Submitted by Novell will be launching a community-based Linux distribution, OpenSuSE, at next week’s LinuxWorld in San Francisco, according to sources close to the company. Following in the footsteps of Red Hat Inc. with its successful Fedora Project Linux distribution, Novell Inc. will be opening up its Linux development efforts with OpenSuSE, sources said.
Too late, Ubuntu (+ Kubuntu) already became The Desktop Distro (see distrowatch.com statistics). Unless somebody invent really new and revolutionary distro, there will be increasing trend of “ubuntu & others” world, IMO.
It’s deffo no too late. I’ve tested the latest SuSE release for a few weeks, and I was really impressed. They did large cuts on what gets installedd in the default install, and it was quite fast too. Sane defaults and all.
Other than that, SuSE still has things that (K)Ubuntu can only dream of: decent system management tools (YaST) and a complete graphical boot/shutdown.
but who needs to boot/shutdown so many times ?
Laptop users do!
Graphical boot? Come on, that does not improve useability at all. Maybe if you said a faster boot. And last time I checked, SuSE’s graphical boot was done in kernel space using a modified boot splash. The Ubuntu people will be doing this right, completely in user space.
Jesus, even though I am using Ubuntu and really love the distro, I’m really getting tired of all these Ubuntu trolls that give this great distro a bad name.
There isn’t any distro that is “The Desktop Distro” and in case you didn’t notice it, Ubuntu isn’t only aimed at the desktop, but is also in the process of becoming a valid option for servers and Suse isn’t only aimed at the Desktop, far from it.
I am not “Ubuntu troll” nor I am huge supporter for that distro. However, I can understand numbers and can freely expres my opinion on the subject. My point is that new distro, as-good-as-Ubuntu is not good enoough reason for ubuntu-majority to switch. They will switch only if somebody comes with distro far better (as it was in case of Firefox).
Why care about Ubuntu users anyway? I guess you overestimate their amount. Ubuntu is just the distribution getting most interest according to Distrowatch from people considering switching (from Debian [world]) for a rather short time.
Well regarding all issues on statistics and Ubuntu, I must say that I am yet to see ANY recent poll that shows Ubuntu is not ultimate desktop distro. Why it is so difficult for many people to accept that? I like GoboLinux way better but people like Ubuntu. Fact. If you don’t like distrowatch stats, I propose another poll here on OSNews, one that will prove my point. 🙂
who cares? distro holy wars it’s not an opinion, it’s just trolling, as hijack news about ubuntu saying ‘too late i’m using suse’
“Well regarding all issues on statistics and Ubuntu, I must say that I am yet to see ANY recent poll that shows Ubuntu is not ultimate desktop distro. Why it is so difficult for many people to accept that?”
Quite frankly, nobody cares a bit of any statistics, issues, or polls. The right tool for the right job, understand? I have Kubuntu on my iBook laptop and SuSE on my desktop. They both do their jobs very well. Kubuntu has quite vast free software repositories, which is good for a PPC machine, while commercial Linux software is almost 100% SuSE optimized, and that’s why I definitely need SuSE on my desktop. Plus YaST is incredible compared to about everything else.
I transfered from Fedora to Ubuntu and I can say that it’s definitely not too late. A year and a half ago, everyone throught that it was too late for yet another distro, especially another Debian based on. They were wrong. Ubuntu filled a valuable niche.
When Fedora was created, there was a lot of press about Red Hat abandoning the free Red Hat distribution and that Fedora was a way of killing Red Hat non-commercial without appearing to. They were wronge. Fedora was better than any previous free Red Hat distribution.
Now Novell plans to open SuSE. You say it’s futile. Don’t you think you want to look at history and reconsider your position?
Personally, I think it’s great. I won’t likely use SuSE anytime soon (unless Ubuntu drops the ball and SuSE becomes as easy to maintain as Debian), but IMO it’s good for both the Fedora and SuSE communities. For instance if the SuSE approach succeeds:
“unlike Red Hat, which only makes Fedora available as a download and doesn’t offer support for it, Novell will also sell SuSE Linux in a boxed retail version with manuals and paid technical support, sources said.”
It may cause Red Hat to rethink its official support policy for Fedora. And in order to gain access to some of the many Fedora repositories, it’s likely that OpenSuSE will try to remove gratuitous incompatibilities between Fedora and SuSE without losing SuSE’s character.
“They will switch only if somebody comes with distro far better”
They’ll switch immediately as soon as something more fashionable comes out. I have heard that many have switched from Gentoo to Ubuntu.
Yes, I switched from Gentoo to Ubuntu. No, I’m not a fashion monkey. When I installed Gentoo it was easy, but slow, to install. At the time I didn’t find any other free (beer) that installed as easy. When Ubuntu came along, same deal except faster — so I switched when I got a new machine.
Yes, Ubuntu’s documentation isn’t as good as Gentoo’s, but for the most part I don’t need it.
Some of us just want something that works, and are more interested in doing stuff with computers than learning about them — or posting bashes in forums.
With all that, my company is probably switching from Windows to a supported SuSe distribution, and I’m looking forward to that as well.
I am not a troll but Ubuntu smells funny to me (in the Yopper sense)–I tried installing the Kubuntu and frankly it is a second rate distrubtion that has no place being number one on distrowatch (do they pay there employees to click on the links everyday, how else does a distro become #1 over night esceally when there are many better options). No graphical installer and this is supposed to be desktop friendly you are kidding me? It gave me a 640 by 480 (on a generic intel integrated video card) desktop with no options to change it, user friendly wise, and when i editing the config and restarted the x server nothing changed.
