- SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop Gets Major Update: What You’ll Find
- Download Requires Users to Sign Up for 30-Day Trial
- SLED 12 Provides Multiple Desktop Choices
- GNOME 3 Focuses on Activities
- GNOME Classic Puts Places on Top
- SLE Classic Puts Navigation on the Bottom
- Firefox Is the Default Browser
- LibreOffice Provides Office Functionality
- Snapper Provides an Interface for Btrfs System Rollbacks
- AppArmor Provides Mandatory Access Controls
- Windows Interoperability Is a Key Feature
- Linux Kernel 3.12 Is Inside
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop Gets Major Update: What You’ll Find
by Sean Michael Kerner
Download Requires Users to Sign Up for 30-Day Trial
As a supported enterprise product, SLED 12 requires potential users to sign up before they can download the operating system.
SLED 12 Provides Multiple Desktop Choices
SLED 12 provides users with a number of choices for the desktop user interface, including GNOME 3, GNOME Classic, and a SUSE Linux Enterprise (SLE) Classic that melds the best of GNOME 3 and classic interfaces.
GNOME 3 Focuses on Activities
The GNOME 3 desktop choice provides navigation options at the top of the screen and has an Activities menu as the primary button for users to move around the desktop.
GNOME Classic Puts Places on Top
The GNOME Classic interface puts the main navigation at the top of the screen and provides users with the Places navigation item.
SLE Classic Puts Navigation on the Bottom
One of the biggest user-facing differences that the SLE Classic mode offers is that the main navigation is now at the bottom of the screen.
Firefox Is the Default Browser
The open-source Mozilla Firefox Web browser is the default browser in the SLED 12 release.
LibreOffice Provides Office Functionality
LibreOffice is the default office productivity application suite in SLED 12, providing document, spreadsheet and presentation applications.
Snapper Provides an Interface for Btrfs System Rollbacks
As part of SLED 12, the btrfs file system is included, enabling snapshots and system rollback functionality. The SUSE-built snapper tool provides a graphical user interface to easily take advantage of btrfs’s capabilities.
AppArmor Provides Mandatory Access Controls
AppArmor is an open-source mandatory access control technology that is part of SUSE Linux that enables users to have fine-grained access control over system and application processes.
Windows Interoperability Is a Key Feature
On the desktop as on the server, the ability to work in a heterogeneous environment, with both Linux and Windows, is a supported feature.
Linux Kernel 3.12 Is Inside
The core of SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 is the Linux 3.12 kernel, which first debuted in November of 2013 and has been updated multiple times since.