[opensuse-project] openSUSE Community Releases Leap 15.2 Version

2 Jul 2020

      Hi all,

On behalf of the release team and all contributors to the openSUSE 
Project, I would like to inform you that we have released openSUSE Leap 
15.1. Please view the announcement online at 
https://news.opensuse.org/2020/07/02/opensuse-leap-15-2-release-brings-excit...

I would like to thank all those involved in the release. A special thank 
you to developers, release team, packagers, testers, bug reporters, 
partners and community projects. I want to personally thank those who 
helped with release notes, translations, release announcement, artwork 
and social media. Thank you to Open Source Press, Tuxedo Computers, 
Linode and Slimbook.

v/r

Doug

openSUSE Leap "15.2" Release Brings Exciting New Artificial Intelligence 
(AI), Machine Learning, and Container Packages

ISO 639-1 Languages - CA 
<https://en.opensuse.org/Anunci_de_publicaci%C3%B3_15.2> - CS 
<https://cs.opensuse.org/Ozn%C3%A1men%C3%AD_nov%C3%A9ho_vyd%C3%A1n%C3%AD_15.2> 
- DE <https://de.opensuse.org/Release-Ank%C3%BCndigung_15.2> - FR 
<https://fr.opensuse.org/Annonce_de_version_15.2> - ID 
<https://opensuse.id/2020/07/02/pengumuman-rilis-opensuse-152> - IT 
<http://it.opensuse.org//Annuncio_di_rilascio_versione_15.2> - ES 
<http://es.opensuse.org/Anuncio_publicaci%C3%B3n_15.2> - JA 
<https://ja.opensuse.org/%E3%83%AA%E3%83%AA%E3%83%BC%E3%82%B9%E3%82%A2%E3%83%8A%E3%82%A6%E3%83%B3%E3%82%B9_15.2> 
- ZH-TW <https://zh-tw.opensuse.org/Release_announcement_15.2>

NUREMBERG, Germany (02/07/2020) – The openSUSE 
<https://www.opensuse.org/> release team is proud to announce the 
availability of community-developed openSUSE Leap 15.2 
<https://en.opensuse.org/Portal:15.2>. Professional users, from desktops 
and data-center servers to container hosts and Virtual Machines (VM), 
will be able to use Leap 15.2 as a high-quality, easy-to-use, 
enterprise-grade Linux operating system.

Download openSUSE Leap 15.2 
<https://software.opensuse.org/distributions/leap>

This release provides security updates, bug fixes, network enhancements, 
and many new features for openSUSE users who depend on a stable and 
scalable distribution. openSUSE’s rich and mature Linux platform 
supports workloads on x86-64, ARM64 and POWER systems. The dependability 
of core packages found in previous Leap 15 versions and newer open 
source technologies in Leap 15.2 are ready for multiple use cases and 
workloads.

“Leap 15.2 represents a huge step forward in the Artificial Intelligence 
space,” said Marco Varlese, a developer and member of the project. “I am 
super excited that openSUSE end-users can now finally consume Machine 
Learning / Deep Learning frameworks and applications via our 
repositories to enjoy a stable and up-to-date ecosystem.”

What’s New

Several exciting Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning 
packages are added in Leap 15.2.

Tensorflow <https://www.tensorflow.org/>: A framework for deep learning 
that can be used by data scientists, provide numerical computations and 
data-flow graphs. Its flexible architecture enables users to deploy 
computations to one or more CPUs in a desktop, server, or mobile device 
without rewriting code.

PyTorch <https://pytorch.org/tutorials/>: Made for both server and 
compute resources, this machine learning library accelerates power 
users’ ability to prototype a project and move it to a production 
deployment.

ONNX <https://onnx.ai/>: An open format built to represent machine 
learning models, provides interoperability in the AI tool space. It 
enables AI developers to use models with a variety of frameworks, tools, 
runtimes, and compilers.

Grafana <https://grafana.com/> and Prometheus <https://prometheus.io/> 
are two new maintained packages that open up new possibilities for 
analytical experts. Grafana provides end users the ability to create 
interactive visual analytics. Feature-rich data-modeling packages: 
Graphite, Elastic and Prometheus give openSUSE users greater latitude to 
construct, compute and decipher data more intelligibly.

