Updated: January 9, 2025
To the best of my memory, and I'm purposefully not checking me own article history, I've never reviewed openSUSE Tumbleweed. It's an interesting beast, because it's supposed to be a rolling release of the namesake distro. In other words, instead of you being "locked" to specific kernel, driver and app versions, you always get everything new and fresh, with implied potential instability that something like that could bring into your distro. Sort of like Manjaro, or perhaps CentOS Stream. Things, of course, get more complicated when you factor in Flatpaks or snaps, as they technically make any distro rolling. But I digress.
A second reason for why I'm writing this piece is because, after I wrote my Slimbook Executive report 7, which wasn't very happy, lots of people emailed me, telling me to ditch Ubuntu (well, Kubuntu), and try something else. Now, I am convinced that Ubuntu (or rather Kubuntu) is the least bad option there. Could the desktop be more amazing, more fun? Sure. But overall, its combo of stability, long-term support and overall ease of use are probably the best compromise you'll get in the Linux world. In other words, whatever you choose, there will always, always be Linux issues, the pro-am underdog nonsense that won't go away. All right, with that in mind, let us begin.
Tumbleweed setup
I was pleased to discover Tumbleweed comes both in 32-bit and 64-bit flavors. This is very nice. I am not happy with any distro that has given up 32-bit builds, even if there are relatively few such machines out there. But they ARE out there. And Linux being touted as the savior of the lowly hardware, well, put your arch where your code is, innit, guv. So, yes, openSUSE Tumbleweed does have it.
Download DVD, get going. No live session. It's the classic, old SUSE installer. Not having "seen" it in a while, the experience gave me an opportunity to check whether I'm seeing history with rose-tinted spectacles, or if modern installers are truly bollocks. The answer is, both.
Yes, the installer is a bit clunky here and there. For example, there's the network activation part, and it looks outdated. Furthermore, the distro complained about not being able to activate the Wireless connection due to radio being disabled via rfkill. Not sure why it thought that, but Fn + F7 fixed it. Note that no other distro ever complained about this, and until Fedora Kinoite bricked the test box (IdeaPad 3) in a botched installation attempt, everything was working fine both with resident Windows and any number of Linux distros running in the multi-boot setup.
But then, the partitioning is miles (kilometers) ahead of everything else. Detailed info, and you can setup local partitions, BTRFS with pools and whatnot, LVM, RAID, use NFS, use encryption, everything. Very dandy and logical. The wizard also offered a sane partitioning proposal. The system can also work with TPM, Secure Boot, there's a firewall and AppArmor. So in some ways, openSUSE still has its old enterprise roots, its old maturity, a throwback to the golden era of this distro, back in mid-2000s, when it was my distro of choice for quite a few years. Not pretty or snazzy, but it's functional and informative, as the installer should be, because, let's face it, the only people who will ever install an operating system, any operating system, are nerds.
I selected KDE as the desktop environment, duh! Well, fifteen minutes later, 'twas done. Auto-reboot, and there's your logic screen. Tumbleweed reused the Wireless connection, but for some reason, it displayed the adapter name rather than the actual access point name. Go figure. No KDE Wallet noise. Breeze Classic as the default color scheme, as it should be. By default, it's X11 rather than mediocre Wayland. Classique.
Now, the boot sequence ain't clean, there's lots of noise, flickering, text, and it takes 16 seconds to a working session, 12 to get to the login screen, and four more into the desktop. All in all, the so-called magic of systemd ain't magical, and I will keep bringing this up forever more. I'm tired of subpar technologies that maybe make sense in the big corpo world, cloud setups and such, and make zero sense at home. This is true of Microsoft pushing nonsense TPM with their Windows 11 as a mandatory security step - perhaps it's relevant for corpo drones who download toolbars for their IE11, but it means diddly squat to home users - and this is true of most Linux distros using the likes of Wayland, PulseAudio, systemd, and similar overcomplicated solutions.
Software management, or rather, not ...
This is the most interesting part of the whole experience. Some of the stuff I'm going to write below isn't strictly openSUSE (Tumbleweed), as it represents the entire Linux desktop space, but this distro is an excellent example of the phenomenon, or rather, the problem.
