Building Images for 64-bit POS Devices with the New SUSE Linux Enterprise Point of Service Image Server

It´s this time of the year again for retailers – Christmas season is putting them under huge pressure. And even though IT budgets for retail environments have been on the rise again during the past years, many departments are still saddled with an outdated hodgepodge of systems, licensing fees, maintenance and multi-year roll-outs.  At the same time, technology does not stand still, retail customers are more technology savvy than ever, and they want to use their technology to shop. So it is important, now more than ever, that retail systems from data center to point of sale are built on a solid, secure, flexible and cost-efficient platform. This is why SUSE is ideal for retail success. SUSE Linux Enterprise Point of Service allows retailers to focus on what matters most – their customers.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Point of Service is the only managed client-server Linux solution available in the market today that has been specifically tailored for the unique needs of the retail industry. It provides a reliable, flexible and open platform for point of service / point of sale terminals, kiosks, self- service systems and reverse-vending systems. Built on the SUSE Linux Enterprise platform, it empowers retailers to leverage Linux and open source by delivering a high-performance foundation.

To meet the requirements of our retail customers who want to run POS infrastructures with a stable operating system platform that needs minimal changes during the full life cycle of their deployed hardware, a while ago we extended the maintenance and support for SUSE Linux Enterprise Point of Service 11 on certified hardware to March 31, 2022. SUSE is the only Linux distributor that offers such an extended life cycle. This provides retailers with a competitive advantage: they can fully exploit their POS client hardware device investment while getting a long-term proven, secure, stable and certified platform for their business-critical retail infrastructure. The current version of SUSE Linux Enterprise Point of Service is based on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11. As SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 is a 32-bit operating system, until now you could only build images for 32-bit based Point of Service clients or devices.

However –  I mentioned it before – technology does not stop! Retail customers want to use new technology, and fortunately many retailers start to fulfill their customers’ needs and introduce new Point of Service clients such as mobile devices. Most of these devices are 64-bit based systems. This is the reason why we just released a new component for our retail solution: SUSE Linux Enterprise Point of Service Image Server 12. This add-on component lets you build Point of Service images for 64-bit devices based on SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 SP2.

To ensure the correct installation and usage of the new Image Server component, my documentation teammate Dmitri (see his blog) has updated our SUSE Linux Enterprise Point of Service 11 Guide with an additional chapter about SUSE Linux Enterprise Point of Service Image Server 12. You can also find this new chapter as a stand-alone PDF document on our SUSE documentation web page. As always, if you have feedback or comments regarding our documentation, please do not hesitate to contact us at doc-team@suse.com. Enjoy reading and installation .

Disclaimer: The text at hand has not been reviewed by a native speaker. If you find typos, please send them to me (meike.chabowski@suse.com) – or if you like them, just keep them :-).