Why is suse always number 2?

[darkenedday]

okay, so after looking at all the newer posts since openSUSE 10.2 I see that 99% of people on here are amazed, and love it in every way, and have adopted it as there primary linux OS. Personally I have never understood all the hype around ubuntu, it was my first linux distro (I switched a few days after the final release of breezy) like any windows user, (I wouldn't refer to myself as a power user due to the negative conotation given to that name, but I knew my way around a windows box VERY well, of course now I remember nothing because I'm 100% windows free for a long time, other than the box I let my family use) I couldn't figure out anything, the whole filesystem was write only, and I couldn't install limewire, or play any of my music, I had no idea what was going on, but i persevered, and serched the forums, and learned about apt, and synaptic, also how to install a .deb, and compile a tarball, none of it was hard, but if it wasn't for these forums I doubt I would've put up with it much longer, so I am grateful for this wonderful community, and IMO it's the ONLY reason ubuntu is #1 (thats a huge compliment to all of you)

As an OS, I don't see ubuntu as much if any better than most out there, debian seems better imo, it's about equal with fedora, there's nothing really really unique about it at all, it's not very polished, I HATE brown (thus I used kubuntu) it's not very fast, and it's not all that easy to use, like it claims it wants to be, it's newest version is just buggy, or that seems to be the general consenses, I mean, I like ubuntu, but it's nothing special

as an OS openSUSE has it all, it's simple, has a beautiful gui for everything, it's all so simple to configure, sure yast is a bit slow but it's still wonderful, and if it's that big of a deal, install smart and you'll be set, it's fast, with the addon cd or the DVD it comes with everything you need, codecs, flash, java, opera, which is WONDERFUL for people with slow internet connections, it just seems well rounded, pretty and good for everone

why do you think openSUSE isn't #1? what does ubuntu have that it doesn't I stated my reason, I'd love to hear yours :-)

THANKS!!!

[PilotJLR]

Right or not, there is a perception that SUSE and openSUSE are bloated... I have seen it run slower than other distros on my machines too.
Plus some people, such as myself, cannot stand YaST!

I think Ubuntu is still the best choice for a desktop... with Fedora the runner up.

[dasunst3r]

I actually have a few good reasons why I'm using Ubuntu instead of openSUSE:

My Logitech Music Anywhere USB dongle works correctly
Synce works decently
I can compile KeyTouch 2.2.3 without a problem (I have to do so because I have to get the amixer plugin to change Master and Headphone at the same time
Ubuntu's package manager is significantly faster than openSUSE's
Ubuntu is more responsive than openSUSE
Automatix

[coffeecat]

Why is Suse not number one? For me:

10.2 took about 1-2 hours to install on my laptop, which is about an hour longer than it lasted on there. :lol: Compare this to my recent experience with Feisty Herd 4 and PCLinuxOS 2007 TR2 on the same laptop. A little under a half-hour for Feisty and about 10 minutes for PCLinuxOS. Watch PCLinuxOS. I think that may very well climb into the number 2 position. The 2007 version is very impressive indeed.

Xine is crippled by design in Suse. If you want it to do anything worthwhile you have to uninstall the official version and install from an independent repository. A bit confusing for a newcomer.

The system positively discourages you from tinkering with system files. In some cases that's a good thing, but just try editing xorg.conf by hand. Sax2 comes along and rewrites it again. It's like having a demented Mary Poppins following you around clearing up everything.

[karellen]

I've used suse 9.2, suse 10/10.1/10.2/sled 10 - they were the slowest distros on my machine. Fedora worked faster, ubuntu works faster, pclinuxos works faster. yast is terrible with dependencies and speed, the zen updater is a pain (even in sled, which pretends to be an enterprise os, bleah), the installation tooks way too long, the default package selection is too bloated and so on. and when I think that suse was my first serious contact with the linux world...:)
In my opinion no 2 position it's a very very very good one for opensuse...

[Scheater5]

IMO, documentation is what has crippled (and yes, I do feel they've become crippled) Fedora and SuSE. The wiki for SuSE is much better than the official documentation for Fedora (which is apparently frozen at FC5), which I believe is one of the main reasons SuSE is now number two instead of Fedora.
Look at Gentoo. Heck of a lot more complex than SuSE or Ubuntu, or just about any other distro. But it still has a loyal following. It now has a derivitive that's quickly becoming one of the most popular (Sabayon, which I'm on right now). Why do you suppose that is? Have you ever been to the Gentoo site? Browsed the official documentation? Tried to install Gentoo? There's a TON of well-thought-out information, clearly (if brusquely) presented. Even as complex as the install is, just follow the documentation and you'll be good to go.
Now, take a look at SuSE. There is nothing on the official wiki about installing 3rd party repos - at least nothing usefull. You have to dig through the forums to find anything that even indicates how to do it, and then you'll probably still have to figure out the finer points (like the difference between "server" and "location on server" - wouldn't it be easier just to have one line for the whole URL? That's what Yast does anyway - put them together). I know Linux traditionally involves some "lateral thinking" on the part of the user - wonderful. Figuring things out yourself is great for some people - but if you want your OS to be universally accepted, or adopted in a buisness then the documentation must at least be clear and easy to find! Besides, hasn't the cry always been "RTFM" - but how is one to read a manual that doesn't exist?

