After a full year with OST KDE as my chosen operating system, my appreciation for it continues to grow. The experience is akin to having a wee little lap cat purring along nicely. My uses for this system are diverse, ranging from content creation on YouTube to game development with Godot, and even intricately designing machine embroidery with Inkscape/Inkstitch. Of course, I must admit a considerable portion of time is dedicated to gaming — sometimes, perhaps, a tad excessively.
The reliability of OST, paired with its rolling release model, ensures that I face no disruptions during updates, a testament to its robust architecture. As I reflect on the time spent with OST KDE, I can only sing praises for its stellar performance and reliability. Without a doubt, it’s a distro that I plan to stick with well into the future.
For context regarding my Linux journey, I have been acquainted with Linux since 1998 and have committed exclusively to it for the past 8 years. OST stands out as the most exceptional Linux distribution I’ve encountered, boasting seamless KDE integration that is truly first-rate. Should you be in search of an outstanding KDE rolling release distribution, OST KDE earns my highest recommendation.
This article will provide a balanced examination of OST KDE, discussing its advantages and disadvantages from my perspective. It’s worth noting that I find the drawbacks to be minimal and manageable; they typically require a one-time setup and rarely need revisiting. The benefits, some of which I’ve touched on previously, will be explored in greater depth in the following sections.
Pros:
Stability Redefined: The term ‘stability’ typically carries a dual interpretation. One implies immutability, where changes are rare. OST does not subscribe to this notion, often undergoing updates multiple times within a single day. The alternative definition equates stability with reliability; in this context, OST excels. Drawing from a year’s experience with OST—even on a system equipped with an Nvidia GPU for testing—I have witnessed consistent robustness. No updates have led to system failures, affirming OST to be the epitome of a dependable rolling release that you can set up once and trust implicitly thereafter.
Occasionally, one might encounter a hiccup commonly seen with rolling releases: a package update might depend on another package that is lagging behind in its release. Instead of causing a cascade of complications, this scenario is trivial to handle with OST. Patience is key; usually, by the next day, the maintainers have resolved any such inter-package dependencies, and the update process resumes gracefully. In practice, this means there’s no need for frantic troubleshooting or system rollbacks—just a brief pause in the update cycle. This minor delay is a small price to pay for ensuring the continued integrity and stability of the system. Thus, even in these rare events, OST’s stability—defined as reliable, steady progress—holds true.
Gaming and Linux: A Seamless Experience with Rolling Releases: The pursuit of peak gaming performance on Linux is often met with the recommendation for a rolling release model, or at least a rolling graphics stack. Why so? It’s because the essence of gaming on this platform depends heavily on the latest advancements in technology—Mesa, Vulkan, Wine, Proton, Pipewire, and the forthcoming Wayland improvements, all of which are in a state of constant evolution.
Adopting a rolling release provides an express pass to these cutting-edge updates, ensuring that your system is equipped with the newest features soon after they’re released. Through my own explorations, I’ve found that OST distinctly outperforms other distributions in delivering a smooth rolling release experience.
Reflecting on the past year with OST, my gaming journey has been nothing short of extraordinary and devoid of compatibility hiccups. Each game promoted as Linux-compatible has worked without a hitch. My gaming sessions currently revolve around titles like Path of Exile, Baldur’s Gate 3, and Skyrim, all of which run seamlessly on my OST environment, cementing its status as a stellar choice for Linux gaming enthusiasts.
Flexible by Design: Unlike immutable distributions, OST offers a malleable environment—a clear advantage, from my standpoint. Immutable setups don’t cater to my requirements due to their rigid package management. OST, retaining a classic distribution model, grants me the freedom to tweak and tailor the system according to my specific needs.
Recovering Systems with Snapper-Rollback: OpenSUSE infuses consistency and resilience into its core, ensuring a robust user experience. However, should an anomaly surface, the convenience of ‘snapper-rollback’ is readily available, pre-installed with the operating system. My personal testament to its efficacy came unexpectedly after a seemingly harmless USB drive formatting led to a system freeze and subsequent boot failure to a black screen. Utilizing the read-only image mode, I executed sudo snapper rollback and marveled as my system was swiftly restored to its former vitality within mere minutes. In contrast, my prior encounters with system recovery on Manjaro, which relied on Timeshift, were notably more time-intensive to resurrect full system functionality. The snapper-rollback feature thus stands out as a divine boon courtesy of the OpenSUSE deities.
