I tried beta 3 on Satuday, and having a problem while running KDE LiveCD. The LiveCD failed run with an error exception : “Failed mounting Read Only File System”. I think it was a problem with my testing computer, so I take another machine which ended with same result.

I think I would like to post the error on mailing list but I decided to wait an installation testing with DVD iso. on Beta 1 I’ve an issue with LiveCD installation but the DVD iso is worked without problem, so I think it would rather LiveCD problem than beta 3 problem in general.

In Satuday evening I tried KDE Live on VMWare environment before playing with the DVD iso. Surprised, it was worked flawlessly, running well without problem including Live installation. I don’t know why the LiveCD worked without problem on VMWare workstation but having problem on physical machine. I assumes that it would like the problem with the iso burned on CD, not with iso itself, so I take another blank disc and burned the kde live iso once again.

The second burned kde live iso worked without problem too, so the conclusion is the problem with the quality of the first burned CD

Today, I give the beta 3 testing on my testing PC at work. As noticed by Coolo in beta 3 announcement, the live installation running well without problem. I most likely using live installation than the DVD install because the live install is more faster and just need a few question (used default setting). The different approach between DVD install and live install is about the flexibility of installation setting. The live install produce more faster because it’s used the default setting, with standard option.

Anyway, Here is a short of summary of beta 3 from my own perspective :

1. LiveCD is much better than previous one and looks pretty stable for production used. As mentioned on the announcement, it’s not recommended for production use but if you like it, you can used with your own risk . I used beta 3 on my personal laptop and openSUSE 10.3 with KDE 4 on my work computer
2. Beta 3 better polished than 10.3 but the polished not really complete. I like the login interface although in my personal mind, Mandriva 2008.1 login form is better polished . The polished interface not only in login form but also in installation setting and some application, ie : on OpenOffice. I think the polished Open Office splash screen need an update and some artwork. Black splash screen with a small bird is less nicer than Open Office splash screen on 10.2
3. Beta 3 come with KDE 4.0.4, Firefox 3 beta 5, Open Office 2.4.0.10 and some of updated component. Everything seems to worked without problem. I’m experienced with KDE4 problem on shut down process (crash of plasma) but I think it’s the problem with KDE 4 because I got same error with KDE 4 on openSUSE 10.3
4. Zypper package manager is much faster and has becoming my default package manager. With delta-rpm support and increasing speed capability, I’m quite satisfied with zypper and personally encourage for Indonesian openSUSE lover in next meeting.
5. Beta 3 successfully detected my graphical driver although it come with 800X600 default setting, but hey, I could used KRandR to change the setting into 1024X768 without confused problem : “Your X server is using the RandR extension at version 1.2 or greater which doesn’t have any configuration yet” as shown in 10.3
6. The big problem with beta 3 is about ath5k wireless driver. It was successfully detected my Atheros AR5212 (D-Link Wireless Card) but I could not connect to my Access Point with KNetworkManager or standard ifup. I can bring it up after disabling ath5k driver and used standard madwifi driver (madwifi.tar.gz version 0.9.4, with make, make install and modprobe ath_pci. Installation how-to in Bahasa Indonesia, here and here). I have same problem with Beta 1 and Beta 2
7. Wireless LAN Network Manager come with the auto detect hotspot without any “scan” button or something like that. I would personally encourage to add the button to make sure that we can refresh the hotspot list rather than waiting for nothing scanned

With all of nice feature on openSUSE 11.0 beta 3, we hope 11.0 will be released on June 19 2008 with bunch of nice features.

Related Entries :

1. Screenshot of 11.0 beta 3 live installation setting
2. openSUSE 11.0 beta 3 announcement