[mostwanted]

My experience with SUSE was pretty bad. The official repositories were useless having only very few packages, the package management was broken (everyone on the forums recommended that you gave up on YAST and installed Smart instead), the software was fairly dated compared to the latest Ubuntu release (there was about a half a year lag between the two) and I had to use 4 CDs to install it in my language which was really annoying knowing Ubuntu gets by fine with just one CD.

I did like the artwork a lot. The use of blue is an easy way out of the initial hardship of choosing a popular colour scheme, but my favourite parts of SUSE are actually the GTK theme, the Tango icons and the Metacity theme, not the Blue backgrounds and the SUSE logo. Realising that, I went back to Ubuntu and installed those themes until I eventually grew tired of them.

[hizaguchi]

Why is Suse always number 2? I'd say it's a combination of the marketing, slick artwork, and abundance of GUI tools. After all, Distro Watch counts page hits rather than number of actual users, so the distro running the most ads and showing up the most in the news is going to get a hefty boost in the rankings even if it doesn't have any users. On top of that you have a nice looking OS with a reputation for friendly GUI tools to draw in newer Linux users (who probably do most of the distro webpage surfing anyway) and you end up with a ton of page hits. Meanwhile a distro like Debian, with almost no marketing budget and a butt-ugly webpage, is naturally going to slide down the list.

None of this says anything about the quality of the system though. That's why I'm not a big fan of the page hit ranking being displayed right there on the front page. It's just a traffic indicator. I don't see how it provides any useful information at all.

Edit: Oh, woops, what does Ubuntu have that Suse doesn't? In terms of drawing page hits, it has some links to very helpful documentation and an easy to use wiki displayed prominently at the top of the front page. Meanwhile if I need openSuse help I just skip right to the forum or use Google, because their online help is sparse and difficult to navigate. In terms of actual quality and usefulness as an OS, it has more complete repositories and far better package management (Suse tends to break itself on upgrades), and it is an excellent gateway drug to harder Linux abuse, often in the form of Arch, because its GUI tools are just helpful enough, without getting in the way of manual configuration routes.

[happy-and-lost]

The reason I don't Suse:
- Doesn't detect my wireless card and graphics card (Ubuntu did)
- It's fat. Takes forever to boot and eats memory
- RPM makes me want to cry

Otherwise, Suse is very good looking and well thought out.

[Adamant1988]

okay, so after looking at all the newer posts since openSUSE 10.2 I see that 99% of people on here are amazed, and love it in every way, and have adopted it as there primary linux OS. Personally I have never understood all the hype around ubuntu, it was my first linux distro (I switched a few days after the final release of breezy) like any windows user, (I wouldn't refer to myself as a power user due to the negative conotation given to that name, but I knew my way around a windows box VERY well, of course now I remember nothing because I'm 100% windows free for a long time, other than the box I let my family use) I couldn't figure out anything, the whole filesystem was write only, and I couldn't install limewire, or play any of my music, I had no idea what was going on, but i persevered, and serched the forums, and learned about apt, and synaptic, also how to install a .deb, and compile a tarball, none of it was hard, but if it wasn't for these forums I doubt I would've put up with it much longer, so I am grateful for this wonderful community, and IMO it's the ONLY reason ubuntu is #1 (thats a huge compliment to all of you)

As an OS, I don't see ubuntu as much if any better than most out there, debian seems better imo, it's about equal with fedora, there's nothing really really unique about it at all, it's not very polished, I HATE brown (thus I used kubuntu) it's not very fast, and it's not all that easy to use, like it claims it wants to be, it's newest version is just buggy, or that seems to be the general consenses, I mean, I like ubuntu, but it's nothing special

as an OS openSUSE has it all, it's simple, has a beautiful gui for everything, it's all so simple to configure, sure yast is a bit slow but it's still wonderful, and if it's that big of a deal, install smart and you'll be set, it's fast, with the addon cd or the DVD it comes with everything you need, codecs, flash, java, opera, which is WONDERFUL for people with slow internet connections, it just seems well rounded, pretty and good for everone

why do you think openSUSE isn't #1? what does ubuntu have that it doesn't I stated my reason, I'd love to hear yours :-)

THANKS!!!

SuSE is #2 on distrowatch, that means absolutely nothing at all. Where it really matters SuSE/SLED is right there next to Red Hat, and the two are really fighting to be #1. With the new Linux installation talks happening all over the place, Novell and SuSE are primed to be THE most installed Linux distribution on the desktop, I bet Red Hat is really kicking themselves for leaving that market.

[ThinkBuntu]

Ubuntu, upon installation, worked with my wireless (after adding Network manager) and everything else in my laptop seamlessly. I've played around with other distros, but they all are hellish to configure, most notably for Wifi. There's nothing that Ubuntu withholds from me in the way of Linux...so why would I use Debian/Slackware/some other very reputable distro if this works for me without any problems?

If Ubuntu craps out on me, I'll switch. I took the bait before and left Ubuntu after hearing all the criticisms of it and tried Zenwalk, Slackware, and a couple others, and didn't really see the advantages at all. Zenwalk booted just as fast as Ubuntu and ran just as fast, but once I installed Madwifi, my boot time doubled. And that has a reputation, as much or more than any other distro, for blazing speed!

I don't have the appetite to try Fedora, or Suse, or any of the others. I might give FreeBSD or DesktopBSD a spin on my other laptop (MacBook) but that's about it. I think that Ubuntu is the most flexible, current, and overall best Linux distro for a new user or old one. Because, let's face it, 99.9% of us, whether experts or not, are constantly doing tasks that we say make Ubuntu geared towards "Newbies."