“I tried installing the Kubuntu and frankly it is a second rate distrubtion that has no place being number one on distrowatch (do they pay there employees to click on the links everyday, how else does a distro become #1 over night esceally when there are many better options).”
You don’t seem to realize what hype and fashion can do.
Add to that the free CDs…
I sympathize with your inability to change your screen resolution. This seemingly simple task can be a real pain in X. If manually changing the resolution in /etc/X11/xorg.conf didn’t work, then you might try typing in dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg on the command line and you will be prompted to answer several questions about your mouse, graphics card and preferred screen resolution. Hope this helps.
distrowatch.com statistics are not much more than a current hype indicator: First it was Knoppix, then Gentoo, followed by MEPIS and at the moment it’s Ubuntu with almost twice as much “votes” than the second placed one.
distrowatch.com statistics are not much more than a current hype indicator:
Obviously. What else would it be? An indicator for The Distro Most Likely To Kill Debian?
The fact is Ubuntu has ruled that list since a couple of months after its’ release. No other distro has came close. This is a brand new type of hype that certainly distrowatch has never seen before. Maybe, just Maybe, Ubuntu is considered to be a better OS than all the others… maybe the rest of you geeks need to face up to this.
I’m reaaallly getting tired of al this Ubuntu BS. Ubuntu is nice, but claiming that it is THE desktop linux of this moment…. Come on you guys, KDE is at the moment the better desktop solution than Gnome, and SUSE has done a very nice job with 9.3. So stop being so black-and-white. Use whatever you want, and work together to improve the open source desktop experience. Whether it is KDE or GNOME. SUSE or UBUNTU or REDHAT. etc…
Life is not black and white. A year or two ago, thousands of forums were full of people tiresomely hyping Gentoo, perhaps in hopes that others would think them soooo hardcore. At the moment, the same is happening with Ubuntu. Rest assured, next year the herd will have moved on to something else and a large chunk of today’s Ubuntu-fanciers will be busying munching cud of a different flava. Sure Ubuntu is a nice distro, a pretty darn good one. But in truth it’s got nothing that puts it way above the others and in some respects it still has a great deal to learn from older ones, like SuSE.
Yeah, Ubuntu will never kill debian. Debian is too large. If you read on the net some of the Ubuntu developers are Debian developers too. Unlike Redhat and it’s children, Debian works together with Ubuntu.
So it’s just like passing users on in the family. Things that go into Debian, filter into Ubuntu, and things that go into Ubuntu, get back into Debian (xorg).
I don’t know why people want to deny debian and ubuntu their proper respect. Apt and the deb package format are the best there is. They make it easy to install and remove software. Not to mention Debian and Ubuntu make high quality packages and in general a top notch product.
Ubuntu isn’t a revolutionary distro at all! A very very normal debian-based distribution.
Furthermore Novell plans to cancel 120-150 jobs in europe.
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/62400
Ah, you forgot to mention that the plans to cancel jobs don’t have anything to do with Suse becoming a community distro, as the heise article states.
I didn’t mention SUSE. I wrote NOVEL!
Furthermore Novell plans to cancel 120-150 jobs in europe.
Mostly EMEA call-agents.
Maybe you don’t understand German. “Vertrieb”=marketing/sale – nobody buying Netware servers anymore.
120-150 jobs less are 120-150 people without jobs soon, it doesn’t matter if they are marketing/sales people or people who used to clean Novell’s toilets for their money.
But what does matter is that these people loosing their job has nothing whatsoever to do with the story at hand here and that’s what people are pointing out.
120-150 jobs less are 120-150 people without jobs soon, it doesn’t matter if they are marketing/sales people or people who used to clean Novell’s toilets for their money.
You do realize that canceling jobs doesn’t automatically mean that people get sacked, do you? Canceling jobs most of the time consists of scrapping job vacancies and not filling natural job openings (ie. people retiring).
It’s not as if these people have some sort of “right” to those jobs in the first place.
Jesus, even though I am using Ubuntu and really love the distro, I’m really getting tired of all these Ubuntu trolls that give this great distro a bad name.
Seconded.
Anyways, it’s nice that they open it up
.
Ehm, Suse isn’t by any means a new distro, on the contrary, it has been around much longer than Ubuntu and has quite a “following”.
Also to claim that Suse is as-good-as Ubuntu is a pretty nonsensical statement, as Suse simply is quite different from Ubuntu in many ways (yast comes to mind for example), however different doesn’t automatically mean better or worse, does it?
I don’t doubt your right to express any opinion you want to express, however I seriously doubt your ability to understand numbers. As has already been pointed out, distrowatch numbers might be a good indicator for the momentum a certain distro has right now, but it certainly isn’t an accurate meassure about how many people use a distro.
Ooops, obviously I’m to dumb to reply properly.
My comment was of course meant as a reply to Anonymous (IP: 213.235.159.—)
Would be nice to see AppArmor becoming avaible as well 🙂
Suse 5.2 was my first experience with Linux and it has always been the superior distro. It came on a cover CD and it installed without problems on my PC. I actually paid for two Suse Pro packages later (6 and 7 I think).
