"Of all the community distributions, probably the least known is openSUSE. After two and a half years, the distro is not only still working out details about how its community operates - including how its governing board is elected - but also struggling to come out of the shadow of its corporate parent Novell, much as Fedora has emerged from its initial dominance by Red Hat. With the pending release of openSUSE 11.0, community manager Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier suggests that the distribution is finally starting to get the recognition it deserves. In the middle of preparations for the new release, Brockmeier took the time to talk with Linux.com about the priorities within the community and its relation with the larger world of free software."
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Member since:2005-07-15
why use suse when we don't want to use yast...
easy opensuse have one of the better polished kde desktop
nice documentation
a lot of package
stability
one click install
also opensuse adhere to FHS
don't follow the standard is often good...
arch linux don't really use standard filesystem... and that allow to boot very quickly...
don't forget the standard os of the majority of user is windows...
Member since:2006-09-19
Yes, Windows is on the desktop. Desktop, this dready places where people create Powerpoint slides and double-click mail attachments, among other things. This a different league. And I don't see how OpenSuse or any other distriution will ever be a major success on the desktop.
I see the server as the more promising market. I am running SLES on one of my servers for a customer. I never got the hang of it. Package availability is a joke, the whole system is a pain to maintain and to administrate in comparison with sane Linux distributions.
But fine, keep OpenSuse on the desktop. I can see that is offers some incentives there if you don't demand to much or are new to linux. No offence meant.
Member since:2007-08-17
Not wanting to turn this into a flame war about YaST, but...
yast is just a front end to reduce the need to use console...
you can use suse without using yast...
SuSE might be 'just a front end', however SuSEConfig (one of the main tools it is a front end to) is integral to making SUSE what it is. Yes, SuSEConfig can be disabled, but you lose a lot of what makes SUSE what it is.
Also, to say that the purpose of YaST is to 'reduce the need to use a console' completely ignores the fact that YaST is the only Linux system configuration tool which is equally usable in both a graphical and console environment (the only system configuration tool fullstop, AFAIK).
IMO SUSE has the most complete set of configuration tools of any distro, nothing else come close - and it often works without any problems. However, if you need to make changes outside of YaST or use certain non-SUSE packages (e.g. server software that interacts with other software configured by YaST), you would be well advised not to - unless you REALLY know what you are doing (i.e. are prepared to find and read documentation, config. files and even the occasional PERL script).
Member since:
2006-09-19
I have been hearing arguments like this before and I usually retort "then why use OpenSuse after all if you put that much effort in switching off all the Suse specific stuff?"
And no, at some point Yast is not a front-end that you just disable to get a common Linux environemnt. There are several configuration files and scripts that are very unique in their syntax and location.
That OpenSuse is regarded to be LSB compliant only shows how flawed the standardized LSB tests are.
Edited 2008-06-16 14:42 UTC