though the fans are not constantly running, like they do under radeon or other open drivers
[]wine - I have one game I play that runs well in wine (Fantasy Grounds), so wine is a must; and
[]gpg.
[*]
[/LIST]

Other than that, I can get by using LibreOffice instead of Calligra Suite (for some reason, I really like that) and Claws email other than Thunderbird; this can go for all the other programs

As for the system, I HIGHLY prefer full-disk encryption in an LVM.

My system specs, Gigabyte Brix:

[LIST]
[]CPU: Quadcore AMD Richland A8-5545M 1.7G/ 2.7GHz(Turbo)
[]GPU: Radeon HD 8510G
[]Hard drive: Crucial M550 512GB SSD mSATA
[]Memory: 16GB (2 x 8GB) G.SKILL Ripjaw 204-pin DDR3 So-DIMM
[]LAN Ethernet: Realtek RTL8111G
[]Keyboard: Typematrix Dvorak/QWERTY compact keyboard
[*]Monitor: Asus VS247 24" LED
[/LIST]

Thank you!

4

Hi
Fellow KP Mike Willis has a howto on the multimedia side if your
looking at mplayer. As indicated I use fluendo, but use handbrake for
conversion from packman…

Gummi is in the ‘Publishing’ repository on OBS
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Publishing/SLE_12/

For Arduino I use the tarball version and have a script to start and a
desktop file;

cat bin/arduino

#!/bin/sh
cd /data/makeblock/arduino && exec ./arduino $*

cat Desktop/Arduino.desktop

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Arduino
Comment=Arduino integration environment tool
Version=1.0
Icon=/home/malcolml/.icons/Arduino_Logo.svg
Exec=/data/makeblock/arduino-1.6.2/arduino
Type=Application
Terminal=false
Encoding=UTF-8
Categories=Development;IDE;

Ninja IDE is in the ‘devel:languages:python’ repo;
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/devel:/languages:/python/SLE_12/

gtkpod if you add the SLE 12 SDK and grab the src rpm from GNOME:Apps
repo on OBS and rebuild locally.

For fglrx (needed for the APU and boost support) I use the ‘rpm’ method
from here, it will also rebuild automatically on kernel update;
https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:AMD_fglrx

Use cpupower command to check boost state;

cpupower frequency-info
.....
.....
boost state support:
Supported: yes
Active: yes

cpupower monitor -m Mperf | sed -n '/[3..4]/p' | awk '{print $4}'

In normal use with the ‘An’ cpu’s you won’t see the boost states kick
in via normal tools, only above will show it…

For wine, I recommend crossover, since it’s 32bit and SLE 12 doesn’t
ship with 32bit devel packages… a lot of work!

I don’t use LVM/encryption, so others may have some tips.

You could wind down swappiness and cache since you have lots of ram
in /etc/sysctl.conf;

vm.swappiness=1
vm.vfs_cache_pressure=50

I use elevator=noop for the scheduler as well as btrfs/xfs.

Wind down the snapper config in /etc/snapper/configs/root if your using
btrfs…

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° LFCS, SUSE Knowledge Partner (Linux Counter #276890)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 12 GNOME 3.10.1 Kernel 3.12.39-47-default
If you find this post helpful and are logged into the web interface,
please show your appreciation and click on the star below… Thanks!

5

I know it’s been a few months, but thank you! I’m trying to find the download for SUSE 12 right now; I think I DL’d it at some point, but I cannot find the ISO on my hard drive(s).

Once I get it up & running, this will come in super handy