I now run Debian because I don’t have a need for a commercial package, but now that they have opened it I will probably install it again. In my experience Suse “just works” to paraphrase a competitor 🙂
does this jigger around with the likely release of SUSE 9.4/10.0?
it’s looking likely that the standard Oct release will be too early for O.O.o2 (final), not to mention Firefox 1.1 and KDE 3.5 and Xorg 6.9 (?), which is a shame as it won’t offer much more than SUSE 9.3.
so i wouldn’t object if the next release was delayed by a month or two and was thus able to incorporate all the above improvements……..?
I think the next major release will be 10.0 and the major new feature will be that it will be gcc 4 based.
I wish them the best, but I bought 9.3 expecting to be blown away and I had to shoot through hoop after hoop to get it working and running.
I first had a problem where my network connections settings wouldn’t stick. I would run through YAST and set it up and as soon as I got done and rebooted no network connection. Back to yast…rinse…repeat…
Maybe I’m too used to debian, but package management was just not fun. Everytime I installed a package I seemed to have to do it from the DVD, then go and run an update to the packages I just installed.
I’m sure part of it was just my ignorance, but I didn’t see anything that made me want to stick it out in the end.
This sucks and it’s just an excuse to remove funding from the Pro line that lots of us are using in non-profits that cannot afford to pay for the enterprise line.
I hated it when Red Hat did it and I hate it now that Suse is doing it. This basically allows them to lower the quality assurance and to claim that if you want a really stable distribution, you should go for the enterprise line, thereby creating an artifical scarcity that was not there before.
Why isn’t an artifical scarcity? Because the Pro line is rock solid. I have used it on servers for over three years and it is incredibly stable. Now, we will get rushed software with none of the detailed documentation and Q/A and we are supposed to be happy about it.
Screw Suse for doing this and screw Red Hat for leading the way on this before them. I will use Suse 9.3 on my servers until there are no more security updates and then move to something else: Mandrake, Debian or Ubuntu look like potential candidates.
Stupid is a person that don´t know how to read an article.
They won´t stop the Pro line. Nothing will change. The only thing that will change is that the community will help develop it.
Very different from what RH did. They stop selling their end user distro. Novell will not do that.
I like true OpenSource distros, Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian … And I hope now OpenSuse will be a really true OpenSource distro too. Maybe I will give it a try.
The only thing that will change is that the community will help develop it.
Which, as he pointed out, is a bad move, imho. The quality of Fedora has been very poor, imho, and SuSE people are usually better judges of what regular desktop users care about than many in the Linux community who “contribute” to all these different disparate distros.
Hopefully SuSE will still keep a VERY close eye on this project.
That’s unfair comment, because regarding to TFA:
“The expected distribution model isn’t quite the same as Red Hat’s, though; unlike Red Hat, which only makes Fedora available as a download and doesn’t offer support for it, Novell will also sell SuSE Linux in a boxed retail version with manuals and paid technical support, sources said.”
I think that, if I read things correctly, the article made it clear that they weren’t following the Red Hat model exactly. That they would also continue offering what would be the equivilant of a “pro” version also, with the support and whatever else came with that, so I think you might be blowing your steam a little to early and waisting a lot of your energy. It’s still not clear to me EXACTLY what they mean by that, but they might have your concerns in mind…it almost looks as if they will have THREE things available…
1. The Free OpenSUSE model
2. A supported “pro” model
3. The Enterprise model
I may be wrong on that, but that’s how I read the article, so you might want to simmer down a little until we know what they are doing….
Hmmn, I had a feeling something like this would happen before long and switched from SuSE to Debian six weeks ago.
Even so, the very best to them. I’ve run every version of SuSE since 7.3 and always found it a great distro, arguably the best of the lot for many folks, especially those with little experience of Linux. The name of the game is change or go under and there’s no reason why a new SuSE on these lines shouldn’t be a success. Fedora already shows the pitfalls to avoid.
The more worrying problem is the status of Novell itself. If news reports are to be believed, they are losing money big time and are losing Netware customers faster than they are adding Linux ones. Here’s hoping SuSE doesn’t get sucked into one big mess when the bankers get restless a year or two down the line.
Well said…those are very valid concerns.
Perhaps nice to know that the successor of 9.3 will most likely be SuSE 10.
Lowry says Novell is will make SUSE freely available, starting with the 10.0 beta, at the Linux World Conference next week.
http://os.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=05/08/03/1246236&from=rss
It will be interesting to see what happens. I spent a whole lot of time testing out various Linux distros in the last year to see what would be the best to recommend to non-technical folks interested in a Windows alternative. SUSE was my favorite, followed by Ubuntu. I just installed SUSE 9.3, and am even more impressed. The main reasons I prefer SUSE (including over Ubuntu, though I haven’t tried Kubuntu):
– Perhaps most importantly, it is a complete desktop distro that includes Flash Player, RealPlayer, and mp3 support out of the box. Non-technical users would find the process of installing these technologies pretty daunting (in some cases difficult enough to prevent their use of the distro), and might not even know where to look to get started; and most users (including me) will not see the reasoning behind not including them as worthwhile.
– It has the most polished look & feel of any desktop distro I tried. This was true of 9.2 and even more true of 9.3. This is especially important today, as Linux is still struggling to be seen as a viable alternative OS for everyday users: If it looks polished people are more likely to take it seriously. (While I do think SUSE wins in this regard, Hoary is a vast improvement over Warty here.)
– Its toolset is more consistent and complete than most. I find that configuring a Hoary system, for example, requires some command-line work while SUSE generally has a YaST or KDE Control Center module. Not a critical difference for seasoned Linux users but certainly important for the average desktop user.