Dissent?

[SunnyRabbiera]

Its now a MS product, thats why.... looks like its official too with this thing:
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39286295,00.htm

[Adamant1988]

Its now a MS product, thats why.... looks like its official too with this thing:
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39286295,00.htm

Stop spreading FUD you rabid FLOSS-Zealot.

http://www.novell.com/prblogs/?p=303

Please read/listen-to more than one side of the story before you go crying "The red coats are coming".

[SunnyRabbiera]

as i said it doesnt look like its FUD after all to me with this:
http://www.novell.com/news/press/item.jsp?id=1300&locale=en_US
Seems like Novell is trying to sucker folks in on thier serveers and perhaps after thast lead them directly leading people back into MS's lap.

[r4e]

I actually dumped SUSE over Novell's announcement about collaborating with Microsoft:

http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3641676

I'm sure I'm not the only one to have done that, as a lot of my coworkers were also disgusted about it. There wasn't much of a drop in Google searches for SUSE after the Microsoft announcement, but that may have been from a buzz of people searching for SUSE to read the announcement. However there was a spike in searches for Ubuntu and Fedora around that time:

http://www.google.com/trends?q=suse%2C+ubuntu%2C+fedora

I have to wonder if those spikes were from a large number of people fleeing from SUSE to other distros.

There definitely is a niche to be filled by a company looking to offer a Windows compatible enterprise linux distro as a lot of businesses have Windows workstations with Linux servers. However, Novell may have also shot themselves in the foot as a lot of Linux users absolutely hate Microsoft. That alone is enough to hold them at #2 and possibly even sink them to #3.

[ThinkBuntu]

After the latest announcement, I will never use a Novell Linux product unless I have to. That goes for openSUSE too. I hope that Novell knows that they're now the pariah of the Linux world.

[igknighted]

After the latest announcement, I will never use a Novell Linux product unless I have to. That goes for openSUSE too. I hope that Novell knows that they're now the pariah of the Linux world.

Do you use Evolution for mail? Compiz/Beryl? XGL? These are all Novell developed products (or in the case of Beryl forked from a Novell product, but mostly their code). The fact is Novell is one of the leaders in the linux world when it comes to developing exciting new software and they also have a tremendous distribution as well (SLED). If you think them doing what makes business sense to stay competitive while expanding their linux offerings (while opening them to the community) means they should be boycotted... go for it. You will be missing out on the fullness of what linux can offer.

[darkenedday]

ignighted and I may have had a bit of a spat in about another distro, but I totally agree with him here, novell is playing ball, and doing whatever they can to attract more users. MOST of there userbase is in the U.S. and most other countries are also free market economies (capitlism is not as bad as one my think, even if every so often it breeds a top dog like MS that top dog also becomes a target) they are ONLY signing contracts with MS in order to make life easier for those wanting to switch from MS to linux without all the pain of having to find new ways of doing things, they want things to work together between the two. HOW IS THIS A PROBLEM FOR LINUX? in fact MS payed ALOT more for ALOT less, as i recall the ammount of patents MS payed for was far less than the ammount of pattents Novell payed for and MS payed ALOT more to make the deal, it seems to me that MS is simply making sure it has a software market left after people start switching to linux after the obvious failure vista has become, it's only cya for both companies!

SO PLEASE get over yourselves you zealots, no one like's someone who thinks himself above the rest simply because he believe some company that likes to make a buck is evil, granted I hate MS too, but Novell seems to be doing the right thing and making it EASIER for people to have there choice, isnt that what we're all supposed to be about?? CHOICES?! I'm beginning to think that most people are simply afraid that people will have it easier on linux and be able to work on it themselves and suddenly all these zealots won't be the elitist linux guru's they once thought themselves!

POINT IS

NOVELL IS TAKING STEPS TO MAKE LINUX A COMPETITIVE ENTITY WITH OTHER PROPRIETARY OS'S AND DOING WHAT THEY CAN TO CONVINCE PEOPLE TO USE LINUX, THIS IN THE LONG RUN HELPS US ALL BUT GAINING US MORE USERS AND MORE PRESS!!!

learn to see past your own smugness and look at the bigger picture people!!! just because one's method doesn't match with yours DOES NOT make it wrong

GET OVER YOURSELVES!!! and think of us all!

THANKS!

[julian67]

I'm totally appreiative of GNU and the FSF and what RMS has achieved and I'm still using openSuse. It's an open source distro with no proprietary device drivers or applications by default (you can't claim this of Debian or Ubuntu btw). It was open before the Novell/MS agreement and it didn't change. That agreement covers customers who bought MS products and/or SLED or SLES which are Novell's enterprise products which all include licensed proprietary code and are not free distros. It has no bearing on openSuse or its users.

On the OP's question why is suse always number 2? Gentlemen always come second, it's simply good manners.

