openSUSE Linux: 20 Years Strong

openSUSE is a name every Linux fan recognizes today, but it’s worth taking a quick trip down memory lane—especially for the younger crowd.

Back on August 3, 2005, while SUSE was still under Novell’s wing (Novell had acquired the company in 2003), a post appeared announcing something new: Novell’s plan to launch a community-driven Linux distribution based on SUSE, and it would be called OpenSuSE.

Novell will be launching a community-based Linux distribution, OpenSuSE, at next week’s LinuxWorld in San Francisco, according to sources close to the company.

Following in the footsteps of Red Hat Inc. with its successful Fedora Project
Linux distribution, Novell Inc. will be opening up its Linux development
efforts with OpenSuSE, sources said.

A site, opensuse.org, has already been set up for the project by Novell under
the name of Batman’s alter ego, Bruce Wayne. The site, however, is not open
for business yet.

A week later, on August 10 (since the project officially kicked off a day earlier, on August 9, 2005), it was publicly confirmed and made official with this announcement:

Sorry for the short announcement. We have now launched openSUSE and released SUSE Linux 10.0 OSS Beta1 to the public.

Twenty years later, the cute green chameleon isn’t just surviving — it’s a Linux icon. In a landscape where countless projects have launched with excitement only to fade away, openSUSE has not only endured but flourished.

Over these two decades, it’s earned a reputation for being rock-solid, reliable, and secure, winning the trust of everyone from home users tinkering with their first desktop to enterprises running mission-critical systems. Alongside Debian, it shines as one of the brightest stars — not just among general-purpose distros, but in the entire Linux ecosystem.

I say this with no personal bias—openSUSE has earned its place as one of the top picks for Linux enthusiasts. It’s stood the test of time, avoiding sudden and unexpected moves, and consistently delivering stable, reliable releases. And honestly, at the end of the day, that’s what really matters.

To date, alongside its two flagship offerings—the rock-solid Leap for those who prioritize stability and the rolling-release Tumbleweed (plus the new addition – Slowroll) for those eager to stay on the cutting edge—openSUSE has introduced MicroOS, an immutable and transactional system primarily tailored for edge computing, which means openSUSE now covers all the major bases: business, everyday users, and the cloud.

But that’s not the focus of this piece. Today is about expressing genuine gratitude to everyone who has contributed to the openSUSE project over the past two decades. You’ve delivered one of the most reliable and well-crafted Linux distributions available, while steadily reinforcing openSUSE’s reputation as a leader in its field.

With the final stable release of Leap 16 expected in October—now in its release candidate stage—the excitement is already building. Until then, it’s worth saying this: only a handful of Linux distributions are truly timeless, and openSUSE is firmly among them.

Happy 20th anniversary, openSUSE—and here’s to many more.