– Its default settings will be comfortable for the Windows switcher without simply cloning Windows.
All that said, not all distros will work smoothly on all hardware, so having more than one recommendation is a good idea, and there’s no question Ubuntu is a nice, easy-to-use distro.
What worries me about this move is that there are aspects of SUSE that make it a good distro and seem to go hand in hand with it being somewhat commercial (though you can still download it), most notably the support for Flash and mp3. It would be sad if, like Fedora, this community SUSE became the leading edge of SUSE but lost some of what makes it a good choice for new users.
Very well said. I wanted to say something very similar myself.
SUSE and Ubuntu can’t be compared in any way, they are two different beasts altogether: Ubuntu is little more than an installer, and not a very easy one at that.
SUSE is a complete OS, you can use it as a desktop, as a server…(and out of the box). All the commercial apps come already bundled and it is very well suited for a new user.
True, its multimedia and P2P support are very lacking, but use APT and you’ll get an amazing amount of extra apps.
Making a community project out of it could make SUSE an absolute killer within a couple of years.
Littile more than an installer? Hello! Ubuntu is a complete OS just like SuSE is with more software available to install with out combing the net for it (with universe). And ubuntu already has apt, out of the box as you say.
OK, I should have said: out of the box Ubuntu is little more than an installer: the Debian installer plus Gnome, in fact.
If you are willing to put quite some work into it, you can have the commercial plugins, Nvidia drivers…But still no setup tools comparable to YaST.
It’s about time SuSe did this.
I just wished it worked on my hardware – emachines. The graphics is screwed up (colors all wrong) where I can not read any words in the installation program. Thus, I can not get it installed. If there is a work-around for this – please let me know.
Don’t laugh about my hardware, its just what I have.
Fedora Core 3 and Ubuntu work fine on it though.
Hopefully, new versions of suse will work for me.
I had that same problem on a machine using the Intel onboard video. There is a non-gui install option that will get you through the basic install. Once it’s installed, the graphics are fine.
John
I was very impressed by Suse 9.3 … IMHO definately has the most polished desktop environment of any OS I have test driven to date … the sort of distro you could give non-tech users … being able to use yum with Suse repositories would be nice … while you can use apt with Suse ( and a lot of other distros apart from debian for that matter ) Yum seems happier working with rpm’s
SUSE is merely opening up its own distro and isn’t going to ask anything from anybody, except for support from the community.
Ubuntu owes everything to Debian (something which many of its user too often forget)
OMG I can’t believe it…Novell managed to hire Batman?
Here’s some of the domain registry info for opensuse.org:
Registrant Name:Bruce Wayne
Registrant Organization:Novell, Inc.
Registrant Street1:1800 South Novell Place
Registrant City:Provo
Registrant State/Province:UT
Registrant Email:[email protected]
I wonder if they’ll get sued by DC comics for that?
I used Ubuntu for 1 whole semester (4 months). What does it offer that other distros don’t?
installation – same level as every other distro
package management – same level every other distro
configuration management – gnome based. same as others
polished – don’t know what that means. Gnome is Gnome
latest version of gnome – YES
so whats the hype about?
Even though your post does not even deserve a reply, I will honor it with one, in the event that some poor sap might come along and take what you wrote as the whole truth.
installation – same level as every other distro
First of all, Ubuntu’s installer is shorter than anaconda (think Fedora), and has never crashed on me (anaconda has, the only time I tried to use it).
package management – same level every other distro
Second, Ubuntu’s apt and synaptic, are completely better than straight rpm, yast, or yum for that matter. They are eaiser to use, more robust, more flexible, more stable, and faster. Did I mention they are better?
configuration management – gnome based. same as others
Configuration managment in Ubuntu should cover everything a desktop user needs, which pretty much ammounts to changing the time on the clock (which ubuntu does automatically on boot), and adding new users. Desktop users generally don’t need to change system services or worry about cron jobs.
The simplicity of Ubuntu’s gnome-system-tools approach to configuration shines when compared to kcontrol and the all inclusive yast, both of which are terribly cluttered, kcontrol being the worst of the two. Even I, a rather advanced user (think system admin) have trouble finding what I want in kcontrol within any reasonable time. Yast is not quite as bad, but still more complicated than gnome-system-tools, although yast is more complete (which in turn adds complexity).
polished – don’t know what that means. Gnome is Gnome
As for the polish thing, yeah it’s GNOME which is pretty polished. You seem not to care much about that, but for the record, I consider GNOME much more polished and organized than KDE (GNOME only has *one* text editor).
so whats the hype about?
Perhaps you did not notice these things because you were not around during the dark ages of desktop linux, or maybe because you were around, but you did not have your debian flashlight and could not see anything. What ever it is you seem to be mis-informed. Having used Ubuntu for 4 months and all, I expect more from you (either that or the brain-washing package did not install properly
Any way, I respect your right to choose and your opinion (just maybe think about it some more next time
.
Matthew_i
You are not honoring my post with a reply. You are proving my point by being defensive.
First of all, Ubuntu’s installer is shorter than anaconda (think Fedora), and has never crashed on me (anaconda has, the only time I tried to use it).
Ubuntu’s installer is shorter than anaconda and it is longer than a few out there. What sets is apart? WHy is it better? Casue it didn’t crash on you? Its not better or worse. It has its good and bad points like every other installer out there. Nothing special.
