The openSUSE project has released a beta preview of the coming openSUSE 13.1. 

Carrying the curious nickname "Bottle", openSUSE 13.1 is, like several other recent "major" distro updates, primarily about under the hood changes that lay the groundwork necessary for new features down the road.

For the openSUSE project that means several major updates to lower level tools are coming in this release, namely the move to GStreamer 1.0 and a new Ruby-based version of openSUSE's YaST admin tools.

GStreamer 1.0 was released around this time last year, but openSUSE, a somewhat more conservative distro, has yet to make the move. The plan is to get GStreamer 1.0 into openSUSE 13.1, but a quick glance at the project page reveals that there are still quite a few core apps in the openSUSE stack that have yet to be ported. The biggest multimedia apps on the GNOME side, Rhythmbox and Shotwell, have both been ported, but many others have not. 

Of course openSUSE 13.1 isn't due to arrive in final form until November, which gives the project developers some time to finish up work on the move to GStreamer 1.0.

The other major change coming in this release is a new version of YaST. Those who rely on YaST to administer large networks have no reason to panic. OpenSUSE 13.1 isn't changing anything about how YaST works -- on the surface YaST will look and behave just as it always has -- but under the hood YaST is being translated to run in Ruby.

A favorite of system admins, YaST is openSUSE's administrative control panel, handling tasks like software management, user administration, disk partitioning and a variety of other admin and maintenance tasks. 

YaST has GTK, Qt and command line interfaces, which means it functions more or less the same whether you use it on KDE, GNOME or through the shell. The latter is particularly handy if you're running openSUSE (or SUSE/SLED) as a server since it allows you to perform the same tasks without the overhead of running a graphical environment. More recently openSUSE added WebYaST to the mix, which, as the name implies, brings the power of YaST to a web interface, allowing you to remotely administer your machines using the familiar YaST graphical interface, but running in a web browser.

YaST also powers openSUSE's installation tools, which remain some of the nicest you'll find in a Linux distro.

YaST has an Achilles heel though -- it's written in YCP, a language created solely for YaST development. That limits the number of people who contribute to the project (and who are working to extend and expand it as well). Not only does YaST development mean learning a new language, it means learning a new language that's only useful for one thing -- YaST development. The new Ruby-based YaST changes that. 

The new YaST looks the same, and in my testing with the latest Factory builds, functions the same as the old YaST, but using Ruby behind the scenes opens the door to those developers who might like to contribute or extend YaST without learning a new language just to do so. And more contributors may well mean more useful tools and extensions for YaST (it also makes it easier for large organizations to write their own customized YaST tools).

To be clear though this is not a ground-up rewrite of YaST. Instead, a team of developers have translated YaST's YCP code into Ruby. Judging by conversations on the openSUSE YaST mailing list, there may well be some re-writing in future releases, but for now the goal is to make sure everything is translated and that the new Ruby version is as stable and reliable as the old YaST.

In the past I've used openSUSE primarily with the KDE desktop, which is where the project has poured the majority of its resources. For the final release the plan is to ship  latest KDE 4.11.x release. KDE 4.11 isn't a radical departure from its predecessor which shipped with openSUSE 12.3, but it does bring some improvements to KDE's NEPOMUK search tool, which should make it a little speedier when indexing your files.

As with the last release, the default KDE desktop theme for openSUSE is one of the nicest you're likely to find and even manages to make non-KDE apps like Firefox or GIMP feel like a natural part of the KDE desktop.

If you're a KDE fan and you don't want to spend a bunch of time tricking out your desktop, openSUSE is well worth at least a test run. It's speedy, has pretty much everything the typical user is likely to need and offers one of the best looking default KDE desktops out there. 

While KDE still seems to be the focus of the openSUSE project there's recently been some effort poured into giving GNOME the same sort of openSUSE flavoring. For now that means a green desktop theme rather than any significant customizations.

The plan is to ship GNOME 3.10 (due in final form next week) with the final release of openSUSE, but the version I tested had only GNOME 3.9.4, which is the current beta. When it arrives GNOME 3.10 will bring several new features, like automatically updated extensions, new Maps and Videos apps and support for the Wayland display server. Look for all that and more to be a part of openSUSE 13.1 when it's released in November.

In the mean time work will be continuing on openSUSE 13.1. If you'd like to check out the latest build you can grab the beta from the download page. There are live CDs available for both KDE and GNOME as well as the all-in-one DVD which also includes XFCE and others.

Keep in mind that this is a beta release and, while both the KDE and GNOME releases have been mainly stable in my testing, there may be bugs. This release is meant for testing, not daily use in a production environment. The final version of openSUSE 13.1 is due to arrive November 19.