openSUSE, formerly SUSE Linux, is a Linux distribution sponsored by SUSE Software Solutions Germany GmbH (formerly SUSE Linux GmbH) and other companies. Its "Leap" variant shares a common code base with, and is a direct upgradable installation for the commercially-produced SUSE Linux Enterprise, effectively making openSUSE Leap a non-commercial version of the enterprise product. It is widely used throughout the world. The focus of its development is creating usable open-source tools for software developers and system administrators, while providing a user-friendly desktop and feature-rich server environment.

Beyond the distributions and tools, the openSUSE Project provides a web portal for community involvement. The community develops openSUSE collaboratively with its corporate sponsors through the Open Build Service, openQA, writing documentation, designing artwork, fostering discussions on open mailing lists and in Internet Relay Chat channels, and improving the openSUSE site through its wiki interface. openSUSE offers Leap, a LTS-style distribution that shares the code base SUSE Linux Enterprise (SLE), effectively making Leap a non-commercial version of its enterprise-grade operating system. Users that prefer more up-to-date free software can use its rolling release distribution Tumbleweed. Users can also use the Open Build Service. Moreover, the flexibility of openSUSE makes it easy to re-purpose for specific goals like running a web- or mail server.

Like most Linux distributions, openSUSE includes both a default graphical user interface (GUI) and a command line interface option. Users of openSUSE may choose several desktops environments GUIs like GNOME, KDE, Cinnamon, MATE, LXQt, Xfce. openSUSE supports thousands of software packages across the full range of free software / open source development.

The operating system is compatible with a wide variety of hardware on numerous instruction sets including ARM-based single-board computers. Examples include the Raspberry Pi 3 and Pine64 on the ARMv8 platform also known as aarch64, the Banana Pi and BeagleBoard on the ARMv7 instruction set, and the first iteration of the Raspberry Pi on the ARMv6 ISA. RISC-V, PowerPC (PPC64 and PPC64le) and S390 are supported as well.

History of the openSUSE Project
The first indication that there should be a community-based Linux distribution called OpenSuSE goes back to a mail of August 3, 2005, in which at the same time the launch of the website opensuse.org was announced. This page was available a few days later. One day later the launch of the community project was officially announced.

According to its own understanding, openSUSE is a community that propagates the use of GNU/Linux and free software wherever possible. Beside a Linux based distribution it develops tools like Open Build Service, openQA, Kiwi, YaST, OSEM etc, and wants to have fun with it. Collaboration is open to everyone, and even attempts to poach people have had no noticeable effect so far.