After almost a year of development, the openSUSE project has presented a new version of its stable Linux distribution openSUSE Leap 15.3. The newest minor version is the most recent, rock-solid addition to the openSUSE 15.x series that carries all the positive attributes of its predecessors.
There is one huge change from the previous Leap versions. openSUSE Leap 15.3 is built not just from SUSE Linux Enterprise source code like in previous versions but with the exact same binary packages, strengthening the flow between Leap and SUSE Linux Enterprise.
In other words, openSUSE Leap will become a free counterpart to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) and the server variant (SLED) without commercial support.
What’s New in openSUSE Leap 15.3
Leap 15.3 comes with Linux Kernel 5.3.18. This kernel is the same one used in SUSE Linux Enterprise 15 Service Pack 3 and is maintained by SUSE. In addition, Linux Kernel 5.3 introduces support for AMD Navi GPUs and new IPv4 addresses.
Xfce 4.16 introduces new major features. First, there is a new visual identity in this release of Xfce. With new icons and palettes, Xfce shines more out of the box. In addition, the Settings Manager received a visual refresh of its filter box, which users can now hide permanently.
openSUSE Leap 15.3 comes with Plasma 5.18 Long-Term-Support. In Plasma 5.18, you will find neat features that make notifications clearer, settings more streamlined, and the overall look more attractive. Moreover, it comes with better support for GTK applications using client-side decorations.
To help relax your eyesight, a new system tray widget lets you toggle the Night Color feature. You can also configure keyboard shortcuts to turn Night Color and Do Not Disturb modes on or off.
Instead of the current Gnome 40, openSUSE Leap 15.3 offers GNOME 3.34, which comes with many new features, bug fixes, and better performance. For example, now it is possible to create, rename, and delete folders using Drag n’ Drop actions in the application overview.
This makes organizing applications much easier and keeps the application overview clutter-free. The overview visual style was also refined, including the search entry field, the login password field, and the overview window highlight border.
This release introduces several Artificial Intelligence packages, such as TensorFlow 2020.08.23, PyTorch 1.4.0, ONNX 1.6, Grafana 7.3.1, and Prometheus.
The common development tools and scripting languages supplied with openSUSE Leap 15.3 are up-to-date: Go 1.15, Perl 5.26.1, PHP 7.4.6, Python 3.6.12, Ruby 2.5, and Rust 1.43.1.
Other Essential Changes
Below is a quick summary of popular applications and their updated versions in openSUSE Leap 15.3.
- LibreOffice 7.1.1
- Thunderbird 78.7.1
- Chromium 89
- Firefox (ESR) 78.7.1
- VLC 3.0.11.1
- Tilix 1.9.4
- Blender 2.92
- ImageMagick 7.0.7
For more information about all new features for this release, see the official release notes.
Download openSUSE Leap 15.3
openSUSE comes with separate installer images for server, desktop, and minimal network install. In addition, you can also get separate desktop environment images. Download the latest Leap version by following this link.
You can create a bootable USB flash drive from the downloaded ISO file and install the new openSUSE Leap 15.3 in a physical system.