Ubuntu’s apt and synaptic, are completely better than straight rpm, yast, or yum for that matter. They are eaiser to use, more robust, more flexible, more stable, and faster. Did I mention they are better?
Is synaptic available only for Ubuntu? How is apt easier to use than yum? So what is so special about ubuntu’s package management? what sets it apart? You didnt answer this queastion either. Once again, all you are doing is crying “my toy is better than yours”.
The simplicity of Ubuntu’s gnome-system-tools approach to configuration shines when compared to kcontrol and the all inclusive yast, . . .
And no other gnome based distro has this, right? Just ubuntu. What sets it apart? You failed to provide an answer yet again.
As for the polish thing, yeah it’s GNOME which is pretty polished . .
Right. So every Gnome based distro out there is. Not just Ubuntu.
You failed to provide me with any answers as to why Ubuntu is better than the rest. So Mr. Sys Admin, once again, what does ubuntu offer that other distros dont?
and try to be more mature this time. it is a great distro. It is NOT THE DISTRO.
Ubuntu is so popular because it is already financially backed for the next 10 years, and is essentially a targeted version of debian. So when the ignorant among us wonder what all the fuss is about this newcomer, ubuntu, they are failing to realise it is just debian with some refined features. Not a fad, debian has been around for a little bit of time.
Ubuntu is so popular because it is already financially backed for the next 10 years, and is essentially a targeted version of debian.
Right! thats why everybody is installing Ubuntu, cause its backed for the next 10 years. BS
I thought this was what had happened since Novell took over anyway – SUSE Pro became Community?
Both SuSE and Gentoo have exellent documentation on their sites whereas Ubuntu has none.
SuSe is an excellent distro. The problem is it has no user community sites and horrible packages, although Yast is awesome. Fix those two problems and its set fight it out with ubuntu for best all around user distro. And this “You ubuntu users owe debian!” Bla bla bla. BS. Evolve or die. Debian is a slow lingering dead end and has been for a while now, take what makes it good and do something better. That’s Ubuntu.
> The problem is it has no user community sites
http://www.usr-local-bin.org/rpms/
http://packman.links2linux.org/
http://susefaq.sourceforge.net/
http://www.suselinuxsupport.de/
http://www.susewiki.org/
http://www.suseforums.net/
“SuSe is an excellent distro. The problem is it has no user community sites and horrible packages, although Yast is awesome.”
Er, I wonder if you have ever used SuSE? It has user community sites, thriving mailing lists and third-party file repositories which can be run off apt just as one can run apt off SuSE’s own repositories. It has probably the best of all KDE support and awesome Gnome support via the third-party usr-local-bin outfit. No idea what you mean about “horrible packages”. Strangely, they seem to have worked extremely well for many years now.
YaST is gpl and might make an ideal addition to Ubuntu, since a look through ubuntuforums.org suggests that many Ubuntu users seem to find Linux unexpectedly difficult.
The problem is it has no user community sites and horrible packages, although Yast is awesome.
It does have apt repositories … problem is apt doesn’t work well with rpm based distros IMHO … what Suse needs is someone to set up a yum repository …
SuSe is an excellent distro. The problem is it has no user community sites and horrible packages, although Yast is awesome
True SuSE does have problems that there are really no 3rd party repositories, or community sites, but the SuSE developers and package maintainers on the whole do a great job.
I personally have used SuSE since 7.0, and it is one of my all time favourite distro’s, SuSE has come along way in its life time from its Slackware roots (yes SuSE was originally a based on a Slackware distro) to become one of the leading commercial distro’s.
Opening up SuSE Pro will I hope improve the state of the SuSE community and drive more people into creating SuSE packages.
…this “You ubuntu users owe debian!” Bla bla bla. BS. Evolve or die…
Well if Debian didn’t exist theres a good chance Ubuntu wouldn’t either you can argue that the idea would urge the creation of an Ubuntu-like distro no matter what, and in all honest I agree, I think it would happen, but alot of what makes Ubuntu great, like its stability wide selection of packages, installation procedures for applications, are all from its Debian heritage.
Truth is Ubuntu is diverging from Debian at a very fast pace, Ubuntu is no longer 100% compatible with Debian, what the major problem which IMO is what Debian community may fear is losing its developer base to Ubuntu which many consider the “Next Generation Debian”.
Fix those two problems and its set fight it out with ubuntu for best all around user distro.
One problem… who decides what the criteria for best all round user distro is? and how can you make it a fair test?
Truth is Ubuntu is diverging from Debian at a very fast pace, Ubuntu is no longer 100% compatible with Debian,
Actually, that’s misleading. Each 6 months, Ubuntu is 100% compatible with SID. The problem is that SID, by definition will allow backwards incompatible changes to occur (it’s named after the kid who regularly broke all the toys in Toy Story). Once an Ubuntu version is released, it can’t afford to break the current version (that’s what a production release means), and so it’s possible that *SID* might diverge from Ubuntu, but only until the next Ubuntu release. And Ubuntu is well aware of it’s Debian heritage and regularly submits patches back to Debian, either directly (in the case of security fixes) or active-indirectly (in the case of X.org — most of the work done to port X.org to SID was done by Ubuntu) or passively-indirectly (by producing patches which the Utnubu project migrates back into Debian). If you know the Fedora world, Rawhide=SID, Fedora=Ubuntu, and Red Hat Enterprise=Debian Stable.
I don’t know what model SuSE will follow, but it seems like it’s going to use a similar approach.
