openSUSE is celebrating in 2025, commemorating two decades as one of the most emblematic GNU/Linux systems and with a history marked by important technical milestones. Under the motto of the open collaboration and business robustness, the community of this veteran green chameleon prepares various events and compilations of highlights from users around the world to remember its extensive evolution.
During these 20 years, openSUSE has managed to consolidate itself as a reference thanks to its Stability, advanced tools, and community spiritHowever, there is still some debate surrounding its popularity and how it is perceived compared to traditional competitors such as Ubuntu, Debian, or Fedora, which raises several underlying questions about its use on both desktop and servers.
An anniversary that invites reflection
Although the August 9th, 2005 marks the date of the official launch of the openSUSE ProjectThe story goes back even further, when Novell decided to open source development after acquiring SuSE Linux. Since then, the project has continued to advance thanks to the collaboration of thousands of users and developers around the world. On this occasion, the organization is promoting the celebration by asking the community to share memories and experiences, once again emphasizing the role of users as a fundamental part of development.
The anniversary comes at a time when openSUSE is self-critical about its role in the Linux ecosystem. It is acknowledged that the distribution offers one of the closest experiences to an enterprise —a direct heir to SUSE Linux Enterprise— without sacrificing openness or free access for all users. However, it is acknowledged that the lack of a clear narrative about your target audience and a poor marketing capacity have prevented it from enjoying popularity comparable to that of other general distros.
Current challenges and internal debate
Within the community, relevant voices, including former SUSE developers, have recently stated at conferences that openSUSE is still highly recognized internally, but His notoriety falls outside that circleFor many businesses and users, Linux is often summarized as Ubuntu or Red Hat, leaving openSUSE in the background despite having solid technical arguments to compete in both environments. You can check out the progress made in recent versions of openSUSE here..
A recurring question is the ambiguity about who the distribution is intended forIs it for home users, developers, businesses, or all at once? While other systems like Ubuntu or Fedora don't seem to suffer from this dilemma, openSUSE does have a certain communication problem in this regard. Furthermore, experts emphasize that, despite offering unique professional features and both LTS (Leap) and rolling release (Tumbleweed) versions, some details related to support and user experience still raise questions compared to more established alternatives.
Possible end of 32-bit ARM support
openSUSE is considering dropping support for ARMv6 and ARMv7 (32-bit ARM) devices.The main reason is the increasing difficulty in maintaining this compatibility, coupled with the limited upstream collaboration and limited resources available for its maintenance.
If this measure is confirmed, it would affect already classic devices such as the Original Raspberry Pi, Raspberry Pi Zero, BeagleBone Black, and other older SBCsTo take the real pulse of the community, the project has launched a survey in which users can indicate whether they still rely on this type of hardware. This decision would follow in the footsteps of other Linux distributions that have already abandoned support for 32-bit ARM. More details on support and evolving architectures.
The possible withdrawal of support is an example of how openSUSE constantly adapts to industry needs and trends, prioritizing the quality and technical viability of the project over the dispersion of resources.
The legacy and reality of openSUSE
Despite not always being the most recommended option among less experienced users, openSUSE continues to garner praise for its Stability, professionalism and unique tools like YaST or ZypperIts active, global community contributes not only to system development, but also to events, translations, documentation, and spin-off projects like MicroOS and Aeon, which are focused on containers and modern workstations. You can learn more about YaST, a key tool in openSUSE.
Far from living only in the past, the distribution is preparing the launch of 15.6 and consolidates its commitment to emerging architectures such as RISC-V, demonstrating forward-thinking and flexibility.
openSUSE faces its twentieth anniversary with assessments, self-criticism and challenges, but also with the recognition of having contributed Two decades of continuous contribution to free software and global collaborationIts history is that of a community that continues to champion quality, transparency, and technical innovation in the Linux universe.
