“A shoot-out between the two most popular distributions of the open source operating system found that each has its strengths, but that SuSE is the best option for people new to the operating system.” Read more at ZDNet.
“A shoot-out between the two most popular distributions of the open source operating system found that each has its strengths, but that SuSE is the best option for people new to the operating system.” Read more at ZDNet.
quick read. not the greatest review though. all of these desktop linux reviews just say the same things over and over, we need something fresh!
I don’t think SuSE has poor fonts, i think the font issue is not a real issue, but just something you are used to or not.
My fonts are fine in suse. For instance the font-settings in mozilla can be adjusted, so that you won’t get tiny fonts.
Since when is SuSE one of the “two most popular” distributions of Linux? You’d think it would be Debian or Mandrake…
What i’m actually saying here is, that after a week using the suse fonts, you’re used to the fonts and you don’t notice anything wrong with them.
SuSE is no where near as professional as RedHat for corporate use, IMO. Home users should not be using Linux yet, specially if they are new to operating systems. But if you have a bunch of money burning a hole in your pocket then I’d buy a broadband connection and download the latest RedHat 8.0 isos from linuxiso.org and check out the updates at freshrpms.net, etc. RedHat has a lot more support than SuSE, from what I have seen on the net, and is not as commercial. Plus if you ask a geek like me how to fix a problem with RedHat we’ll be happy help. Ask me about SuSE I’ll promptly direct you to the SuSE website and their technical support services, because they weren’t nice enough to lend me the software to learn how to support it for free, and I’m too lazy to jump through some ftp hoops, I got better things to do with my time.
If SuSE gave away ISOs I’d have a very different opinion about them.
Suse is the most popular distro in Europe!!
Well from my experiences I would give my father suse over redhat.
Their user management tool Yast is beyond anything in red hat 8.0, most everything is as logical as can be expected for a KDe desktop, and their installation is worlds better than redhat in my opinion.
However the devil for linux is in the details, such as if my father plugs in a usb digital camera, does it bring up the camera application (if one’s installed)? Are the plugins easy for him to download (read, father easy, not geek easy).
KDE’s control panel has along ways to go in this respect too, Xandros or Lindows sees to have the right idea on this, build something logical, spare the options or put in deeper into the panel.
Just my opinion…
-jason
>Suse is the most popular distro in Europe!!
actually according to distrowatch Gentoo is… ;D
I don’t see the real problem with fonts. I know they look horrible in Mozilla to start with, but that’s an easy fix.
http://www.theregus.com/content/4/26770.html
Just a question: Does Suse let you import windows fonts like Mozilla does, or does it have a directory to put them in like red hat, or does it have something else.
Anyway, does anyone know why all the distros don’t have this as default, cause it can’t be that hard, it only took my five minutes to make mine look nice…
all of these desktop linux reviews just say the same things over and over, we need something fresh!
I see it differently. In order for there to be new and “fresh” things to talk about in reviews, new and “fresh” things have to start appearing in Linux distros. If someone goes out and buys a new computer, an OS is already installed, most likely Windows, therefore a reviewer would not write a review talking about the installation process of Windows. Although you can go to the store, or order online, a computer with Linux preinstalled, still the most popular way of trying Linux is installing it manually. One would hope that with each new major release of a distro, the installation process would improve or change, therefore the reviews cover that aspect, but yes sometimes they dwell too long on that subject.
“Suse is the most popular distro in Europe!!”
Hey, you forgot : it’s rock ;-)))
That said, maybe in Germany, but i am not sure, i think Knoppix come first here, if not Debian.
For the rest Debian, RH, some mandrake, Gentoo was growing, but it’s appear they are declining as fast as they have climbed.
Anyway Suse do not propose complete iso, and absolutely no free update ( here is the same for mandrake ), except via hard search on ftp. You may say that is the opportuny or never to setup a full rsync mirror, yes my friend and another waste time on Linux ;-))). More, or rather less, no Gnome in Suse… Red Hat propose iso and a very good automatic update for free, Debian too. You have your answer… Anyway, when you want an exotic and serious package, they always came in two distro release : RH and Debian, and of course tar.gz.
I hardly doubt too that Distrowatch is reliable on the statistic, it’s seem to be more a meeting place for Linux trolls ;-)))
I use Redhat7.3 and KDE3.1rc5. The fonts had always been somewhat blurry until I did the following.
1. Install the packages that the latest kSVG depend on – see http://svg.kde.org/download.html.
2. Install the MS corefonts – see for example http://corefonts.sourceforge.net/.
3. Moved the line /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/msttcorefonts to the top of the catalogue list in /etc/X11/fs/config.
I don’t know which part(s) did the trick but now the fonts are as good as those in Windows2000.
This was a shootout? Wow. Someone’s firing blanks…
I was excited for a comparison, but talking about having installation be easy for someone who doesn’t understand partitioning, or perhaps font suitability, is not a real comparison.
There was a brief mention of stability. Very brief. Is there some elaboration?
What about performance, “feel,” integration across the board, software-installation (eg, RPM-Hell) etc?
Honestly, I’m getting tired of it all. I had to install FreeBSD on a box the other day & I’m wondering why the hell I left FreeBSD for Linux in the first place!
(No, seriously. Why did I? Was I frunk at the time?)
I would say the difference is very little, both have its plus and minuses. If fonts is Red Hat’s only competitive egde against other distributions, then I have pity for them. The reason why I’m willing to bet my money on Red Hat is their services.
For a corporate office, unless you are living in areas where neither Red Hat and SuSE’s services cover you, I would suggest Red Hat over SuSE. RH installer may be harder, but for their target market, it is the sysadmins that is installing, not the user itself. (And if the sysadmin can’t install it, I highly recommend getting a new one).