In general, software packages in the distribution grew by the hundreds. 
Data fusion, Machine Learning and AI aren’t all that is new in openSUSE 
Leap 15.2; a Real-Time Kernel for managing the timing of microprocessors 
to ensure time-critical events are processed as efficiently as possible 
is available in this release.

“The addition of a real time kernel to openSUSE Leap unlocks new 
possibilities,” said Gerald Pfeifer, chair of the project’s board. 
“Think edge computing, embedded devices, data capturing, all of which 
are seeing immense growth. Historically many of these have been the 
domain of proprietary approaches; openSUSE now opens the floodgates for 
developers, researchers and companies that are interested in testing 
real time capabilities or maybe even in contributing. Another domain 
open source helps open up!”

Container Technologies

openSUSE users will have more power to develop, ship and deploy 
containerized applications using the newer container technologies that 
are being maintained in the distribution.

For the first time, Kubernetes <https://kubernetes.io/> is an official 
package in the release. This gives a huge boost to container 
orchestration capabilities, allowing users to automate deployments, 
scale, and manage containerized applications.

Helm <https://helm.sh/>, the package manager for Kubernetes, is also 
added. Helm helps developers and system administrators manage complexity 
by defining, installing, and upgrading the most complex of Kubernetes 
applications.

Container Runtime Interface (CRI) using Open Container Initiative (OCI) 
conformant runtimes (CRI-O) is also new to this release. CRI-O is a 
lightweight alternative to using Docker as the runtime, which allows 
Kubernetes to use any OCI-compliant runtime as the container runtime for 
running pods or processes running on a cluster.

Even with Docker, the use of microservices will be secure thanks to more 
container packages arriving in this release.

Cilium <https://cilium.io/> helps in transparently securing network 
connectivity and load-balancing between application containers and 
services deployed using Linux container frameworks like Docker and 
Kubernetes. Cilium provides an efficient way to define and enforce both 
the network-layer and the application-layer security policies, which are 
based on a container/pod identity.

Leap 15.2 offers both Server and Transactional Server system roles. The 
Server system role uses a small set of packages that are suitable for 
servers with a text mode interface while the Transactional Server system 
role is similar to the Server role, but uses a read-only root filesystem 
to provide atomic, automatic updates of the system without interfering 
with the running system.

Installation process

The openSUSE installer remains as powerful and as versatile as ever, 
allowing to easily tweak every single aspect of the system including the 
mitigation for CPU based attacks like Spectre or Meltdown. The 
installation process presents several improvements like a more 
user-friendly dialog for selecting the system role, improved information 
about the installation progress, better compatibility with right-to-left 
languages like Arabic and many other small enhancements.

In Leap 15.2, it offers a more accurate detection of MS Windows 
partitions encrypted with BitLocker and a better management of storage 
devices for Raspberry Pi.The installer also makes it easy to tweak the 
mitigation for CPU based attacks like Spectre or Meltdown.

Unattended installations with AutoYaST is greatly improved. Many aspects 
are polished at all levels. More configuration options are added and the 
possible errors in the user’s profile and the installation process are 
now handled and reported in a more sensible and informative way.

Improvements to YaST - The most complete configuration tool for Linux

The YaST Partitioner remains the most powerful tool to configure all 
kinds of storage technologies in Linux, both during installation of the 
system or at any later point. This release incorporates the possibility 
of creating and managing a Btrfs file-system that expands over several 
devices, and the release allows for the use of more advanced encryption 
technologies.

Leap 15.2 is the first openSUSE release to introduce a gradual change 
that splits system’s configuration between /usr/etc and /etc 
directories. YaST supports this new structure in all the affected 
modules, offering to system administrators a central point to inspect 
the configuration that will help them during the transition and beyond.

Leap can be executed on top of the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), 
delivering the power of openSUSE to the Windows world. The YaST version 
in Leap 15.2 improves the compatibility with that platform, specially 
when executing YaST Firstboot in order to perform all the needed initial 
adjustments.

