openSUSE 13.2 To Use Btrfs By Default, Major Changes

While openSUSE 13.2 will not be released until November, we now have an idea for some of the changes and new features being planned by the openSUSE developers.

First and foremost, openSUSE 13.2 is planning to switch to the Btrfs file-system by default. Switching from EXT4 to Btrfs doesn't come as a huge surprise given the next-generation Btrfs features over EXT4 and that as of late it's been ramping up and showing signs of stability as the Btrfs developers now work for Facebook. We have known for a while that SUSE is fond of Btrfs, with the openSUSE 13.1 release they were calling Btrfs safe for users, and all around they have been quite fond of the file-system in recent times and previously signaled the next release would likely use Btrfs.

Along with the Btrfs change, openSUSE 13.2 is looking to use Wicked for network management and the Dracut initrd replacement. When it comes to openSUSE engineering, the popular YaST utility front-end is being ported to Qt5. This next release will also use the Zypper 1.10.x branch, will include KDE Frameworks 5, GCC 4.9 will be the default compiler, and Wayland 1.4 will be available to users. While Wayland will be available, it likely will not be the default display environment.

More details on these planned openSUSE 13.2 changes can be found via an announcement today at news.opensuse.org.