[karellen]

Do you use Evolution for mail? Compiz/Beryl? XGL? These are all Novell developed products (or in the case of Beryl forked from a Novell product, but mostly their code). The fact is Novell is one of the leaders in the linux world when it comes to developing exciting new software and they also have a tremendous distribution as well (SLED). If you think them doing what makes business sense to stay competitive while expanding their linux offerings (while opening them to the community) means they should be boycotted... go for it. You will be missing out on the fullness of what linux can offer.

you speak my language man :), I agree with you. what they do and with whom they ally it's their problem, but opensuse/sled are really good, polished, stable distros. that's a fact

[ThinkBuntu]

Do you use Evolution for mail? Compiz/Beryl? XGL? These are all Novell developed products (or in the case of Beryl forked from a Novell product, but mostly their code). The fact is Novell is one of the leaders in the linux world when it comes to developing exciting new software and they also have a tremendous distribution as well (SLED). If you think them doing what makes business sense to stay competitive while expanding their linux offerings (while opening them to the community) means they should be boycotted... go for it. You will be missing out on the fullness of what linux can offer.

Let's see...no (Thunderbird)...no (waste of RAM)...and no (see my second no).

[r4e]

SO PLEASE get over yourselves you zealots, no one like's someone who thinks himself above the rest simply because he believe some company that likes to make a buck is evil, granted I hate MS too, but Novell seems to be doing the right thing and making it EASIER for people to have there choice, isnt that what we're all supposed to be about?? CHOICES?! I'm beginning to think that most people are simply afraid that people will have it easier on linux and be able to work on it themselves and suddenly all these zealots won't be the elitist linux guru's they once thought themselves!

POINT IS

NOVELL IS TAKING STEPS TO MAKE LINUX A COMPETITIVE ENTITY WITH OTHER PROPRIETARY OS'S AND DOING WHAT THEY CAN TO CONVINCE PEOPLE TO USE LINUX, THIS IN THE LONG RUN HELPS US ALL BUT GAINING US MORE USERS AND MORE PRESS!!!

learn to see past your own smugness and look at the bigger picture people!!! just because one's method doesn't match with yours DOES NOT make it wrong

GET OVER YOURSELVES!!! and think of us all!

THANKS!

You made some good points in your first paragraph that I agree with. However, you mistakenly assumed that this is a zealotry issue when it is not. Believe me, I want to see Linux spread and succeed as much as you do. I bend over backwards to help others get Linux installed and learn how to use it.

This is a disagreement over how to spread Linux and I'd prefer to see it spread by the netroots, because that will build a healthier foundation for it to stand on rather than relying on shallow corporate deals with unethical giants like Microsoft. Thankfully I had the choice to switch to a different distribution rather than having to put up with Novell's poor decision making.

It will be interesting to see how long Novell lasts before Microsoft puts them out of business by canceling this deal after Novell becomes dependent upon it. That's what monopolies do--they put smaller businesses out of business. That's why you don't play ball with them, because not only have they renamed the stadium, "Microsoft Field," they also own the umpire.

[darkenedday]

this post was not merley directed at you, however I do not see where you think MS has some kinda of genious buisness scheme, they're bumbling idiots when it comes to law too (exe: lindows vs MS) novell also paid them alot less for alot more :-), and by the way, opensuse is not in any way part of this deal, it is more a seperate entity that simply receives funding from novell, and imo opensuse or even SLED would be better suited for converting users en-masse, in this deal i believe novell has the uperhand, especially with the flop that VISTA has become. I see this more as M$ trying to make sure some of it's software is carried over to the next generation, a linux generation

[RedDwarf]

It's curious. There are two complains:
a) Microsoft Agreement. So, it isn't free software friendly.
b) "It doesn't detects my wireless card". But ths lack of hardware support is because Novell doesn't accepts non-free modules... so, it is too much free software friendly.

[julian67]

It's curious. There are two complains:
a) Microsoft Agreement. So, it isn't free software friendly.
b) "It doesn't detects my wireless card". But ths lack of hardware support is because Novell doesn't accepts non-free modules... so, it is too much free software friendly.

:lolflag: you're right, Novell has managed to upset everyone while still supplying a completely Free default install. That's an impressive accomplishment!

I like the openSuse approach to proprietary stuff and I think Ubuntu's upcoming approach in Feisty is similar in some ways. At the moment when you install openSuse and your Intel wireless card (for example) needs proprietary firmware you can select it from the extra non-oss CD or from within the DVD install disc if you're using that. This is the typical situation with Intel cards, the firmware is proprietary but the drivers are open.

The situation with Ubuntu edgy is rather confused. If you use ipw2200 the proprietary firmware and the free driver are included by default and your wireless card should work right away. If you use ipw3945 the proprietary firmware is not included because it's proprietary but the free driver is in there. So apparently some proprietary firmware is OK but another identically licensed firmware from the same source is not.....hmmmm....someone got confused or made one of those compromises that is so stupid it's only achievable in a committee where the buck stops nowhere. Obtaining and installing the proprietary firmware is no big deal if you expect this type of situation but it's the kind of thing that will lead a new user to think he/she has no wireless support and a big problem.

