 OpenSUSA is one of those distros that I really haven't used all that much. I did spend a month with it, probably about a year ago or so, but after that point, I don't think I ever actually gave it another try. And right now I'm working on a video about Fedora vs OpenSUSA. That should be up in the next week or so. And I've been messing around with OpenSUSA again. And one of the things that I've come to realize is that their installer is actually really nice. I have many opinions on Linux installers. I range from really liking some of them to thinking some of them are really, really bad. Personally, I think that the installer for Linux distro is one of the most important pieces, because if you are hoping to attract new users, your installer has to be intuitive, it has to be featureful, and it has to just work. If your installer is broken, then nobody can use it. I mean, that seems fairly obvious. But if you've been around the Linux community for any amount of time, you know that installers break all the damn time. And that can be a big problem, obviously. So one of the things that I've found myself most impressed with when it comes to OpenSUSA is actually their installer. Now, a couple of things that I need to get out of the way before, we even jump into the things that I like about it. So as usual, I'm going to start off on the negative aspect of this, because it's really important that I point these things out. So first of all, the OpenSUSA installer is not the fastest installer for Linux or for Linux distribution out there, not even close. In fact, I'd say it's probably the slowest installer overall. It's not really the installer's fault. It's using zipper in the back end, I'm assuming. And zipper is a very, very slow package manager, very, very slow. So that's the reason why it takes a good 20 minutes to install OpenSUSA, usually. And that's going to depend on your internet speed because it is a net install. So you do have to kind of put up with that. And that's not anything that's to do with the installer. The other thing that I should say about the installer, and it's something that is going to turn quite a few people away, is that one of the first things that you're presented with is a end user license agreement. So if that's not something that you're interested in, you know, actually seeing in a Linux installer, you probably are not going to enjoy this installer as much as I did. That is something that, personally, I would get rid of or hide away or something like that. It's not what you want to see when you first launch into a Linux installer. That end user license agreement just reeks of windows. You know what I mean? And that's the first thing you see when you try to install Windows is a ULA. And the fact that this is a Linux distro that has that, that's going to turn quite a few people away. But it's there because this is a mostly enterprise-based distribution. So because they deal with businesses mostly who run this stuff, that ULA is there for that. Now, personally, I don't care. I can just click agree on it. I'm never going to read it. So it doesn't really matter. That's what I do with all ULIS. I'm probably signing away my soul, but whatever. So those are the two big negatives when it comes to the installer. And I wanted to get those right of the way because they're going to be deal breakers for a lot of people. But I hope that you'll continue on with the video and see what I like about it. Because there are quite a few things about this installer that are really good. So the first one, and you'll see B roll this here in a second is that it has themes. So this is not a huge deal. Obviously, you can theme basically any Linux installer by messing around in the live environment. But if it didn't have themes, you'd just be stuck with what it has now. It's not as if, you know, themes are all that important. But if you are someone who has hard time in terms of like visual impairment, you can change between these themes and have higher contrast so that it's easier to read. So it's not all about look and feel. I mean, honestly, they're all very basic themes. And but they're meant for people who have accessibility issues. So the fact that that is built into the installer is really nice. It's not something that you see in any other installer as far as I'm aware. So that's really nice. Another thing that I really like about is really stupid. And I've been made fun of this before. But one of the pet peeves that I have when it comes to Linux installers is that stupid map that they have there for you to choose your time zone. It's the most useless piece of crap that I've ever seen in my life in the vast majority of installers. This thing is not usable and should just not be there. I mean, you should just use the dropdown. All of them have a dropdown. You should just use the dropdown. But because I'm more of a visual kind of person, I always use the map. And I always try to click on Michigan and I always get New York. Like, OK, so I don't know if you know anything about geography, but technically, Michigan and New York are close together. But if you've ever driven between Michigan and New York, they're really not close together. So there are lakes in between, big lakes. So you have to go through like three other states in order to actually get to New York. So the map is bad in most distros installers. It's really bad. And it's almost universally the same, actually. They it's like they use the same map in every single installer. It doesn't matter what the distro is. But it's different with open Susan. They have created their own map. And it does something that