So. As it happens, in 2014, Linux had better software management than what it has today, all the new formats and options notwithstanding. How, you may ask. Well, back then, there was this thing called Ubuntu Software Center, and it was the closest thing Linux ever came to having a would-be app store of any kind. This thing was pretty neat. You could actually BUY software, games and programs and even music, plus there was the system menu integration in Unity. You had your Ubuntu One account for backups, and you could carry your purchases over to a new system. The layout was reasonably appealing, you had reviews, add-ons, suggested software. It was usable, responsive, and elegant. And the screenshots below are from my Pangolin review, in 2012!!!
And since? Well, not much. Distros have catalogs, but not real stores. And it gets worse. On first launch, Discover showed icon-less rectangles rather than actual icons. This is extremely similar to what I reported in my Fedora Kinoite review. Not appealing in any way. But then, later on, the icons showed up. A bug? Not sure. Now, don't let the clock fool you, these screenshots were taken on two different days.
Then, what sort of software do you get? There's some cool stuff, but a lot of the "big name" software is missing. For example, you can install Steam or Telegram, but you don't get Skype, Chrome, or Edge. Actually, you sort of can, but not how you expect it. Wait for it.
In the past few years, the Linux world saw a semi-transformation from the conventional model, where you install software using package managers from distro-controlled archives (or repositories) to standalone, container-like applications using the Appimage, Flatpak and snap formats. This is more akin to how Windows does it, and there's a separation between the system layer and the user space, so you can update your programs independently. Now, if only it were that simple.
These packages also have to be stored anywhere. Stored. Store! Well, yes. Ubuntu has the Snap Store, and it is the authoritative place for where you can find snaps. Now, on a technical level, snaps are merely SquashFS archives, so you can host them anywhere. But having an enticing store to "shop" for your applications is a good thing. Canonical controls this entity, and it's the only snap store per se, although, again, you can technically make your own. The snaps can be created by, well, anyone. This means a package named XYZ could come from its upstream owner or developer or whatnot, or it could be packaged by members of the community, or someone else entirely.
Flatpaks don't have THE store. There are numerous potential stores, with Flathub being the biggest, the most popular and such. But it is not really an "official" place, in the sense of being associated with any one company. As the About page tells us, it's an open-source community stewarding an ecosystem. Like with snaps, the applications uploaded to Flathub can be official, made by their upstream owners, or made by members of the community.
An example: why do I get shown Flathub results? And why are there TWO sources for the exact same thing? Why would I need TWO versions of the exact same thing? What does it mean?
In openSUSE Tumbleweed, I searched for Chrome, and actually got a result. There it is! Chrome. But this thing does not originate from the SUSE servers, nor was it made by openSUSE. It's a Flatpak, hosted on Flathub. But it is not an official package. The description says as much. But this warning or notice isn't prominent enough, and people might simply download and install something that isn't an official Chrome build.
Why is the browser shown third. How's that SORT BY RELEVANCE?
Technically, there might not be any problem at all, and this packaging could have been made by trusted, vetted members of the community. But still, at the end of the day, it is NOT something Google made, nor something Google offers anywhere on their official download site. Google only has DEB and RPM packages that will later update from Google's own repositories.
The NOTE is not very distinguishable. You may think you're getting a Google thing, but you're not. Even if the package is 100% safe, it is not what you may think it is, and this is a huge problem, especially if you believe you're doing A, but then you get B.
People use browsers like Chrome for all sorts of things, including sensitive, personal activities like mail, banking, medical records, and more. Would you want to do this in a browser that's not 100% made or packaged by their authoritative owner? I know I would not. It has nothing to do with the packaging format. It's a simple yet tricky matter of chain of trust, and I want it to be as short and possible.
Actually, Flathub shows the "Unverified" notice far more prominently than Discover:
Now, what does "Unverified" mean? Does it mean it's NOT Google Chrome? Or it might be Google Chrome, but no one has checked if it's truly what it says it is? Funnily, ironically, because this is "Linux", we nerds are all so much more inclined to be forgiving and more likely to trust this scenario. But what if you found a file called almost-chrome.exe on a website somewhere, even a reputable website, would you install it?