One problem… who decides what the criteria for best all round user distro is? and how can you make it a fair test?
It’ll always be subjective. Some people like Ubuntu over Fedora because Ubuntu uses only one CD, while others like Fedora over Ubuntu because Fedora comes with 4 or 5 CDs. Some people prefer Red Hat over SuSE because (at least in the past), Red Hat only included open source software. Others prefer SuSE over Red Hat because SuSE was (is?) willing to put all the proprietary Java and other plugins into the base distribution.
The only fair comparison would be one stated that “If you’re looking for a distribution that has the following features and are willing to live with the following limitations, such-and-such a distribution is your best bet.”
It’s not a vote thing.. it’s tallied by hits to the Ubuntu page on distrowatch.
> The problem is it has no user community sites
http://www.usr-local-bin.org/rpms/
http://packman.links2linux.org/
http://susefaq.sourceforge.net/
http://www.suselinuxsupport.de/
http://www.susewiki.org/
http://www.suseforums.net/
That’s great! It’s been a few years since I used SuSe, it’s good to see more user sites!
YaST is gpl and might make an ideal addition to Ubuntu, since a look through ubuntuforums.org suggests that many Ubuntu users seem to find Linux unexpectedly difficult.
The installer might help as well.
I agree, most people agree that YAST is a very good tool. Once it became GPL I thought ‘Great it will become a standard config tool for lots of distros!’ as its turned out noone seems to have taken advantage of it…
can anyone tell me who else, other than SUSE, use YAST?
The installer might help as well.
Ubuntu’s installer is fine. What people don’t realize is the exact same installer could be given a GTK front end (work in progress), and then no one would call it out dated.
Ubuntu and Debian’s installer has been written from scratch. It is based on debconf and can be front ended with basically anything including a graphical GTK, so just because the current front end is in curses, does not mean the installer is out of date. It is a very well designed installer.
YaST is gpl and might make an ideal addition to Ubuntu.
There is a project under way to port yast to debian, but I do not agree with you in thinking that yast would be a good addition to Ubuntu (maybe Kubuntu). Yast does not fit into the gnome philosophy of simplicity. On the other hand it does fit with KDE’s kitchen sink swiss army knife mantra.
Either way it goes, open source is all about choice and a GPLed yast only adds to it.
SuSe imho has slacked in comparison with your modern distros such as Ubuntu, Fedora or Mandriva. Going to take a lot of work to cleanoff the rough edges.
If it works, it was done right.
All those easy install distro’s also bring Linux in reach of complete idiots.
Yes, it does…but don’t we want Linux to thrive? Or do you want it to continue to be a secret club where only the the non-idiots can play with it. When it comes to computers, 99% of the population are idiots. That’s OK because they do other things than play with computers like many of us. So, what’s wrong with an easy install?
I can’t wait for my Novell Technical Resource Kit to come in the mail!
you are using your bad experience of Kubuntu to taint everyones view of Ubuntu… too different products there buddy, and also, kubuntu includes the standard KDE desktop resolution app, show you should have been able to point and click a different resolution..
Also, it is indeed a text based installer.. so what ? Windows XP is also a text based installer… dont believe me ? insert the xp disk and reboot your pc…
Ubuntu text based installer is very simple to use, no commands have to be typed, you just follow one screen on from the next.
If they were your best appempts at trolling, then give it up and get a job in MacDonalds, amateur.
yes pal, you are correct. Ubuntu and Kubuntu are too entirely different products and only retards would view them as the same thing.
that guy was trying to “taint everyones view” as you said, he is a retard. you should not have even answered him… although, by doing so, you proved your point.
the ubuntu installer is probably the easiest installer of any os I have ever tried… and I been using computers since 1962…. can any of you boys beat that for experience ?
“yes pal, you are correct. Ubuntu and Kubuntu are too entirely different products and only retards would view them as the same thing.
that guy was trying to “taint everyones view” as you said, he is a retard. you should not have even answered him… although, by doing so, you proved your point.
the ubuntu installer is probably the easiest installer of any os I have ever tried… and I been using computers since 1962…. can any of you boys beat that for experience ?”
Wow I would thing that with 43 years of computing experience, you would have tried more os installers.
This was supposed to be a thread about SUSE, but it has turned into yet another thread about Ubuntu again the rest of the world, from the very first post.
And then they wonder why some people *really* dislike Ubuntu.
Ubuntu is the new yardstick for usable Linux. It is also based on what is arguably the highest quality Linux distro.
So when SuSE announces its new “OpenSuSE”, of course there will be comparisons to the yardstick.
Ubuntu is 3-4 smart people, $3-4M, and a bit of strategy away from greatness.
Unfortunately SuSE’s mindshare is already fading into the past and OpenSuSE is an attempt to stop the bleeding.
I believe SuSE has a lot to offer the world. It will be up to Novell to fund it well enough (with smart people, not just $$$) so that it has a chance to grow and thrive.
Well, there is quite a bit in your post I don’t agree about, but let me say at least this:
“Unfortunately SuSE’s mindshare is already fading into the past and OpenSuSE is an attempt to stop the bleeding.”
Well, if you had a slightly more insider knowledge about SUSE, you’d know that when SUSE is released for free, all the powerful SUSE servers go literally berserk.
As to “Ubuntu is the new yardstick for usable Linux. It is also based on what is arguably the highest quality Linux distro.”, somebody has yet to convince this man who has tried literally hundreds of distros and almost every other OS out there over so many years, what is so special, great, innovative about Ubuntu.
