State of the Suse
Jan. 27th, 2008 10:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sinanjuSo a couple of months or more ago, I installed OpenSUSE 10.3 on my computer. I tried to upgrade from 10.1 to 10.3 but I had a bad install file* so I ended up with a hosed system. I reinstalled 10.1, downloaded the 10.3 install file again, made sure the checksums matched this time, and installed 10.3. I installed it because by all accounts 10.3 was much better than 10.1 or 10.2.
And for the most part it is. It's more stable, cleaner, easier to update, boots faster--everything they said about it. Only one problem. OpenOffice crashes whenever I try to launch it. As does the screensaver. There's some kind of bug in KDE that causes these applications (and probably others I don't use) to crash when you try to launch them.
I googled for information and discovered that others reported the same issue. They even pointed out the suspect--a single file that requires a different file extension on another file it calls. Supposedly you can edit the file to make that change, but damned if I've been able to make it work.
So I've given up. 10.4 is supposed to be coming out in a few months, so I'll upgrade to that eventually and see if it works like it should with OpenOffice. In the mean time I've had to find another word processor for my writing. I started with Kword (part of Koffice). It's not a bad program otherwise but...when you have more than a few thousand words saved in a file, the program slows to a crawl. You find it adding a single character per second (or two). UNACCEPTABLE.
I recently installed Abiword. And so far it works great. When I open my January 2008.odt file (wherein I was trying to write 1000 words a day this month), it does not slow to a crawl. It will keep up with me as I blaze along in my writing. Yay!
So. To sum up: Kword, not so good. Abiword, good.
That is all.
*It was my own fault. I thought I had checked the MD5 but apparently I was mistaken. The file was bad. So trying to install it was a complete botch.
And for the most part it is. It's more stable, cleaner, easier to update, boots faster--everything they said about it. Only one problem. OpenOffice crashes whenever I try to launch it. As does the screensaver. There's some kind of bug in KDE that causes these applications (and probably others I don't use) to crash when you try to launch them.
I googled for information and discovered that others reported the same issue. They even pointed out the suspect--a single file that requires a different file extension on another file it calls. Supposedly you can edit the file to make that change, but damned if I've been able to make it work.
So I've given up. 10.4 is supposed to be coming out in a few months, so I'll upgrade to that eventually and see if it works like it should with OpenOffice. In the mean time I've had to find another word processor for my writing. I started with Kword (part of Koffice). It's not a bad program otherwise but...when you have more than a few thousand words saved in a file, the program slows to a crawl. You find it adding a single character per second (or two). UNACCEPTABLE.
I recently installed Abiword. And so far it works great. When I open my January 2008.odt file (wherein I was trying to write 1000 words a day this month), it does not slow to a crawl. It will keep up with me as I blaze along in my writing. Yay!
So. To sum up: Kword, not so good. Abiword, good.
That is all.
*It was my own fault. I thought I had checked the MD5 but apparently I was mistaken. The file was bad. So trying to install it was a complete botch.