Desktop Environment

While the desktop environments in this release will be new, the focus 
remains on more conservative fixed release. The Long-Term-Support 
version of KDE’s <https://kde.org/> Plasma 5.18 is available in Leap 
15.2. The newer LTS has a significant amount of polish and new features. 
Notifications are clearer, settings are streamlined and the overall look 
is more attractive. GNOME <https://www.gnome.org/> 3.34 updates from the 
previous 3.26 version that was available in Leap 15.1. The new GNOME 
provides a considerable amount of visual refreshes for a number of 
applications. More data sources in Sysprof makes performance profiling 
of an application even easier and there are multiple improvements to 
Builder including an integrated D-Bus inspector. Xfce 
<https://www.xfce.org/> has a minor update to version 4.14 after four 
plus years of development; the new version produced a slew of updates 
and features, including enhancements for the window manager, file 
manager, application finder and power management.

Cloud Images, Hardware and Architectures

Linode <https://www.linode.com/> cloud images of Leap are available 
today and ready for all infrastructure needs. Cloud hosting services 
will offer images of Leap 15.2 in the coming weeks like Amazon Web 
Services, Azure, Google Compute Engine and OpenStack. Leap 15 is 
continually optimized for cloud usage scenarios as a host and 
virtualization guest.

TUXEDO Computers <https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/> and Linux notebooks 
can be purchase with Leap 15.2 preinstalled. Leap 15.2 can also be 
ordered preinstalled with Slimbooks <https://slimbook.es/en/linux2>.

Leap deployment scenarios include physical, virtual, host and guest, and 
cloud. Ports to other architectures like ARM64 and POWER are expected in 
the coming weeks.

Core Components

Compilers, scripting languages, system configuration tools and graphical 
user interfaces have all been improved.

GNU Compiler Collection 7 through 9 are available in this newer Leap 
minor version along with an updated version of the 3D Graphics package 
Mesa to support the use of the professional grade operating system. Leap 
15.2 has the same 234 version of systemd used in Leap 15.0 and 15.1.

New graphics hardware support has been backported for the release of 
Leap 15.2 and Linux Kernel 5.3 will be used for the release. Kernel 
features automatically become available in Leap since the distribution 
shares the same kernel as SUSE Linux Enterprise (SLE).

openSUSE Leap 15.2 is a distribution with community packages built on 
top of core sources of SLE 15 Service Package 2. The shared common core 
and alignment with SLE makes migrations to SUSE’s enterprise product 
easy for professional who want to extend the life cycle of their 
maintenance and security past the life cycle of Leap. Migrating from the 
community version of Leap to SUSE Linux Enterprise is an available 
option for those who desire to migrate. The migration from openSUSE Leap 
server installations to SUSE Linux Enterprise is easy for system 
integrators developing on Leap code who may decide to move to an 
enterprise version for SLAs, certification, mass deployment, or extended 
Long Term Support.

Health Packages

This Leap release increases the capabilities of health services. The 
award-winning health- and hospital management system GNU Health comes in 
version 3.6.4. It has an updated GUI and is prepared for COVID-19 
pandemic tracking, including updated ICD-10 codes and improved 
laboratory functions. GNU Health can directly interface with Orthanc, 
the free PACS Server, which is newly shipped in this release. Developers 
of the health and medical fields have several open-source tools with 
openSUSE Leap that can be be used for creating powerful User Interfaces 
(UI) and User Experiences (UX) for medical devices. Healthcare device 
developers can be confident in the use and performance of Leap and rely 
on the system supporting newer and older hardware.

Configuration Management

System administrators will have the most up-to-date tools for 
configuration management. Salt 3000 has arrived in Leap; the new Salt 
version removes the date versioning and provides new functions to 
chroot: apply, sls, and highstate. It also updates slot syntax to 
support parsing dictionary responses and to append text. Ansible is also 
availble for sysadmins. Ansible works over SSH and does not require any 
software or daemons to be installed on remote nodes.

Groupware and File Hosting

File sharing and cloud services include software such as NextCloud and 
even the groupware application suite Kopano (formerly known as Zarafa) 
is part of the official Leap 15.2 repositories.