And just to be absolutely clear so no one decides to grab this sentence as some sort of ad hominem, I do NOT imply or hint anything wrong or bad about Flathub or the content stored there. This Flatpak could be the real deal. I simply don't know. That's the thing. I do not know. And the same applies to the Snap Store. If the offered apps are not verified, I am not interested.
Just to give you even more context, Flathub itself tells you the app might not be safe:
So, my question is, why would openSUSE offer access to community sources? Well, it already does. It has done this for a long, long time. You could always add community repositories to enrich your arsenal of software, something I've done many times before. I also did that in CentOS, when I needed extra programs. In Ubuntu, you can use PPAs. This practice has been around forever. At some point, you will come across a piece of code that's missing in the available catalog, and you will need something else.
YaST does not render correctly on the Plasma desktop. Many options don't work and/or have been "ported" to Settings. This is a broken model, like Windows Settings and Control Panel. And here, in YaST, you can add software sources, in a way that is DIFFERENT from how KDE Discover does it.
Here, too, you need to trust people. An old issue.
When it comes to third-party software packaged by fourth-party people, offered through a software catalog like Discover, then the whole model breaks. This is no different than going to random websites and downloading software you think might be okay. Better yet, you could just go to OFFICIAL sites, and grab the programs there.
In Fedora Kinoite, I was confused by the available sources of Flatpaks. There were fedora, Fedora, and Flathub, but none of these names tells me anything that makes sense. I only discovered the meaning of these sources when I tried to install packages on the command line (after the GUI way failed).
And then, you can ALSO use YaST to search for software! But this one only indexes the repos. What ...
Then, I tried to do some updates. You get a notification to confirm what will be removed and added. Why do I need to see this? How does this help me? What does it mean? Am I going to lose a critical library that some program may depend on?
In the end, I downloaded and installed Chrome from its official site. And it offered DEB by default:
I also tried to install Edge, but I decided to do it using the GUI method. Double-click on the downloaded file, this launches Discover. Click install, and fail. No explanation why. Also, Discover lists the Edge RPM as having an unknown author. For common users, this is frightening. What it means, whoever packaged this thing, didn't sign it properly, and so, here we are. You need to go into a terminal window to resolve the issue, and actually get clarity on the fine details of the problem:
And on the command line:
warning: /var/tmp/zypp.PCEZOX/zypper/_tmpRPMcache_/%CLI%/microsoft-edge-
stable-131.0.2903.112-1.x86_64.rpm: Header V4 RSA/SHA256 Signature, key ID be1229cf: NOKEY
Looking for gpg key ID BE1229CF in cache /var/cache/zypp/pubkeys.
Repository Plain RPM files cache does not define additional 'gpgkey=' URLs.
microsoft-edge-stable-131.0.2903.112-1.x86_64 (Plain RPM files cache): Signature verification
failed [4-Signatures public key is not available]
Amazing stuff. Great progress! The year of the Linux, indeed!
I don't wish to sound bitter or defeatist, but the notion of open-source freedom is a dream, a sweet illusion. It only works if 100% everything is verifiable and trustable (and the xz incident showed us how fragile the whole thing is). If you're not a nerd, you stand no chance of differentiating between source A or B. And that means, you might download something that's only a semi-official or unofficial wrapper for a random program, in which case, this is no different than being a clueless Windows person and downloading stuff from wherever. It really isn't.
Abundance of choice only works if that choice offers meaningful extra functionality to the end user without introducing complications or risks. When you take into account possible library dependency conflicts, repo signing, unofficial packaging, third-party sources, problems with GUI installs, and such, you realize how much worse things are now, in 2024 going into 2025, as they were 10-12 years ago. And to say nothing of the fact, you can't BUY any software through any one of these catalogs anymore.
Not only have we not progressed, we regressed! A lot!
