things to consider before installing

[theArianit]

I installed opensuse tumbleweed few days ago. I wanted to get out of the usual ubuntu/debian/arch distros. in overall, most things work just fine, no special configuration or sacrifice required. But since installation, I can't make the codecs work properly. I followed every tutorial but still, some videos on youtube and other websites (related to codecs and video formats) don't play. So I need to know few things before I invest the next days setting up an OS.

1. Is GeckoLinux end user friendly, can it be considered as an alternative to some of the most user friendly distros like zorin and mint?
2. Do the codecs really work and don't mess up like in opensuse (installing xyz from this repo and abc from another repo), and will all major streaming video formats be supported?
3. Printers, good to have, not a must. Will these new hp printers where they force you to have an account and connect through the wifi wok/are they supported?
4. btrfx vs ext4. system restore out of the box? installation process?
5. snapshot updates. do we have to wait for new (rolling) release from GeckoLinux or is it available as son as opensuse TW releases it? How much dependent from opensuse is Gecko on this topic?
6. Community and support?

I hope to get these things clarified. Thank you

[geckolinux]

Hi there, thanks for the questions (and for posting here, as I don't / can't reply on Youtube because it usually deletes my comments).

1. It is developed principally as an alternative delivery method for users that appreciate the openSUSE project's many excellent features but don't want to deal with its long list of annoyances. With that said, many aspects of openSUSE are extremely user friendly, and I have successfully switched over many friends to GeckoLinux thanks to its niceties that "just work" without any configuration. Things like Google Chrome repositories available (but not pre-installed) out-of-the-box are also very helpful and time-saving.
   • Small side note: One of the major differences between projects like Mint and Zorin compared with GeckoLinux is that those other projects create some of their own packages and maintain their own package repos. With GeckoLinux on the other hand I made the deliberate decision to not do that, since I don't want the distro to be dependent on me. An installed GeckoLinux system is a legitimate openSUSE system with 100% upstream openSUSE and Packman packages while maintaining the configuration changes that GeckoLinux sets by default. It also updates from those upstream repos with absolutely zero dependence on me for security and future maintenance and upgrades.
2. Yep.
3. I don't currently own any HP printers, and I don't know much about the new ones that you're describing. But if they have open source drivers for Linux they're almost sure to be supported out-of-the-box, as I've tried to include all the printer drivers available in the openSUSE repos.
4. Automatic Btrfs snapshots and booting of snapshots with simple rollback are available out-of-the-box. (Please see this.) Also all the other modern Linux filesystems are available during installation, but no snapshots with those because they don't support it.
5. Please see my side note above. Once installed, GeckoLinux is openSUSE, so you would follow the normal openSUSE upgrade procedures.
6. If it's an issue specific to GeckoLinux such as installation issues or problems with the GeckoLinux-specific default configuration please report them here on Github. Otherwise if it's an upstream issue you can report bugs to openSUSE and even use their support channels.

Hope this helps. Feel free to try a live USB with GeckoLinux to get a feel for how it works before committing to installing it, it will even store your changes between sessions on the USB drive.

[geckolinux]

Thanks, appreciate it! Feel free to ask any other questions that come up.

[theArianit]

few things I want to change:

1. make wayland my default
2. add this events thing to the notification center

[geckolinux]

For 1. You'll need to remove the file /etc/gdm/custom.conf , which was added to disable Wayland.
Not sure what 2. is referring to.

[theArianit]

so for 1. I just go to the directory and sudo delete the file? and nothing else?
2. ignore it, it sure has to do something with gnome

[geckolinux]

1. Yep, sudo rm it and then reboot.

[MarshKnacks]

In regards to the software. Yast Software management / software is pretty much what i exclusively use when searching packages. I really enjoy it alot alteast compared to discover or gnome center

[geckolinux]

@Nicodile Same here, I think YaST Software is perfectly capable and easy to use, especially for searching and add/removing packages.

[theArianit]

I agree on that. but sometimes people just want a "marketplace" where they can just browse app and see what on the market

[geckolinux]

They've improved this page with categories on the bottom and featured software:
https://software.opensuse.org/