Like prior versions, System Administrators and small businesses can use 
Leap for hosting web and mail servers or for network management with 
DHCP, DNS, NTP, Samba, NFS, LDAP, and hundreds of other services.

Life Cycle of Leap

Minor versions of the Leap 15 series have about an 18-month life cycle; 
minor releases come roughly once a year. Users of openSUSE Leap 15.1, 
which was released in May of 2019, should upgrade to Leap 15.2 within 
the next 6 months. The first release of Leap 15 was released two years 
ago. Download Leap 15.2

The openSUSE Project is a worldwide community that promotes the use of 
Linux everywhere. It creates two of the world’s best Linux 
distributions, the Tumbleweed rolling-release, and Leap, the hybrid 
enterprise-community distribution. openSUSE is continuously working 
together in an open, transparent and friendly manner as part of the 
worldwide Free and Open Source Software community. The project is 
controlled by its community and relies on the contributions of 
individuals, working as testers, writers, translators, usability 
experts, artists and ambassadors or developers. The project embraces a 
wide variety of technology, people with different levels of expertise, 
speaking different languages and having different cultural backgrounds. 
Learn more about it on opensuse.org.

Categories: openSUSE <https://news.opensuse.org/category/opensuse> 
Announcements <https://news.opensuse.org/category/announcements> Kubic 
<https://news.opensuse.org/category/kubic> Leap 
<https://news.opensuse.org/category/leap> Project 
<https://news.opensuse.org/category/project> Weekly News 
<https://news.opensuse.org/category/weekly-news>

Tags: openSUSE Leap 15.2 
<https://news.opensuse.org/tag/opensuse-leap-15-2> KDE 
<https://news.opensuse.org/tag/kde> Plasma 5.18 
<https://news.opensuse.org/tag/plasma-5-18> Xfce 4.14 
<https://news.opensuse.org/tag/xfce-4-14> GNOME 3.34 
<https://news.opensuse.org/tag/gnome-3-34> arm64 
<https://news.opensuse.org/tag/arm64> Power 
<https://news.opensuse.org/tag/power> X86 
<https://news.opensuse.org/tag/x86> Artificial Intelligence 
<https://news.opensuse.org/tag/artificial-intelligence> Machine Learning 
<https://news.opensuse.org/tag/machine-learning> community 
<https://news.opensuse.org/tag/community> Tensorflow 
<https://news.opensuse.org/tag/tensorflow> PyTorch 
<https://news.opensuse.org/tag/pytorch> ONNX 
<https://news.opensuse.org/tag/onnx> Grafana 
<https://news.opensuse.org/tag/grafana> Prometheus 
<https://news.opensuse.org/tag/prometheus> CRI-O 
<https://news.opensuse.org/tag/cri-o> Kubernetes 
<https://news.opensuse.org/tag/kubernetes> Docker 
<https://news.opensuse.org/tag/docker> SUSE Linux Enterprise 
<https://news.opensuse.org/tag/suse-linux-enterprise> SUSEConnect 
<https://news.opensuse.org/tag/suseconnect> sysadmins 
<https://news.opensuse.org/tag/sysadmins> TUXEDOComputers 
<https://news.opensuse.org/tag/tuxedocomputers> microservices 
<https://news.opensuse.org/tag/microservices> AutoYaST 
<https://news.opensuse.org/tag/autoyast> VM 
<https://news.opensuse.org/tag/vm> Slimbooks 
<https://news.opensuse.org/tag/slimbooks> Linode 
<https://news.opensuse.org/tag/linode> Cloud 
<https://news.opensuse.org/tag/cloud> GCC 9 
<https://news.opensuse.org/tag/gcc-9> GNU Health 
<https://news.opensuse.org/tag/gnu-health> DHCP 
<https://news.opensuse.org/tag/dhcp> DNS 
<https://news.opensuse.org/tag/dns> Samba 
<https://news.opensuse.org/tag/samba> Upgrade 
<https://news.opensuse.org/tag/upgrade> yast 
<https://news.opensuse.org/tag/yast>
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