The openSUSE project is a community program sponsored by Novell

The openSUSE project has three main goals: make openSUSE the easiest Linux for anyone to obtain and the most widely used Linux distribution; leverage open source collaboration to make openSUSE the world's most usable Linux distribution and desktop environment for new and experienced Linux users; dramatically simplify and open the development and packaging processes to make openSUSE the platform of choice for Linux developers and software vendors.

openSUSE is driven by the openSUSE Project community and sponsored by Novell, to develop and maintain SUSE Linux distributions components. It is the equivalent of the historic "SuSE Linux Professional". After their acquisition of SUSE Linux, Novell has decided to make the community an important part of their development process.

Beyond the distribution, the openSUSE Project provides a web portal for community involvement. The community assists in developing openSUSE collaboratively with representatives from Novell by contributing code through the openSUSE Build Service, writing documentation, designing artwork, fostering discussion on open mailing lists and in Internet Relay Chat channels, and improving the openSUSE site through its wiki interface. Novell markets openSUSE as the best, easiest distribution for all users.

Like most Linux distributions, openSUSE includes both a default graphical user interface (GUI) and a command line interface option. During installation, the user may choose among KDE, GNOME and Xfce GUIs. openSUSE supports thousands of software packages across the full range of Free software / open source development.

In the past, the SUSE Linux company had focused on releasing the SuSE Linux Personal and SuSE Linux Professional box sets which included extensive printed documentation that was available for sale in retail stores. The company's ability to sell an open source product was largely due to the closed-source development process used. Although SUSE Linux had always been open product licensed with the GPL, it was only freely possible to retrieve the source code of the next release 2 months after it was ready for purchase. SUSE Linux strategy was to create a technically superior Linux distribution with the large number of employed engineers, that would make users willing to pay for their distribution in retail stores.

Updates (via Distrowatch):

Jos Poortvliet has announced the availability of the first milestone release of openSUSE 12.1: "Milestone 1, the first step towards the upcoming openSUSE 12.1 release, is now available. With over 800 updates, including minor and major updates, the current milestone is ready for some serious testing. This iteration already sees some major upgrades taking place, with the kernel moving on to 2.6.39 and GNOME to 3.0. In addition we have popular GNOME applications like Evolution, Eye of GNOME and others all synchronized, and KDE's Plasma Desktop coming along nicely with a minor version upgrade to 4.6.3. You will also find upgrades to GCC, glibc, Perl, Python, and the RPM package manager.

See the full release announcement for more details.

Download (mirrors): openSUSE-KDE-LiveCD-Build0032-i686.iso (695MB, MD5, torrent), openSUSE-GNOME-LiveCD-Build0032-i686.iso (695MB, MD5, torrent), openSUSE-KDE-LiveCD-Build0032-x86_64.iso (687MB, MD5, torrent), openSUSE-GNOME-LiveCD-Build0032-x86_64.iso (693MB, MD5, torrent).

Recent releases:

• 2011-06-01: Development Release: openSUSE 12.1 Milestone 1
• 2011-03-29: Distribution Release: openSUSE 11.4 "Edu Li-f-e"
• 2011-03-10: Distribution Release: openSUSE 11.4
• 2011-02-26: Development Release: openSUSE 11.4 RC2
• 2011-01-28: Development Release: openSUSE 11.4 Milestone 6
• 2010-12-23: Development Release: openSUSE 11.4 Milestone 5

The openSUSE project is a community program sponsored by Novell. Promoting the use of Linux everywhere, this program provides free, easy access to openSUSE, a complete Linux distribution.

Since the acquisition by Novell in 2003 and with the advent of openSUSE this has been reversed: starting with version 9.2, an unsupported 1 DVD ISO image of SUSE Professional was made available for download as well as a bootable Live DVD evaluation. The FTP server continues to operate and has the advantage of "streamlined" installs: Only downloading packages the user feels they need. The ISO has the advantages of an easy install package, the ability to operate even if the user's network card does not work "out of the box", and less experience needed (i.e., an inexperienced Linux user may not know whether or not to install a certain package, and the ISO offers several preselected sets of packages).

The initial stable release from the openSUSE Project, SUSE Linux 10.0, was available for download just before the retail release of SUSE Linux 10.0. In addition, Novell discontinued the Personal version, renaming the Professional version to simply "SUSE Linux", and repricing "SUSE Linux" to about the same as the old Personal version. As of version 10.2, the SUSE Linux distribution was officially renamed to openSUSE.