[darkenedday]

the MS agreement is not so bad as one might think

there are a few ways to look at this but this is the way I prefer to

Novell is using any means it can to promote it's software, (for which you can not blame them) while also staying FOSS software friendly by having a completely free base install, the still very strongly back the linux community and are reponsible for a great deal of the best technological innovations linux has to offer, for this you have got to give them credit. Also by signing the deal with MS they have insured that the typical grandma or joe-sixpack can maybe someday soon still use there MS Word, or other MS product (I know we have open office, however, alot of these typical people would just be bugged by the simple name change, believe me, i know people like this) they may also end up being able to have direct X support and gaming would be possible on the linux desktop, think of that, the one major drawback, conquered. ALSO since they are promoting themselves in this way more people will inevitably become aware of linux in general and the huge advantage to using linux, this is a good step for all of us.

furthermore, everyone seems to believe that MS is some kind of group of legal genuises but this is historicly untrue (MS v. Lindows anyone? MS got fined, Lindows just changed the name to Linspire)

even more furthermore :-P novel got over double the patents in the deal, for less than half the price. . . sounds like a good deal to me

[julian67]

the MS agreement is not so bad as one might think

there are a few ways to look at this but this is the way I prefer to

Novell is using any means it can to promote it's software, (for which you can not blame them) while also staying FOSS software friendly by having a completely free base install, the still very strongly back the linux community and are reponsible for a great deal of the best technological innovations linux has to offer, for this you have got to give them credit. Also by signing the deal with MS they have insured that the typical grandma or joe-sixpack can maybe someday soon still use there MS Word, or other MS product (I know we have open office, however, alot of these typical people would just be bugged by the simple name change, believe me, i know people like this) they may also end up being able to have direct X support and gaming would be possible on the linux desktop, think of that, the one major drawback, conquered. ALSO since they are promoting themselves in this way more people will inevitably become aware of linux in general and the huge advantage to using linux, this is a good step for all of us.

furthermore, everyone seems to believe that MS is some kind of group of legal genuises but this is historicly untrue (MS v. Lindows anyone? MS got fined, Lindows just changed the name to Linspire)

even more furthermore :-P novel got over double the patents in the deal, for less than half the price. . . sounds like a good deal to me

I believe Novell's $ gross will be something like 10 times MS's on the deal....if they survive the MS Borg strategists.

As far as I can tell the deal has no real impact on users of openSuse, it only affects users, or possibly even paying customers, of Suse Enterprise products (SLED & SLES). Even if the very worst happened the openSuse distribution is completely Free by default and the only thing that could ever be lost are the trademarks, because afaik anyone is free to use all the elements of openSuse to make their own distribution without the Suse owned names and logos etc. opensuse even publishes a guide on how to do this and provides tools to assist http://en.opensuse.org/Making_a_SUSE_based_distribution

[darkenedday]

I believe Novell's $ gross will be something like 10 times MS's on the deal....if they survive the MS Borg strategists.

As far as I can tell the deal has no real impact on users of openSuse, it only affects users, or possibly even paying customers, of Suse Enterprise products (SLED & SLES). Even if the very worst happened the openSuse distribution is completely Free by default and the only thing that could ever be lost are the trademarks, because afaik anyone is free to use all the elements of openSuse to make their own distribution without the Suse owned names and logos etc. opensuse even publishes a guide on how to do this and provides tools to assist http://en.opensuse.org/Making_a_SUSE_based_distribution

OpenSUSE is not tied to this deal however the users of the OS still reap some of the benefits, for instance one of my last updates befor doing some distro testing again was the MScorefonts
And I think the big boys at novell can handle the "MS borg strategists" they're nto so bright (just look at there OS, you'd think they'd pick a more reliable system to work for)

in fact, I think novell may end up being the "borg" in this case, this is the first instance of MS showing weaknes, I do believe they are simply trying to make sure some of there software is still supported in the new linux age
:guitar:

[julian67]

OpenSUSE is not tied to this deal however the users of the OS still reap some of the benefits, for instance one of my last updates befor doing some distro testing again was the MScorefonts


This isn't due to the MS deal. The feature is part of the regular openSuse 10.2 install DVD/CD set which was produced before the Novell/MS agreement. It could easily be included in most GNU/Linux distros. Those MS fonts are actually freely distributable as long as they are unchanged. You can download them via sourceforge, there's even a script to handle it for you which I used in Ubuntu.

[mephisto786]

I dropped suse after the pkg manage fiasco in 10.1, then came the MS agreement, then lastly you ll notice that the number two if you check distrowatches last seven days tally is PCLinuxOS....because it is at the moment, very user freindly, quick to install and not wrapped up in controrverseys. Its also apt pkgs system tho the pkgs are a variation on mandriva pkgs......exect to see suse slip further down the list imo...

bad marketing decisions, increasingly buggy Open versions as a testbed for the enterppirse edition and the slow and cumbersome yast.....among other things. Mandrake used to be a fine distro and has sunk in recent yyears for similar reasons, and we wont even get into RH Fedora........ :-P

[RedDwarf]

I like the openSuse approach to proprietary stuff and I think Ubuntu's upcoming approach in Feisty is similar in some ways. At the moment when you install openSuse and your Intel wireless card (for example) needs proprietary firmware you can select it from the extra non-oss CD or from within the DVD install disc if you're using that. This is the typical situation with Intel cards, the firmware is proprietary but the drivers are open.

