Updated: 22 January, 2012

by FreeFind

Here are some of the ways of acquiring openSUSE.

You can go to the openSUSE website and download a DVD ISO file or a Live CD/Live USB ISO file free of charge. The ISO file will then need to be burnt onto a CD or DVD as an image.
http://software.opensuse.org/

The DVD provides the most smooth and complete experience.

The benefits of the Live CD is that it's a smaller download, you can try it live (i.e. running only from the CD and RAM) on your hardware before installing anything and you can even use it to create a Live USB stick (See next chapter).

There are many webshops that offer to sell unofficial media (CD, DVD, USB-stick) with openSUSE very cheap. This is of course absolutely legal, as we're dealing with free software.

This saves you the trouble of downloading and burning the media yourself, and the subsequent risk of errors. See for example:
Linuxpusher.com
OSDisc.com
Ixsoft.de
Linuxiso.co.uk

There are companies selling openSUSE in a box with support, and additional goodies included, see:
http://en.opensuse.org/Commercial_offerings


You can find the source code for all the free packages in openSUSE here, in the form of source RPM files:
http://download.opensuse.org/pub/opensuse/source/distribution/12.1/repo/oss/suse/src/