openSUSE项目是Novell公司资助的社区计划。为在方方面面促进Linux的普及应用，该计划提供了对openSUSE这份完整Linux发行 的免费、简便的获取访问。openSUSE项目有三个主要目标：让openSUSE成为任何人都能最容易获得且最广泛使用的Linux发行，利用开源软件 的联合来使openSUSE成为世界上可用性最强的Linux发行及新手和资深Linux用户们的桌面环境，显著地简化并开放其开发及打包过程以使 openSUSE成为Linux开发人员及软件提供商所选择的平台。
The first and only release candidate for openSUSE 11.1 is out and ready for final testing: "The openSUSE Project is happy to announce that openSUSE 11.1 RC 1 is now available. If all goes well, this will be the last testing release before the final 11.1 public release on December 18th. This release includes a number of bug fixes and changes since 11.1 beta 5, as well as a new license. It is ready for widespread testing, and we are encouraging everyone to download and work with the testing releases to find any critical bugs before release. Major changes in this release include: a new, shorter distribution license; Linux kernel 2.6.27.7; glibc 2.9; additional translations; Amarok 2.0 RC1; Zypper 1.0.1." Here is the full release announcement. Download the installable live CDs: openSUSE-11.1-RC1-KDE4-LiveCD-i686.iso (664MB, MD5, torrent), openSUSE-11.1-RC1-GNOME-LiveCD-i686.iso (653MB, MD5, torrent), openSUSE-11.1-RC1-KDE4-LiveCD-x86_64.iso (678MB, MD5, torrent), openSUSE-11.1-RC1-GNOME-LiveCD-x86_64.iso (655MB, MD5, torrent).