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Description
The fourth minor version of one of the most popular Linux distributions has been available for testing since December 2, 2021. And the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) is again used as the basis. However, this is still an alpha version of openSUSE Leap 15.4 and should therefore not be used for the professional sector at the current time, as serious errors can still occur during live operation.
Because during the alpha phase, regular alpha images are continuously created and updated. We basically know the principle from openSUSE Tumbleweed. But even the beta phase has a similar model until the general availability of the release. The ongoing builds will be discontinued after the beta period is complete, and Leap will enter a maintenance and security update phase once it becomes publicly available.
The final version of openSUSE Leap 15.4 is expected to be released next year on Wednesday, June 8th, 2022.
But so that you can already get a little insight, I took a closer look at the upcoming version of openSUSE Leap for you and compared individual desktop interfaces with each other.
Among other things, I noticed that this Linux distribution is already very stable on my test system
works and no major problems have arisen that have prevented me from continuing to work.
However, as usual, with openSUSE Leap you don’t get the very latest applications as you would with openSUSE Tumbleweed, but you can also use Flatpak-Apps or AppImages if you absolutely need a newer version of software.
But please pay attention to the origin of such programs before you install them on your computer!
Because there have been a few cases in the past where systems have been destroyed by such applications and data has been lost.
Okay, but now let’s get back to the direct comparison between the different desktop environments.
You can see in the first picture that the memory consumption and the number of installed packages varies quite a bit from desktop to desktop.
Especially if you compare the two desktop environments GNOME and Enlightment with each other.
But of course these values can be completely different for you, because the tests were carried out in a virtual environment
carried out.
And besides, such comparisons are always just snapshots anyway.
However, you can still use these numbers as a rough guide when it comes to choosing the right desktop environment for openSUSE Leap 15.4.
For example, I personally like to use the XFCE-Desktop on all my systems because it’s not only very fast,
but also resource-saving with my work and video memory!
This is a decisive criterion for using this desktop variant, especially on older devices.
So, next I want to show you on the second picture which applications after installing openSUSE Leap
15.4 installed on your system by default.
For this I have concentrated on what I consider to be the most important programs and therefore please do not be surprised
if perhaps an application does not appear here in the list.
But at least you can see that, for example, the LibreOffice software in version 7.1.4.2 is available for almost all desktop environments.
Thus, with the new version of openSUSE Leap, new packages from the standard repositories are also included.
Also, openSUSE uses Leap 15.4 as kernel, version 5.14.19-150400.1-default and this works so far
very reliable with my built-in NVDIA graphics card (+ driver).
The only thing I haven’t tested yet is the integration and execution of Flatpak-Apps.
However, I will try this out in the near future and then publish the results in a separate video on my YouTube channel.
Thank you for reading and have a nice day! 🙂