SuSE’s advantage is the installer and configuration tools, which for Red Hat’s target market (and presumebly SuSE, they never really did tell us who are their main target market), is not really a huge benefit.
As for the article, which targets the consumer as oppose the corporate office, I agree that SuSE remains a better choice. Not only is it easiler to manage, it has better menu layout, better multimedia support, etc. But as for gorgeus, I much prefer Bluecurve to SuSE. But that’s a personal preference, the authors sure have their own personal preference on SuSE’s looks.
The only downside for consumers in SuSE is the fonts, which I’m sure would be fix in the next release, which KDE 3.1 an Qt 3.1 that uses FreeType and XFT2.
> The only downside for consumers in SuSE is the fonts, which I’m sure would be fix in the next release, which KDE 3.1 an Qt 3.1 that uses FreeType and XFT2.
I use SuSE regularly and have no idea why anyone would have a problem with its fonts. Seriously, out of the box, the fonts look as good as they do in Windows.
> Just a question: Does Suse let you import windows fonts like Mozilla does, or does it have a directory to put them in like red hat, or does it have something else.
I believe it’s red-hattish, the font installer allows you to place .ttf fonts in a fonts directory.
It takes a minute to find the font installer in the cluttered menu, but it works fine.
I thought I was doing well with my different coloured
boot menus for various partitions ( for various distros
and/or kernels) til I saw Lilo from the front.
She is fine, with her glassy green eyes.
For the rest Debian, RH, some mandrake, Gentoo was growing, but it’s appear they are declining as fast as they have climbed.
WTF is that about? You spout this kinda crap, propaganda or whatever, then irony of ironies, you quip about linux trolls.
Get a grip dude.
I happen to be part of that gentoo community and if the forums and irc are anything to go by, it’s growing as fast as ever.
I’m puzzled by what sort of a “shootout” this was. It seemed like someone with very little Linux and computing knowledge just goofed around with these two distros for a few hours and made that into the basis of a “review”. Maybe it is just that Debian doesn’t really do PR, but I have always found it strange that the (Gnu)Linux distribution most committed to quality and most preferred by developers is essentially ignored by the tech press. OTOH, I would probably be mad if they reviewed Debian because it would boil down to a “Debian installer sucks” rant. They don’t seem to understand that the installation is something you do once for the life of the machine, no matter how many times the OS is upgraded, and whether it takes 30 minutes or an hour or two is trivial in the long run.
…for most bloated install.
But, SuSE does have an easy as pie font installer, just point it at the font directly in the windows partition and bam! Turn off AA and it works…wonderful fonts.
For the girls that scream “i don’t want to use windows”, then copy the fonts to a directory and point the font installer at that instead. Its so easy its better than RH, i have both and SuSE is better.
Really, SuSE’s fonts sucks. First off, which is also the most important, the default configuration looks sooo bad, while redhat 8.0’s font configuration looks like a dream. Second, SuSE’s font rendering system is very bad, while RedHat 8.0 is using Xft2. And that speaks for itself. It just looks so much better.
Installing fonts in redhat is easier than SuSE as well; just copy your fonts files to ~/.fonts, and your fonts are installed! No need to even flash our root password for this.
I must agree that SuSE looks very unprofessional compared to redhat. I am sad to admit this, as I loved SuSE and yast earlier on, and hated redhat. But things change…
But I am on my way to gentoo already now.
Excuse me, i just stated that SuSE is better and easier, there is no need for you to contradict me on this. There is no need to argue either.
I use SuSE regularly and have no idea why anyone would have a problem with its fonts. Seriously, out of the box, the fonts look as good as they do in Windows.
Yeah, in some unknown dimension. The fonts is so bad that they actually more readable without the AA :-). Use Red Hat for a few days, you may wanna jump off a tower, but after that experience, the fonts in SuSE is really cheap. But anyway, I have yet to find one person who buys a product mainly because of the fonts.
Besides, my problem with low quality fonts isn’t that they don’t look nice, but it is hard to read with it.
David Bruce: They don’t seem to understand that the installation is something you do once for the life of the machine, no matter how many times the OS is upgraded, and whether it takes 30 minutes or an hour or two is trivial in the long run.
But what happens you can’t get past the install? Oh right, “so what” you think. I never figured out deselect. And it is my only choice, I couldn’t get DSL set up on any of my Linux installs (my provider is a weird one, only supports Windows).
Besides, configurating and using Debian is not for the faint of heart. Unless you have a geek to do it for you, I think you are much better off with a less stable more buggier distribution 🙂
Frenion: Installing fonts in redhat is easier than SuSE as well; just copy your fonts files to ~/.fonts, and your fonts are installed! No need to even flash our root password for this.
Easier? Nope. Maybe for people who know about it. It isn’t even mentioned on Red Hat’s guide. Plus, just say you have 4 users. You have to have 4 copies of the same fonts in each user’s ~/.fonts
Ever heard of symlinks rajan?
That said, I am by no means a defender of Red Hat. I don’t want to start a flame war so I’ll end that thought.
Run the SuSE online update after install. The fonts become beautiful. Initially the fonts were the one thing that made me want to keep RH, but after running the online update the fonts are now just as good as RH, if not better.
Now that’s something I didn’t know. Could you provide me/us a screenshot?
I don’t seem to understand the gripe that people have with adding fonts under SuSE. I keep seeing the phrase “just add the fonts to the ~/.fonts directory and they are available”.
With SuSE, they give you a point and click utility that adds them to KDE effortlessly.
I have tried both distros and I can say that
I really doubt that in SuSE, a person new to the
operating system will be able to install a package
that is not included in the distribution.
Contrary to this, there are very few problems with
adding third party software to Red Hat.
More than this, there are things in SuSE (e.g., its
firewall) that can hardly be properly tuned by a newbie.