is very technologically advanced. It zooms in not a lot. It zooms in just a little. And that enables you to actually click on the appropriate time zone without selecting New York instead of Michigan. It it's a little thing, but it's something that I noticed. And it was like, hey, that's really cool. Now, the other thing that I really like, and this is the big one, this is the thing that kind of made me want to make this video. And that is that when it comes to partitioning, open Susan allows you to automatically create your own home partition. This is something that is extremely rare when it comes to distro installs. In fact, I think MX Linux is the only distro that actually allows you to do this automatically. Now, that doesn't mean you can't do it manually in every installer. But in terms of having something that's automatic, that it does it for you, open Susan installer is basically the only one that does it. I'm sure that I saw MX Linux does it as well. But I don't really remember the process for it. So I can't really tell you how easy that was to use. But when it comes to open Susan, it's just a matter of doing a checkbox and then selecting the file system. That's all it is. And then you can just continue on with the installer. And that'll give you a separate home directory, meaning that you can move that home directory to another distro. If you choose to hop away later on, you can do separate snapshots of your home director, because this is using butterfs, all the stuff that is normally possible with a separate home directory is done for you. And on top of that, that you can enable snapshots right inside of the installer. So it will make it so that every time you do an update, it will do a snapshot, which is really nice. Again, not something that even Fedora does. Like Fedora has butterfs enabled by default, but their snapshot system is very wonky. They use weird sub volumes. And it's just kind of a mess on Fedora. On open SUSE, they use traditional sub volumes, and they allow you to do enable snapshots right out of the box, which is really, really nice. The separate home partition thing is really the thing that was the kicker for me, because again, that's not something that you see. And it is one of those things where you see Linux YouTubers all the time tell you, hey, you should use a separate home partition. It's better for backing up your system and all this stuff. I've done a video on how to do it, right? But it's always a technical process, right? It's something that you have to do manually, which means you have to know how to partition a drive. And that is not new user friendly. It's just not. And I mean, I'm not saying it's hard or anything, but it's not something that it's like just a button to press, and then you can move on. You have to know, you know, the size of the home partition that you want to create and all this stuff. So having it automated inside of the installer is really, really nice. Finally, the other thing that I really like is not unique to the open Susan solar, but it allows you to choose your desktop environment. So they've paired down the ISOs that they have to offer. So they're not something like Arco or, you know, Garuda or Endeavor or something where they offer you a many different ISOs that you can download. And each one of them are kind of separate and have to be separately maintained. OpenSUSA has two ISOs, one for leap, one for tumbleweed. And inside of that, you can choose any of their desktop environments that you want. You can choose from plasma, which is the default one, GNOME, XFCE, and then you can do some of the server stuff as well. So if you just wanted to play an old OpenSUSA server, you could do that as well. So that is very nice. Again, not unique to OpenSUSA, but still something that is nice to see. Honestly, if they could make zipper or the back end of the installer faster, like if they could make the process faster, this would be almost the perfect installation process, at least for me. Because I like that separate home partition option that you can choose. I like the map, which is again a stupid thing to like. And I just generally feel comfortable with this installer, more so than I do with any other installer where I have to do things somewhat manually in order to get the things to go the way I want them to go. So I like the OpenSUSA installer. Now, I don't know that it's for everyone, because not everyone has to have a separate home partition. So that part of it, which is the biggest reason why I've made this video, may not be useful for everyone. A lot of people just put all their stuff on one big partition, and they're happy that way. And that's fine. That's the way I used to do it all the time, up until just a few months ago, really. So if that part of it is not useful for you, then this installer may not be something that you enjoy, simply because that slowness does seriously hamper the experience quite a bit. So that is the OpenSUSA installer, and why I really consider it one of the best installers out there. If you have thoughts on this, you can leave those comments in the comment section below. I'd love to hear from you. You can follow me on Mastodon or Odyssey. Those links will be in the video description. You can support me on Patreon at patreon.com slash the Linux cast. Just let go of these fine people. Thanks to everybody who does support me on Patreon and YouTube. You guys are all absolutely amazing. Without you, the channel just would not be anywhere near where it is right now. So thank you so very, very much. I do appreciate it so much. Thanks everybody for watching. See you next time.