openSUSE comes in 4 different versions. In this guide, we will talk about how to choose the right one, the advantages and disadvantages of each version and how to set them up.
====== The choice ======
The 4 different openSUSE editions are:
- openSUSE Tumbleweed, a rolling release with fresh software (but that is quite reliable because it's well-tested by an automated system but also by humans and using a snapshots system). It is your only option if you are using a 32 bit computer.
- openSUSE Leap, a fixed release that gets a new version every 7 months based on the source code of SUSE Linux Enterprise. Very recent drivers won't be included in this edition before the release of its next version.
- openSUSE MicroOS, based on Tumbleweed, MicroOS uses Transactional (Atomic) updates upon a read-only btrfs root file system. Most of the filesystem being read-only, this edition is overally more secure than the two classic editions and is the best you can get out of openSUSE in terms of security.
- openSUSE Leap Micro, the same as MicroOS, but based on Leap, and server-oriented. This one doesn't provide any graphical user interface by default so we won't use it in this guide
To download openSUSE, every edition is available at https://get.opensuse.org. You should use the offline image because the network installers are very, very slow. Installing offline will also make sure you aren't installing malware if the repositories ever get hacked.
You may get an error ''sha256sum: openSUSE-something.iso: No such file or directory''. In that case, change the filename in the .sha256sum file to match the file you downloaded. Alternatively, run ''sha256sum openSUSE-*.iso && cat openSUSE-*.sha256'' and compare both outputs. If they are the same, your file is safe.
You should have ''openSUSE-something.iso: OK''. If you don't, it means your iso image has a problem and you shouldn't trust it.
If everything is fine, your iso image is safe and you can proceed to the creation of a bootable USB stick.
====== Prepare the USB stick ======
Now that we made sure that what we downloaded is safe, we should prepare a bootable USB stick. First, you will need a tool such as balenaEtcher: https://www.balena.io/etcher.
Once balenaEtcher is downloaded, open it and plug your USB stick into your computer.
Now, click the "Select Image" button and select the .iso file you downloaded
Next, click the "Select drive" button and select your USB stick
Now click "Flash" and wait till it finishes.
Your USB stick should now be ready to install openSUSE on your computer.
Boot your USB stick, you should be prompted by a small menu, select "Installation" with your keyboard arrows.
Be aware the following is for openSUSE MicroOS, the steps for other openSUSE editions are very similar but classic editions prompt for disk setup earlier than we do it in this guide, just scroll down to see what you should do, everything is explained here, just not in the right order for classic editions.
Once the installer has started, you will be welcomed by a Language and Keyboard selection page. Set up your language and keyboard layout then click next.
Next, you will be prompted to choose a System Role. This is basically what you want to do with your openSUSE installation. You should choose either GNOME or KDE Plasma when using MicroOS. If you use openSUSE Tumbleweed, you can choose Xfce here, which isn't available in other editions. It is much lighter. On the screenshot, I chose GNOME. As of time of writing, both are still experimental in MicroOS, but I had no issues so far with both.
Next, the installer will prompt you to create a new user, choose whatever you want for your full name, but the username should be kept simple (no caps, no spaces, no special characters, i'd recommend you limit to a-z and 0-9).
Preferably, setup a strong password. You can enable automatic login as we will setup disk encryption later.
You can also use that password for the system administrator, as we will lock it later in the hardening part.
You should then arrive on the Installation Settings page, skipping the traditional partitioning and software selecting steps. First, go into Partitioning to enable encryption