3 First Boot

When the system boots for the first time, it tries to customize the OpenSUSE image that got installed to the hard drive with default settings. It does so to adjust the image to your system (hardware drivers, etc.):

After configuration, you will be shown the login screen. Select your created user account and enter your password:

This is how your new OpenSUSE 12.1 desktop looks:

4 Updating Software Packages

Now let's check for the latest updates. To update the system, go to Activities > Applications > Software Update:

Select Install Update:

You will be asked for additional confirmation to download the dependencies:

Enter your password to write the changes to your disc:

After the updates, you need to logout and log back in. It may occur that after the logout, there are some additional updates available:

Alternatively you can also use Activities > Applications > YaST > Online Updates to update your system.

5 Inventory Of What We Have So Far

Now let's browse all menus under Activities > Applications... to see which of our needed applications are already installed:

You should find the following situation ([x] marks an application that is already installed, where [ ] is an application that is missing):

Graphics:
[x] Gimp
[x] F-Spot
[ ] Picasa

Internet:
[x] Firefox
[ ] Opera
[ ] Chromium
[ ] Flash Player
[ ] FileZilla
[ ] Thunderbird
[x] Evolution
[x] Transmission BitTorrent Client
[x] Empathy
[ ] Skype
[ ] Google Earth
[x] Xchat IRC

Office:
[x] LibreOffice Writer
[x] LibreOffice Calc
[ ] Adobe Reader
[ ] GnuCash
[ ] Scribus

Sound & Video:
[ ] Amarok
[ ] Audacity
[x] Banshee
[ ] MPlayer
[ ] Rhythmbox Music Player
[ ] gtkPod
[ ] XMMS
[ ] dvd::rip
[ ] Sound Juicer CD Extractor
[ ] VLC Media Player
[ ] Helix Player
[x] Totem
[ ] Xine
[x] Brasero
[ ] K3B
[ ] Multimedia-Codecs

Programming:
[ ] Bluefish
[ ] Kompozer
[ ] Quanta Plus

Other:
[ ] VirtualBox
[ ] TrueType Fonts
[ ] Java
[x] Read/Write Support for NTFS Partitions

So some applications are already on the system... NTFS read-/write support is enabled by default on OpenSUSE 12.1.