The developmental release of SUSE Linux 10.2 alpha 2 hit mirrors a day ahead of schedule and with the announcement came some big news. The openSUSE project of SUSE Linux will soon become known as openSUSE, starting with alpha 3, to avoid confusion with the enterprise level products. It was reported that the new naming should be visible by beta 1. This was the biggest news associated this release. Other than one other small surprise, there isn't much difference between alpha1 and alpha2.

The release announcement acknowledged from the start that this version would only bring updated software versions and for the most part that's about all there is to report. Testers were warned of the broken graphical install ahead of time and as such I was prepared to use the text install.

I booted my SUSE Linux 10.2 alpha 2 cd1 with little excitement. I was expecting the tranquil blue boot screen I've become accustomed to seeing. But, yikes! The Lizard is back! When the boot splash began to appear I was shocked awake by a huge lizard staring me right in the eye. That splash is actually from a photo taken by Alan J Wolf.

That's about all the excitement there was. The second stage graphical install is broken and it was suggested one could either kill X when it locks up or just install in the text mode. I've described the text install in the past and it hasn't changed. It warrants mentioning again that this is most impressive and extensive text installer I've experienced.

Another "most annoying bug" listed is a GNOME/x86-64 installation will complain about broken dependencies, just disable the banshee packages.

    

In testing various software packages and modules in the yast control center and gnome control center, I found everything working really well at this early stage. As far as priliminary testing will allow, the software manager seemed to work well. So whereas there aren't any new features to discuss, we can rejoice in the fact that things are functioning fairly well.

    

Some new version numbers look as follows:

MozillaFirefox-1.5.0.4-4
OpenOffice_org-2.0.3-2
kernel-source-2.6.16.20-2
kdebase3-3.5.3-13
qt3-3.3.6-11
gtk2-2.8.10-49
gnome-desktop-2.12.2-26
xorg-x11-6.9.0-67
gcc-4.1.2_20060705-2
apache2-2.2.2-5
mysql-5.0.22-2
php5-5.1.2-31
xgl-cvs_060522-6
libsvg-cairo-0.1.6-16
compiz-cvs_060621-3
xcompmgr-051031-13
Full RPMLIST

    

Some highlights of the Changelog this time include:

++++ koffice:
  - update to KOffice 1.5.2

++++ udev:
  - new upstream release 096

++++ perl  -Tk:
  - build with XFT=1

++++ alsa:
  - updated to version 1.0.12rc1
  * improved output of amidi -l
  - add --datadir to configure to avoid the invalid datadir with
recent auto -tools.

++++ beagle:
  - Upgrade package to 0.2.7; remove all the patches that have
accumulated over time.

++++ amarok:
  - update to version 1.4.1
  - drop helix support on request from Beineri
  - add iPod/iRiver support via libnjb/gpod

++++ gcc:
  - Update to 4.1 SVN head.

++++ qt3:
  - update qt-x11-immodule-unified diff to 20060318 version.

++++ sane:
  - Updated to sane-backends version 1.0.18:
New backends: dell1600n_net, hp3500, pixma, stv680.
Updated backends: avision, canon, dll, epson, fujitsu, genesys,
gt68xx, microtek2, mustek_pp, niash, plustek, snapscan, sp15c,
test, u12, umax1220u.

++++ wesnoth:
  - update to the development version 1.1.7

++++ MozillaFirefox:
  - fixed printing crash if the last used printer is not available

++++ blender:
  - updated to version 2.41

++++ ndiswrapper:
  - update to version 1.18

++++ powersave:
  - Merge changes from CODE10 branch

++++ OpenOffice_org:
  - updated to snapshot ooc680-m7 == 2.0.3rc7

++++ coreutils:
  - Update to coreutils 5.97

++++ smart:
  - update to final 0.42 release

++++ Full Changelog since a1.

Alpha 1 Report.