Using the distro
Overall, the experience was okay. Nothing spectacular. There were some issues, a few application crashes, a handful of errors. But it was pretty, fast, largely stable. For instance, I wanted to disable IPv6, and YaST lets you do this, there's a simple checkbox. Old school stuff, as it should be. Alas, it will inform you that most of the functionality has been ported over to Network Manager, and that checkbox doesn't actually work. This inconsistency is meh.
Weird network name:
Still on the network side, once or twice, this thing warmed me I didn't have the right permissions. But then immediately thereafter, it opened and worked correctly. These kind of things are extremely annoying.
My test laptop screen is a bit meh, so I have to use gamma to correct this, otherwise, it's not fun to stare at. You can do this in X11, of course, not so with Wayland, but then, as I already wrote, Tumbleweed boots into X11 by default, so no worries there. On the visual side of things, the font clarity isn't as good as in say Ubuntu. The same observation I had with Fedora 41. C'est la vie.
Session management in Kate seems broken, or I simply don't know how to use it. If I manually set the text editor to save the default session, as I outlined in a tutorial long long ago, then everything is fine, and even empty buffers will be preserved across sessions. But if I don't do this, nothing happens.
Samba speed and responsiveness are excellent. The application selection is reasonable, but not perfect. There are some good choices, like say Firefox and LibreOffice, but KMail? Music plays fine. Back to YaST, the bits and parts that still work, you can do lots of neat administrative things. All in all, average plus, but you won't be amazed.
I did a little of visual tweaking, but I didn't need much. 'Tis nice.
You might also get a crash here and there, on a fully updated system:
Finally, battery life. It's in line with most "big" and "heavy" KDE distros I tested on this machine lately. The battery has deteriorated some. Funnily, openSUSE says 83%, but Fedora said 80%. Go figure. The numbers ain't bad, but they are less than what the machine offered when it was new, battery health notwithstanding. What I mean by this, the distros back then were more frugal in their power consumption. This is funny and sad, because it shows how we can never get to having better battery life, because operating systems get heavier and heavier, and for no good reason. I mean, the desktop experience hasn't changed, has it. So why?
Conclusion
There you go. A review, if you will. On a funny side, someone emailed me, asking me to stop doing them. C'mon, I've only been doing this for nigh twenty years. It's still early to quit. I'm too legit to quit. Gotta show commitment. So you might see a few reviews here and there, not very often, when the mood strikes, when my optimism levels fool me into a sense of complacency. OpenSUSE Tumbleweed triggers a sort of neutral feeling. Neither good, nor bad, just okay. It has lots of nice things, but the bittersweet part is, almost everything that's cool about the system, on the system level, hails back to the glory days of SUSE, when it still had that serious, professional enterprise streak. YaST, installer, reasonable defaults, this is all old school stuff.
And to answer the question people asked me, mostly in the context of my Slimbook Executive experience, why Ubuntu and its derivatives, or why not something else? Well, one, for all its woes, Ubuntu does software management ever so slightly better. Not much, but slightly better. Two, it doesn't really matter. The Linux desktop is in a sorry state. All distros have similar issues. They have bugs, crashes, aesthetic problems, overload of nerdiness, no real accessibility to common users, echo chamber syndrome, all of the usual things. And, objectively, they are less friendly than they used to be, as we had better functionality, more quality, and more hope ten years ago than we do now. This review is a good example. Oh, and Windows 11 being dog turds doesn't mean anything! The fact someone else does a shoddy job is no excuse for anyone else to do a shoddy job.
Well, there you go. I like openSUSE Tumbleweed. SUSE was my first ever distro, and so it will always have a special place in me heart. There's a lot to like, but then, the software management part is way too messy and complicated, and there are small oddities all over the place. So in a way, much like the rest. Thus, if you prefer this brand of Linux, go for it. But my overall feel is, at the end of the day, it doth not matter, or if push comes to shove, Ubuntu (or rather Kubuntu) is a tad ahead of the rest, since you get a bit more order in the software space (but not much), and there's Ubuntu Pro for ten years of peace. But if you wanna tumble, Tumbleweed it is. Some nice, clever choices, old school spirit, but it ain't enough for that wow factor. We're done.
Cheers.