Over the years, SuSE Linux has gone from a status of a distribution which includes proprietary software, with restrictive, delayed publications (2 months of waiting for those who had not bought the box, without ISOs available, but installation available via FTP) and a closed development model to a free distribution model with immediate and freely availability for all and a transparent and open development. Its popularity continues to grow, through its openness and infrastructure available but is in contrast with the reception of the announcement of Novell's collaboration with Microsoft through a part of the Linux community.

openSUSE is fully and freely available for immediate download, and is also sold in retail box to the general public. Thus, if there is only one openSUSE distribution, it comes in several editions for the x86 and x86-64 architectures (as for version 11.2):

openSUSE Download Edition: This is the freely downloadable ISO version, available from the openSUSE downloads page. It is available as a Live-CD version (KDE4 or GNOME) which can be installed on the hard disk, or as a more complete single layer DVD-5. A CD containing additional proprietary software and an additional CD containing files for internationalization (less common languages) are also available. This version does not include any technical assistance, nor printed manuals.
openSUSE Retail Edition: Users are able to purchase openSUSE box from Novell^[10]. It contains a DVD-9 (dual-layer) comprising the 32-bit and 64, together with a CD including the non open source softwares, printed documentation and 90 days limited user support. Media of the retail version is a little bit different from the downloaded ISO, but all software in the box which are not on the downloadable ISOs are available on the FTP servers and freely accessible. It is equivalent to the download edition with the only differences being limited product support and a printed user manual.
openSUSE FTP: There is also a small ISO to install openSUSE directly from FTP (network install). There are mirrors on the two different FTP trees: one for open-source packages (OSS), a second for non-open-source packages or whose license is restrictive (non-oss). The FTP can be used to complement the Download and Retail editions.
openSUSE Factory: This is the continuous ongoing development version, from which the development team take out regular snapshots (Milestones and RC) to get the stable openSUSE.

Screenshots.

openSUSE:Education-Li-f-e

openSUSE Education team is proud to present openSUSE-Edu Li-f-e (Linux for Education) based on openSUSE 11.4. The image is a "hybrid" iso image, the same image can be used to burn a Live DVD or to create a Live USB stick.

This release includes carefully selected software for students, educators as well as parents. The software selection encompasses everything required to make computers productive for either home or educational use without having to install anything additional.

The Live DVD contains KIWI-LTSP server that can be enabled even by non-technical user, it comes bundled with tons of useful applications from openSUSE Education, Build Service and Packman repositories. With the KIWI-LTSP server you can PXE(network) boot other PCs to use this live DVD without installing or modifying anything on them. Booting from hard disk again will leave those PCs as they were.(Please note that running LTSP from Live DVD/USB is meant for demo/testing purpose only, install on the hard disk to use it in production).

This distribution includes LAMP (LAMP stands for Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP) that is needed for developing or hosting PHP websites and all other major development tools.

The aim of this DVD is to provide complete education and development resources for parents, students, teachers as well as IT admins running labs at educational institutes, if you think there is something missing that you absolutely must have on the DVD, drop us a line see "Communicate" here

Updates (via Distrowatch):

Jigish Gohil has announced the release of openSUSE 11.4 "Edu Li-f-e", a specialist edition of openSUSE designed for schools: "The openSUSE Education team is proud to present openSUSE-Edu Li-f-e (Linux for Education) based on openSUSE 11.4. This release includes the latest carefully selected software for students, educators, as well as parents.

The software selection encompasses everything required to make a productive computing experience for either home or educational use without having to install anything additional. Right out of the box, educators and parents will be pleased to see over 150 applications to fit their student's needs. A wide range including mental exercise tools like Brain Workshop and GBrainy, science applications like Chemtool, mathematical programs like Euler, artistic development software like TuxPaint and GIMP...."

Read the full release announcement which includes screenshots. Download: openSUSE-Edu-li-f-e-11.4-1-i686.iso (2,862MB, MD5).

Recent versions:

• 2011-03-29: Distribution Release: openSUSE 11.4 "Edu Li-f-e"
• 2011-03-10: Distribution Release: openSUSE 11.4
• 2011-02-26: Development Release: openSUSE 11.4 RC2
• 2011-01-28: Development Release: openSUSE 11.4 Milestone 6
• 2010-12-23: Development Release: openSUSE 11.4 Milestone 5
• 2010-12-02: Development Release: openSUSE 11.4 Milestone 4

Screenshots.

Welcome screen	Boot menu	Bootsplash	GDM
Gnome desktop	Apps in the DVD	Apps in the DVD	Apps in the DVD
Apps in the DVD	Apps in the DVD	Apps in the DVD	Edu apps in action
Edu apps in action	Edu apps in action