> Ubuntu is 3-4 smart people,
I wonder if you underestimate the amount of developers Canonical employs or if you emphasize on “smart” and call the other developers dumb…
I said “smart people” and not “smart developers” for a reason. Ubuntu has a core of good developers, but needs an upgrade in the business management department.
There are many partnerships and business opportunities that are passing Ubuntu by these days. If one does not take advantage of the spotlight, the spotlight moves on.
Unless steps are taken to advance the platform, Ubuntu could be tomorrow where SuSE is today, fighting for mind share.
It is the fad linux of 2005.
I tried it, and it really doesnt do anything new.
Gentoo was a distro that deserved to be the fad linux of 2004 with the use cases and optimizations and customizability, but I dont see what ubuntu is all about. Its simply a community distro that propped out of nowhere, with members that wont shut up about it.
Anyways the point is slackware > all distros.
It would be nice if people could talk about SUSE without mentioning ubuntu. Ubuntu is in no way a linux mesuring stick. Since when has linux been about measuring sticks. Its about being you, and having your own choice and having your own style, not about following the next fad. Lets the other distros do their thing and be happy they aint one distro out there.
I don’t have votes left, so I’ll reply instead:
Very well said!
(Except that, when you say “Anyways the point is slackware > all distros.” you are falling in the very mistake you are denouncing-this said by somebody who has a huge love and respect for Slack-but most likely you were only joking)
Blah, blah, blah! Why does everyone feel the need to spout off about their distro being the best?
I am glad Novell is doing this, it give me the chance to finally test it out.
I have been upset with the whole Novell situation, because 5 years ago I was forced to take a Novell Netware course in school as part of my mandatory outline. At the time I knew Linux was going to rule the world… eventually. The book I learned from suck like crap too. Now that I know netware, it is useless to me. The school didn’t believe me, so they didn’t even look into a Linux course. So, at least now, I can try out what is to be the successor of Netware.
Novell is a hero, they have spent hords of money and given it back to the open source community! Open-Xchange being one of them that I think is going to really shine for them.
I am not in any way in love with Novell, I use Fedora, but now I have a choice. I will try SuSE now, but if they hadn’t done this, I wouldn’t have.
I hope SuSE gives Fedora a run for its money. It is a way to keep them both on their toes. Even MS needs competion, look at their browser! Finally they are stepping up since Firefox.
I think these last few years have been Novell’s best years. They have had some of the biggest software titles, and usually they have all withered in their hands. SuSE is not one of these. I hope Novell gets stronger. They have proven themselves to be an open source company.
To deny that many people in the Linux community spend a lot of time comparing Distro A to Distro B is being blind. Many people are looking for that “best balanced” distro and today Ubuntu is it.
Thus Ubuntu has major mindshare today. Look at its ranking on distrowatch.com. It is miles ahead of anything else:
http://distrowatch.com/
SuSE is in a distant 5th place.
It would be blind again to ignore the reasons that SuSE is in 5th place. I hope OpenSuSE addresses some of the problems in the SuSE distro and moves it up a notch or two. For if SuSE doesn’t start growing, it will certainly continue dying and fade away in 2-3 years.
“Look at its ranking on distrowatch.com. It is miles ahead of anything else”
For that matter, Yoper was #1 @ Distrowatch a few years ago: look where is it now.
Also Gentoo has lost at least 5 positions.
As to SUSE it was never in top 3: the best it did was last year, #4
So much for Distrowatch rankings.
Comparing the past of the Linux to the present is not really accurate. The Linux market has grown by leaps and bounds over the past few years. More importantly, it has evolved.
You can see that the top distros are balanced distros. It is the new trend. It may not be the trend forever, but it is what holds water today.
SuSE is suffering from a loss of mindshare and relevance. Nearly everyone offers better support and access. We can only hope that OpenSuSE improves matters.
Yes I was joking about the slackware comments.
And running to the “distrowatch” argument only proves my point.
Distrowatch does not prove what the best linux distro is, it only proves what is the fad linux of the moment. If we sit there and say ubuntu is the best because everyone is using it, then why not say windows is the best because everyone is using it.
And what the hell is a balanced distro? That statement makes no sense to me.
“If we sit there and say ubuntu is the best because everyone is using it, then why not say windows is the best because everyone is using it.”
LOL! Good points again. Why don’t you register, so that my + votes don’t just go to “anonymous”
You’re right 🙂
i like it and use it.
Ubuntu is pretty good too.
I have noticed a problem with the voting system. It seems that if a person posts enough garbage such as pravda (look at his user page: Real Name: pravda (user 661)
Joined: 2005-07-06
Status: Active
Last Active: 2005-08-04
Number of Comments: 227 (18 voted up, 70 voted down)
Average Comment Score: -0.6) then the people with mod points will run out and then people like pravda will have free range to troll all day long. I hate the stupid distro comparison that happens with every distro news story, just like I hate the GNOME vs. KDE flamewars that erupt with nearly every GNOME or KDE story (although I’ve noticed that it has stopped recently).
Therefore, my proposal for a new moderation system is two tier. We keep the current vote-with-points system, but add a second vote-without-points system. This second part could be a simple choice of Agree or Disagree, or some other terms which are more abstract (since you can agree with a comment, but the comment still is inappropriate for the topic at hand).
This second tier system would effect the vote-with-points system. For every 5 people that agree or disagree, a point is added or subtracted from the mod points any given comment has.