The situation with Ubuntu edgy is rather confused. If you use ipw2200 the proprietary firmware and the free driver are included by default and your wireless card should work right away. If you use ipw3945 the proprietary firmware is not included because it's proprietary but the free driver is in there. So apparently some proprietary firmware is OK but another identically licensed firmware from the same source is not.....hmmmm....someone got confused or made one of those compromises that is so stupid it's only achievable in a committee where the buck stops nowhere. Obtaining and installing the proprietary firmware is no big deal if you expect this type of situation but it's the kind of thing that will lead a new user to think he/she has no wireless support and a big problem.
Well, there are some subtle different situations:
- ipw2200: Has a 100% free driver, but requires a closed firmware to work. Since the firmware only executes inside the network card, without knowing about the OS, it is something that free software guys can accept... after all we still use closed source BIOS. So openSUSE puts the firmware in the non-OSS CD, but supports it.
- ipw3945: In the same case than the ipw2200, but it also requires a closed source "regulatory" daemon. This daemon is a program running in user-space... not something we really like. The driver isn't even accepted into the mainline kernel. Anyway openSUSE accepts both the firmware and the daemon in the non-OSS CD.
- madwifi/atheros: Is the same case than the ipw3945, but the "daemon" runs in kernel-space. In this case there is a *closed-source kernel module* and openSUSE doesn't supports such a thing in any way. Isn't supported at all because of the same reasons that the nVidia and ATI graphic drivers aren't supported also.

But there are good news, Intel has released a new driver that doesn't requieres the daemon (http://intellinuxwireless.org/?p=iwlwifi). And madwifi guys are working in adding support for the open-source HAL from openBSD to Linux.

[julian67]

Well, there are some subtle different situations:
- ipw2200: Has a 100% free driver, but requires a closed firmware to work. Since the firmware only executes inside the network card, without knowing about the OS, it is something that free software guys can accept... after all we still use closed source BIOS. So openSUSE puts the firmware in the non-OSS CD, but supports it.
- ipw3945: In the same case than the ipw2200, but it also requires a closed source "regulatory" daemon. This daemon is a program running in user-space... not something we really like. The driver isn't even accepted into the mainline kernel. Anyway openSUSE accepts both the firmware and the daemon in the non-OSS CD.
- madwifi/atheros: Is the same case than the ipw3945, but the "daemon" runs in kernel-space. In this case there is a *closed-source kernel module* and openSUSE doesn't supports such a thing in any way. Isn't supported at all because of the same reasons that the nVidia and ATI graphic drivers aren't supported also.

But there are good news, Intel has released a new driver that doesn't requieres the daemon (http://intellinuxwireless.org/?p=iwlwifi). And madwifi guys are working in adding support for the open-source HAL from openBSD to Linux.

Thanks for the explanation RedDwarf, it makes some sense now :)

[deanlinkous]

ubuntu #1
suse #2

Where'd ya come up with these numbers at???? ROFL :D

[julian67]

ubuntu #1
suse #2

Where'd ya come up with these numbers at???? ROFL :D

http://distrowatch.com/

[deanlinkous]

those are how many hits per day....nothing else
It use to be a few hundred was enough to keep you at #1
Weird that Debian has always been around #5.
You do know mandrake was #1 for years and years right? Where are they now?

[julian67]

those are how many hits per day....nothing else
It use to be a few hundred was enough to keep you at #1
Weird that Debian has always been around #5.
You do know mandrake was #1 for years and years right? Where are they now?

Yes but that's the only place making any attempt to record how much interest there is in different distros. The OP doesn't specify that this is the data he was thinking of but I doubt there's anywhere else he could have been looking. It probably doesn't relate very well to the number of linux desktops actually existing as I doubt the millions of corporate users are passing their days online trying to download copies to take home or reading reviews. Really it's just recording trends/fashion/interest/flavour of the month.

Mandrake a few years ago had the reputation of being the most innovative desktop linux, particularly good for laptops. It was probably the most popular distro for home users like Ubuntu apparently is today, with a lot of good press and a big active community. Nothing is guaranteed.

[Churnd]

openSuSE is not number 1 because of it's package management, IMO. ZEN is useless on a SOHO network. I've removed it from my 10.2 installation, and Yast is much better now. It'll be gone completely in 10.3. It still has to be configured with Guru and Packman repos before it's worthwhile, but once you do that, it's a pretty good distro. I actually like the fact that YaST can download the latest and greatest nvidia drivers directly from NVIDIA themselves, as soon as they're released.

If openSuSE had more reliable mirrors, it wouldn't surprise me to see them go to number 1.

In any event, I think I'll keep my triple boot of Vista, Ubuntu, and openSuSE for a while longer. I like each one for it's own reasons.

EDIT: Oh yeah... another reason why openSuSE isn't number 1... it doesn't have near the quality community support Ubuntu does.

[julian67]

openSuSE is not number 1 because of it's package management, IMO. ZEN is useless on a SOHO network. I've removed it from my 10.2 installation, and Yast is much better now. It'll be gone completely in 10.3. It still has to be configured with Guru and Packman repos before it's worthwhile, but once you do that, it's a pretty good distro. I actually like the fact that YaST can download the latest and greatest nvidia drivers directly from NVIDIA themselves, as soon as they're released.

If openSuSE had more reliable mirrors, it wouldn't surprise me to see them go to number 1.

In any event, I think I'll keep my triple boot of Vista, Ubuntu, and openSuSE for a while longer. I like each one for it's own reasons.

Agreed. 10.3 without Zen and with Yast back to working efficiently and quickly for software management will be great. I believe openSuse 10.3 will make it very easy to enable Packman and Guru repos in a similar way to Multiverse being enabled in Ubuntu.

Debian and Ubuntu truly show all the other distros how it should be done when it comes to mirrors. openSuse is OK in this respect but not brilliant.

