OStatic

On Thursday, the openSUSE project will make available its stable 11.1 release. I was fortunate enough to take a sneak peek at the new release this week, and while the changes aren't quite as dizzying as those between 10.3 and 11.0 (understandably), they work nicely to make this new release both eye-catching and functional.

Though the final releases will be offered in a variety of architectures with DVD, network install, and liveCD images, I used one of the DVD install images. openSUSE offered an installer with the 11.0 liveCD, and in its 11.1 beta versions, and I imagine this has not changed. The DVD install process is slightly different than liveCD installers, but is just as straightforward and offers more from the get-go.

Since the dawn of the distribution, there have been ways to remaster, re-spin, and otherwise rework a Linux flavor into something slightly different -- something that could be replicated and installed across multiple machines. These remastering tools are usually distribution specific (I first tried my hand with this several years back with Knoppix and the Debian live-magic live image creator) and vary in how forgiving (and permissive) they are when new users get too enthusiastic in choosing packages to add and remove.

TechRadar recently featured InstaLinux, a web interface utilizing the Linux Common Operating Environment (LinuxCOE) SystemDesigner. This application allows for the creation of network and media (including USB) installation images using a number of core Linux distributions as a base.