Streamlined Nvidia Driver Installation Process: Elevate your gaming or graphics experience on OST by following these straightforward steps for Nvidia driver installation. Ensure your system is up to date before proceeding to open Yast, then navigate to the Manage Repositories option. Here, click ‘add’, then select the Nvidia repository to your system. If prompted, confidently select ‘Trust’ to authenticate its integrity.
Once the repository link is established, you can either opt for ‘Online updates’—which conveniently highlights the necessary Nvidia drivers for installation—or embrace the command line approach. For the latter, launch a terminal and execute sudo zypper inr. Either way, you’ll now have the official Nvidia drivers installed and only need to reboot to activate them. Zypper inr is a shortcut to ‘install recommended’.
OpenSUSE and Yast: While it seems almost obligatory to mention Yast when discussing OpenSUSE, let’s delve into it honestly. Aesthetically, Yast may not win any beauty contests; its interface could be described as functional rather than modern. Despite this, it proves exceptionally capable in system administration tasks—repository adjustments, bootloader configurations, and more are all executed effectively through its comprehensive control center. Yast’s consistent design across various desktop environments and command-line interfaces is intentional, prioritizing uniform functionality over visual flair.
Cons:
Adjusting Firewall Settings for Better Usability: While OST stands out for its impressive security features, the default firewall settings may prove too restrictive for some users, particularly when connecting to local network printers. New OST users may find themselves unable to detect networked printers within their home setup, even after utilizing the ‘search more’ feature. This over-zealous security measure can be remedied by altering the firewall to a ‘home’ setting or, if you’re comfortable with the security provided by your router’s hardware firewall, disabling the OST software firewall entirely. Many Linux distributions identify and integrate network printers effortlessly — something that OST users might expect as a standard convenience. This could possibly lead to frustration for those new to Linux, causing them to seek out alternative distributions with a more straightforward approach to peripheral connectivity. For me, this isn’t a deal breaker as it only needs to be set once after the initial install of the system.
Yast Printer Configuration Review: I must admit that I have a strong preference for the KDE Plasma’s printer configuration system, which not only functions efficiently but also boasts an aesthetically pleasing design and straightforward usability. In contrast, the Yast printer configuration tool, with its rather dated look reminiscent of the 1990s, falls short in providing a modern user experience. Despite the fact that Yast was most likely quite innovative in its heyday, it unfortunately overrides the KDE’s built-in tool. Nevertheless, it’s worth noting that the Yast tool does fulfill its intended purpose effectively. Moreover, considering that printer setup is typically a one-off task, its lack of contemporary flair is hardly a dealbreaker for me.
Hardware Compatibility Challenges: One might find that OpenSUSE can be unusually selective about the hardware it operates with compared to other Linux distributions. Take for instance the situation with two distinct models of the Lenovo Flex 5. One model experienced a seamless installation, whereas the other encountered audio issues immediately post-install. With hindsight and familiarity with OST, I’d recommend enabling the Packman repositories followed by executing a zypper inr command to potentially resolve such driver issues. Another example is I have regularly installed OpenSUSE Tumbleweed on virtmanager and everything works fine. Last night I installed OpenSUSE Leap 15.5 on the same VM setup and the audio drivers failed to install correctly resulting in a no audio available issue.
Also, an older computer I use for testing presented its own set of installation hurdles; the standard USB installer method was ineffective. Instead, reverting to the archaic process of burning the installer to a DVD was necessary, resulting in a much slower and antiquated installation experience.
In Conclusion:
OpenSUSE Tumbleweed is a very under-rated distro and is absolutely rock solid. Whether you’re new to Linux or a long time user I highly recommend you give OST an honest try. It might not be quite as new user friendly as other distros, but is still easy to use with a little bit of online search help.