I've been trying the Feisty releases and Ubuntu is pretty good, Kubuntu still is not great but the big surprise for me was Xubuntu with xfce 4.4. It's incredibly good! Xfce 4.4 is definitely a big improvement over previous versions, it doesn't really lack much compared with Gnome and it can even use Gnome applets. I found that running Xfce with gnome libs so I can run Epiphany, Network-Manager, nm-applet and Gnome keyring it is still much faster and lighter than Ubuntu. It's prompted me to want to try openSuse with Xfce, i think this could be an amzing combination of a lightweight DE and the power of Yast.

[jrusso2]

1. Novell's association with Microsoft alienated alot of linux users.

2. RPM distros are seen as inferior to Debian based

3. Suse is a huge download

4. Suse has a reputation for being bloated and slow.

is that enough?

[ccfiel]

ubuntu rocks! :) what makes ubuntu number one is the community. just go to the forums you find the solution of the problem. :)

[julian67]

1. Novell's association with Microsoft alienated alot of linux users.

2. RPM distros are seen as inferior to Debian based

3. Suse is a huge download

4. Suse has a reputation for being bloated and slow.

is that enough?

1: Yes it probably did.

2: That's not been true for a long time, if it ever was. I use deb and rpm distros and haven't found any performance/ability/stability difference. It's only a packaging format, it isn't voodoo magic. If the packagers do a good job it works and if they don't it breaks. I've several times had the legendary Synaptic/apt fail to recognise and install dependencies. I'd be pretty sure this is down to poor individual packages, not the system as a whole.

3: Yes it's bigger than a one CD distro, but it isn't any bigger than the Ubuntu DVD releases. For anyone with even low end broadband it isn't a problem to download 3.2 GB DVD or the 3 CDs necessary to install openSuse. If you only have dial up then even 1 CD is asking too much anyway so this isn't a real issue. It's only a problem for those who feel compelled to obtain the release with a few hours of its announcement. If you can wait 1 day without mental implosion then all is good :lolflag:

4: That reputation seems to exist mostly on Ubuntu Forums, it's not something you see mentioned in reviews or comparisons often. It's not accurate. If you install Beagle on any Linux distro there is a performance hit and openSuse ships with it enabled, and of course it needs to index your files and so the new user gets the impression openSuse has some major speed problem. Much as I love the features of Beagle I've finally given up on it, it is deadly for performance on Ubuntu too. openSuse and Ubuntu Edgy and Feisty perform almost identically for me. Same modules loaded, same applications, same DE, same performance. Xubuntu is definitely lighter. A default openSuse Gnome install is slightly bigger than an Ubuntu default install, but there's not much difference. I think you can say something is bloated if there is extra memory or storage used without extra function. This isn't the case. And anyway once you install your preferred applications the 2 systems are going to be very similar in size. This is not rocket science.

Imo Ubuntu's incredible popularity has more to do with the biggest marketing hype the free software world has ever seen. Ubuntu is a really fine distro but definitely not better than several others (openSuse, Slackware, PCLinuxOS are all at least as good imo). I guess the desktop CD has the easiest (not the best, only the easiest) installer you can find and this makes a huge impression on people who are nervous of installing Linux and I have to admit that however many installs I do I still feel amazed at how quick and easy it is to install Ubuntu. I prefer the control I get with the openSuse installer but if someone wanted to try installing Linux for the first time I'd suggest they try Ubuntu desktop CD.

[deanlinkous]

ubuntu rocks! :) what makes ubuntu number one is the community. just go to the forums you find the solution of the problem. :)
Sounds about like what you do for every other distro as well :)

[deanlinkous]

Why was the popular kid in school the popular kid.....because everyone said he was the popular kid....
Was he still the popular kid three years later? five years?

Popularity waxes and wanes - that is why I consider steady holding of a ranking on distrowatch a better sign of interest than what flashed to the top today.

Yes but that's the only place making any attempt to record how much interest there is in different distros. The OP doesn't specify that this is the data he was thinking of but I doubt there's anywhere else he could have been looking. It probably doesn't relate very well to the number of linux desktops actually existing as I doubt the millions of corporate users are passing their days online trying to download copies to take home or reading reviews. Really it's just recording trends/fashion/interest/flavour of the month.
Actually, just the way distrowatch records clicks skews it a bit, if I remember correctly how it is set up. Second, a popular distro is likely to stay popular because the hits can come from everywhere so a popular distro with allt he users having links in their sig and on their blogs and every article that is wrote also skews it. But it is fun.... :D

[julian67]

Why was the popular kid in school the popular kid.....because everyone said he was the popular kid....
Was he still the popular kid three years later? five years?

Popularity waxes and wanes - that is why I consider steady holding of a ranking on distrowatch a better sign of interest than what flashed to the top today.


Actually, just the way distrowatch records clicks skews it a bit, if I remember correctly how it is set up. Second, a popular distro is likely to stay popular because the hits can come from everywhere so a popular distro with allt he users having links in their sig and on their blogs and every article that is wrote also skews it. But it is fun.... :D

If someone has the most powerful marketing machine he stays popular. Marketing works, that's why companies spend heavily on it.

Ubuntu hasn't actually existed 5 years or even 3 years but I guess as we're discussing Ubuntu then fanboy hype and exaggeration are all in order :lolflag: It's 2 and a half years since the first Ubuntu release. Slackware has been around 10 years, Suse for 13 or so, Debian about the same, Mandriva/Mandrake 9 years, Red Hat 12 or 13 years. So excuse me but 12 or 18 months topping the hit ranking at Distrowatch doesn't mean all that much. Mandrake was top for three years, look at them now.

