openSUSE is a world-class Linux distribution. Aside from Debian and Ubuntu, openSUSE is perhaps the best multi-purpose distribution available. The distro is intended for desktop users and developers working on desktop or server platforms.
Related: openSUSE Leap vs. Tumbleweed, Difference Between Them Explained
The developers’ goal was to bring Leap as close to SUSE Enterprise Linux as possible, and they have largely succeeded. Leap 15.4 is an excellent example of a reliable and stable Linux distribution, offering a wide range of tools for both the average desktop user and advanced system administrators and developers.
This new version brings together the latest software updates, bug fixes, performance improvements, and ready-to-use hardware support.
So without further ado, let’s look at what the openSUSE Leap’s latest updated release, 15.4, offers.
What’s New in openSUSE Leap 15.4
Desktop Environments
openSUSE Leap 15.4 is a minor update over 15.3, released exactly a year ago. We’ll start with the desktop environments, where we have updates to the three primary desktop environments you can choose from during the installation of Leap 15.4.
KDE Plasma, openSUSE’s flagship desktop environment, has been updated to version 5.24. Plasma 5.24 LTS is the KDE Plasma team’s long-term support release. Plasma 5.24 includes various visual and usability enhancements.
KDE Gear applications have been upgraded to 21.12.2.1. As a result, improvements to the music player Elisa, search tags for the file manager Dolphin, and faster editing using KDE’s advanced video-editing program Kdenlive are included in this release.
Moving on to the other main working environment, GNOME. Unfortunately, users will not find the most recent version 42 here. Instead, openSUSE Leap 15.4 offers GNOME 41. This release’s most significant changes include an updated Software app, new multitasking settings, and improved power management capabilities.
The Xfce desktop environment comes with its latest up-to-date version, 4.16. It looks fantastic with its new icons and a fresh new palette.
Aside from the desktop environments stated above, Leap 15.4 has something else to offer users. MATE Desktop has been upgraded to version 1.26. Deepin Desktop Environment (DDE), a popular desktop designed exclusively for Deepin Linux, is now available for installation in its 20.3 version. Additionally, Leap 15.4 also offers Enlightenment 0.25.3.
Furthermore, tiling compositors Sway and Tilix are presented in their respective versions, Sway 1.6 and Tilix 1.9.4.
Development Tools
Developers will be pleased with openSUSE Leap 15.4, which has many updated and newly introduced development tools.
DevOps engineers can now benefit from the addition in the distro of Podman, Docker’s quickly growing alternative. In addition, the Lightweight Container Runtimes for Kubernetes, CRI-O, are also presented here. On top of that, Leap 15.4 includes containerd version 1.4.12.
Another key highlight of this release is the availability of Leap Micro, which is new to Leap 15.4. It is an immutable modern lightweight operating system appropriate for host-container and virtualized applications. Leap Micro is ideal for decentralized computing environments, edge applications, and embedded/IoT deployments.
AI and machine learning tools were also considered. As a result, you will find updated versions of several instruments such as TensorFlow 2.6.2, PyTorch 1.4, ONNX 1.6, Grafana 7.5.12, and Prometheus 2.2.3.
Other Improvements
Under the hood, openSUSE Leap 15.4 runs the Linux Kernel 5.14.21. It is important to note that Leap’s kernel is the same as in SUSE Linux Enterprise 15 Service Pack 4. In addition, this Leap release brings systemd up to version 249, which includes numerous modifications to improve user experience.
We also have to mention the DNF Package Manager. As you know, DNF is a software management tool widely used among Red Hat-based Linux distros. Unfortunately, DNF is not configured with openSUSE repositories for package management by default.
On the other hand, however, the libdnf-repo-config-zypp package allows DNF to use the repository configuration used by YaST and the Zypper package manager.
openSUSE Leap 15.4 Application Updates
Much of the software that comes with Leap 15.4 has been updated. Among the major packages that have been updated are:
- LibreOffice 7.2.5
- Thunderbird ESR 91.7
- Chromium 98
- Skrooge 2.27
- Scribus 1.5.8
- VLC 3.0.11.1
- Blender 2.82a
- ImageMagick 7.1
- PHP 8.1
- Go 1.17
- Python 3.6.15
- Perl 5.26.1
- Ruby 2.5
- Rust 1.59
For detailed information about all changes in openSUSE LEap 15.4, you can refer to the openSUSE Wiki.
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With the release of openSUSE Leap 15.4, users are expected to upgrade to the latest minor release within six months, resulting in an 18-month maintenance life cycle. Leap 15.3 will be out of support (EOL) six months from today’s release.
In other words, users should upgrade to openSUSE Leap 15.4 to continue receiving security and maintenance updates within six months of June 8, 2022.
Another thing to keep in mind is that the Leap 15.4 installer will only suggest a partitioning scheme if the available hard drive size is larger than 12 GB. So if you want to create very compact virtual machine images, use the guided partitioner to tune partitioning parameters manually.
openSUSE Leap 15.4 comes with separate installer images for offline (3.8 GiB) and network (173.0 MiB) installation. In addition, you can also get separate desktop environment images.