Any other suggestions for this new system?
I also would like to see some changes.
I was particularly upset by what happened at the PC-BSD thread. In that case it was mainly anonymous users causing the stir.
So here are my suggestions:
1)No more anonymous posting
2)Introduce an ignore feature. I am aware of the possibility of chosing at which level you browse, but that doesn’t allow you to ignore users you don’t like.
Amen.
> the ubuntu installer is probably the easiest installer of any os I have ever tried…
Which you have tried maybe, but not the easiest on Linux distributions. Just to mention Xandros or Linspire.
I think what that guy was pointing out, was that the ubuntu is an easy to follow script… not a DIY thing on the command line… like a lot of ~FUD spreaders try and make it appear
> just like I hate the GNOME vs. KDE flamewars that erupt with nearly every GNOME or KDE story
Funny that a “youknowmewell” troll is abusing dot.kde.org for pro-GNOME flaming…
…What has made Ubuntu so fashionable: a lot of newbies have simply fallen in love with apt and Debian: Ubuntu gave them an easy chance to try.
Previous to Ubuntu the majority were just too dumb or lazy to install Debian plus a working X plus Gnome or KDE: Ubuntu made that easy.
…What has made Ubuntu so fashionable: a lot of newbies have simply fallen in love with apt and Debian: Ubuntu gave them an easy chance to try.
Previous to Ubuntu the majority were just too dumb or lazy to install Debian plus a working X plus Gnome or KDE: Ubuntu made that easy.
You’re on to something here.
However, it may not be people were “too dumb” but more likely people “don’t want to waste countless hours fucking with Linux bullshit”.
Installing software on Linux has to be the worst thing “invented” for computers in the last 20 years. It is hard to believe that some not so small number of developers thinks that Linux is ready for mass consumption.
Even Ubuntu beyond the install is unusable by anyone less than a Linux guru. One run of the package manager proved this. No one would ever know what all that stuff is or if it is important or not. Many dependencies simply do not work. And there is no way to uninstall stuff nicely in Linux without breaking everything. Yep, Linux has to be the most busted design for install/uninstall in the past 20 years.
For real usability over the life of a machine there is no Linux that rates more than 0/10. The capability is just not there yet. Linux for the most part is a bad design. If it were not open source, it would be in the same boat as all the other small audience loser operating systems — BeOS, Amiga, Morph, etc.
So make up your mind: if Linux is rubbish, how can Ubuntu be so good? (according to your previous posts)
Ubuntu is the best Linux I have tried. It installed and it worked the first go and is relatively up to date. It is the foam on top of a sea of crud.
Maybe if there was a real free version of SuSE I would have used SuSE 9.3. I last used SuSE 9.0 on a laptop (and it worked well other than networking) but SuSE does not have an upgrade policy for going from 9.0 to 9.3. The company and its new owner were never all too well run.
So for this latest project I used Ubuntu.
My use of Ubuntu was to port some command line utilities from Windows C++ to Linux C++ and even with Ubuntu getting all the compiler stuff installed on the machine took hours longer than actually porting the software.
“Linux for Human Beings (Who Like To Waste Time)”.
Yeah, it was sad. But at least the system worked. I had tried Fedora Core before Ubuntu and damn that is a pile of shit. Talk about bloatware. Talk about supergalactic slow as crap. Fedora Core is a train wreck. No wonder VMWare doesn’t want to support it.
There are some few legitimate uses of Linux as a free server OS, but this use is tiny compared to the overall OS market. This segment is the “screw around with the machine to get it working… wasting a lot of time… because we know we are not going to change *anything* for a while”. This is a tiny slice of the real world.
From my experience with Linux for the past several years, I have come to the conclusion that for anything except demos and very small short term projects, Linux is dead on arrival. No amount of patches and bandaids can make up for a crappy design. This is what Microsoft has learned (is learning). Unfortunately, it will take Linux 20 years probably to learn that design is what matters most in software. Oh well.
Wow I had the impression from you that ubuntu was God.
Now Im having the impression that you are trying to make ubuntu looks good by claiming the rest of the linux distros suck.
**roll eyes**
Wow I had the impression from you that ubuntu was God.
Now Im having the impression that you are trying to make ubuntu looks good by claiming the rest of the linux distros suck.
**roll eyes**
I am not some crazed Ubuntu fan boy. Out of the Linux distros I have tried, it is the best. Having won my hard-earned respect and appreciation, I believe it is worth mentioning and *praising*.
Ubuntu deserves to be recognized for making steps forward in spite of where they are starting from. For people who have earned something in life, there should be respect for the *effort* required to move forward.
However good Ubuntu is vs. other distros, it doesn’t change the fact that Linux has many serious design flaws that will prevent any significant evolution other than in the server room and in embedded systems. Linux is not a mainstream desktop platform and will likely never be one.
Is that simple enough to understand now?
No its not simple to understand.
Its simple to understand that your forcing your opinion down my throat like its fact.
That is all I understand from you.
Its nice knowing that pravada is the OS guru of the world and that ubuntu is the first linux distro which aims at usability (holds in laughter)
So I guess Mac isn’t a mainstream desktop platform either then… the reality is that there are more linux desktops then mac desktops. I guess ignorance is bliss and I hope you enjoy!
OpenSUSE sounds kind of nasty
Installing software on Linux has to be the worst thing “invented” for computers in the last 20 years
Pravda,
So what is generally wrong with Linux package management? How would you rather have it?