🆕 Software Suggestion | openSUSE Leap

[ghost]

Basic Information

Name: openSUSE Leap
Category: Operating System
URL: opensuse.org

Description

Beside Fedora and Ubuntu, openSUSE Leap could be third choice for beginners. It is one of the major distros, and its stability is remarkable.

Why I am making the suggestion

• openSUSE contains several desktop environments for users, and it's easy to use as Fedora and Ubuntu.
• openSUSE uses systemd as init like Fedora and Ubuntu.
• openSUSE Leap is stable just like Debian. Fedora and Ubuntu are close to beta channel (I even got a non-bootable kernel after the update of Fedora once).
• Ubuntu contains Amazon ads and data leaks by default, which is not privacy friendly. Debian is more preferable.
• SELinux is enabled on Fedora by default, which confuses a beginner a lot.

My connection with the software

I am a daily user of openSUSE Leap and a former daily user of Fedora.
I personally prefer stable distros such as openSUSE Leap and Debian.

• I will keep the issue up-to-date if something I have said changes or I remember a connection with the software.

[jamesponddotco]

As both an Ubuntu and openSUSE user on desktop and servers, I need to point out a few things here, but I do agree that openSUSE should be added to the list. I would also add the Tumbleweed version to the advanced operating systems section, since it could be seen as a more stable version of Arch Linux, but that is more of a personal preference.

Ubuntu contains Amazon ads and data leaks by default, which is not privacy friendly.

The Amazon problem went away years ago, and Ubuntu does not leak data by default on the desktop—it has opt-in telemetry, with the keyword being opt-in.

SELinux is enabled on Fedora by default, which confuses a beginner a lot.

The equivalent to SELinux in the Ubuntu and openSUSE world is AppArmor. Being enabled and restrictive by default should be the norm, not the exception, and Fedora does this mostly right in my opinion. Those are Linux kernel security modules which allow you to force cURL, for example, to never overwrite your .bashrc file—they provide strong mandatory access controls.

[ghost]

As both an Ubuntu and openSUSE user on desktop and servers, I need to point out a few things here, but I do agree that openSUSE should be added to the list. I would also add the Tumbleweed version to the advanced operating systems section, since it could be seen as a more stable version of Arch Linux, but that is more of a personal preference.

Ubuntu contains Amazon ads and data leaks by default, which is not privacy friendly.

The Amazon problem went away years ago, and Ubuntu does not leak data by default on the desktop—it has opt-in telemetry, with the keyword being opt-in.

SELinux is enabled on Fedora by default, which confuses a beginner a lot.

The equivalent to SELinux in the Ubuntu and openSUSE world is AppArmor. Being enabled and restrictive by default should be the norm, not the exception, and Fedora does this mostly right in my opinion. Those are Linux kernel security modules which allow you to force cURL, for example, to never overwrite your .bashrc file—they provide strong mandatory access controls.

Glad to know Ubuntu has gotten rid of Amazon. On second thought, who SELinux actually annoys are admins, especially when deploying a web server, not common users.

[bmwiedemann]

It is also worth noting that several useful privacy-enhancing tools are available in the distribution:

• tor
• torbrowser-launcher
• various VPNs (openvpn, wireguard, anyconnect)

[rusty-snake]

@bmwiedemann in which distro aren't they available?

[bmwiedemann]

@bmwiedemann in which distro aren't they available?

I did a quick grep and found
alpine and Slackware seem to have no tor.

Additionally, CentOS, Gentoo, Guix, Mageia seem to lack torbrowser.

[N-Prime]

One of openSUSE's biggest benefits is that it installs with BTRFS and Snapper configured by default.

With this combination, every time you update your system or install a new package, it automatically makes a snapshot. If an update or install leads to problems, you can easily roll back to the snapshot before the update.

If an update causes problems that prevents you from booting into the OS, you can select the snapshot before the update at the GRUB menu to boot into. After doing that, you can use Snapper to roll back into that snapshot (when you boot into a snapshot at GRUB, it's read-only).

This combination makes recovering from problems extremely easy.

[cbnavigator]

At privacytools.io website, mainstream general-purpose distributions like Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora and Arch are recommended but not openSUSE. This omission strikes me as very odd because, technical considerations aside, it's definitely more user-friendly and failproof than (plain) Arch, does not have the record of privacy-invading issues of Ubuntu and is community-driven while sponsored by a parent company just like Fedora (if having ties to a corporation is an issue).

GNU's endorsement of openSUSE is only prevented by the inclusion a nonfree repo (in addition to the nonfree firmware blobs), which is added to the system by default but no packages from it are pre-installed (and can be easily disabled). Any telemetry measures that I'm aware of have to be expressely implemented by the user.

openSUSE's documentation provides a complete guide for system security and hardening. openSUSE, unlike Arch, installs Apparmor by default, a Mandatory Access Control (MAC) system to confine programs, proactively protecting the operating system and applications from external or internal threats, even zero-day attacks, by enforcing good behaviour and preventing even unknown application flaws from being exploited. Also, openSUSE has a very strong stance on respecting the restrictions of patent-encumbered codecs (unlike Ubuntu for instance)

openSUSE is a very mature and technically competent distribution while being easy to install and easy to use as an Introductory Operating System, having a decades-old reputation and commitment to free and open source software. I understand the point is not to recommend every distribution under the sun, but I mean, it's not like openSUSE is a niche distribution. It's been around for as long as Debian (27 years) and has been a major player in the free software landscape for just as long. The very fact that we are discussing why it should be recommended, especially when a younger and less mainstream distro like Arch Linux is present in the recommended list is, again, quite odd, plus I fail to see added value of at least Ubuntu and Arch over openSUSE as a so called "privacy-friendly Introductory Operating Systems" and thus I think the inclusion of openSUSE should be considered.