[igknighted]

1. Novell's association with Microsoft alienated alot of linux users.

2. RPM distros are seen as inferior to Debian based

3. Suse is a huge download

4. Suse has a reputation for being bloated and slow.

is that enough?

1) FUD, plain and simple... besides, OpenSuse is GPL, so theres nothing to worry about anyway

2) Absolutely false. You only hear this because you hang out on a forum that uses debian packages.

3) True, you only need the first 3 CDs usually though. But with high-speed internet, this is not a big deal IMO.

4) Hahahaha, yast itself can be slow, this is true... but the distro itself is not. You hear this from people (usually Ubuntu users not used to anything else) who just click OK without reading the install steps. There are screens where you pick out exactly what you want to install. If you do this properly, it can be even more lean than Xubuntu if you like.

I do not use Suse. I do not care for suse. It has nothing to do with the reasons you mentioned, as I find then very shallow. I do not use suse because (a) I hate gui package managers. Fedora has the best CLI package manager around (yum), so I tend to use that. I also use apt as it is very good as well. (b) I find the Suse community to be really poor. There are some great individuals, but nothing compared to here or Fedora. And (c), I am used to how a few other distro's work, and I don't care to relearn to get a product that doesn't offer me anything beyond what I already have.

[GrueTamer]

I hope I don't get murdered for saying this, but for me, Ubuntu is number 2...but not to suse. Slackware is and probably always will be my number 1. Why?

1. Stability. 'nuff said.
2. Reliability. I don't think I'll ever distrust a Slackware system. Manual configuration is almost always better than auto configuration in terms of reliability.
3. Speed. Slackware is fast and very well optimized, plus the manual configuration helps out.
4. Knowledge. This is probably my number one reason. Using Slackware makes me configure things through text files and not menus. I don't have pure Slack running at home right now, but I do have a Zenwalk system in the other room and I've used Slack in the past quite often. I've been learning so much about how Linux works from Slack, it makes me really happy with myself.

Ubuntu, however, is great because it makes Linux easy to pick up and simply to configure. For me, the decision isn't easy, it's not straightforward, and it's definitely not a big deal. Ubuntu is an amazing distro, and that's all that needs to be said on the matter.

Note: I'm not much of a super-user with Slack, I'm still learning some of the basics, but yeah, it's a great thing to experience, computing the way I want to. And I don't plan to remove Ubuntu any time soon, the community as well as the distro's greatness are more than enough to keep me using it. If it messes up, I'll just reinstall it and everything will be fine. In short, Ubuntu rocks :KS

Besides, once I'm a little better with Slackware, won't it be nice to have a user who's used to manually configuring stuff all the time around here? :)

[darkenedday]

1. Novell's association with Microsoft alienated alot of linux users.

2. RPM distros are seen as inferior to Debian based

3. Suse is a huge download

4. Suse has a reputation for being bloated and slow.

is that enough?

hmmm

1.) see sig. . . I think I've made my oppinion clear enough on this case. . .
2.)SINCE WHEN?! I actually PREFER using RPM based distros there are more out there on the web, and if the os's package manager is set up right they can be just as reliable and fast if not more so than deb
3.)so? you get ALOT more by default than any 1 CD distro, suse is more a student of the philosophy "give them everything, let them try it, they can remove it later when they have there favorite" OUTSTANDING for people not accustomed to linux apps, and not a big deal for those who are, it's jsut as easy to remove a package as it is to install one if not easier
4.) if you dont actually read the install and just click ok, it will install everything by default, this is you fault not the os's if you actually read and select and deselect what you want or dont then it can be as lean or as bloated as you want it to be

point is, openSUSE and novell have contributed ALOT to the open source community, alot more than ubuntu in my oppinion, in fact what new innovative ideas has ubuntu really came up with that no one else had and everyone adopted? other than these forums ubuntu just offers about the same thing as everyone else.

altho i ordered the openSOLARIS dvd's a few weeks ago, and am looking forward to seeing what some people are calling the most advance os on the planet, can't wait maybe since they're attempting to make it easier to use we might see it in the top on distrowatch some day? maybe even number one?:guitar:

[julian67]

I've been trying Xubuntu Feisty this last week and it is actually brilliant, the most impressive Ubuntu I've used and aside from one or 2 minor problems that are asscoiated with xfce rather than Ubuntu it's superb all the way. I've been trying different things with it so have installed and removed a few times and kept one image backed up of it how I liked it.

OK rpm vs deb

I installed a huge amount of depencencies to get network manager, gnome network manager and a few other utilities working nicely on the xfce desktop. I then used the apt-get autoremove to try to remove the extras. It produced the list and as I read it I was thinking this is important stuff and apt-get autoremove is about to hose my system, but I'll try it, maybe the machine knows best. I went ahead and it hosed my system :guitar: This is exactly the kind of thing people say happens with rpm but I've never managed to achieve it on an rpm based system, only with apt and debs. The apt superiority assumption is really old and is now erroneous. Smart package manager is superior to apt imo and it will be great to see it shipped with Ubuntu in the future (Canonical are one of the groups funding its development).

Xubuntu is the first Ubuntu distro that might tempt me away from openSuse. Regular Ubuntu and Kubuntu don't do Gnome or KDE as well as openSuse (though with Gnome the differences are small) but i've tried installing xfce over a mimimal graphical (fvwm2) openSuse and it's a big task to get things working right, i'm not sure I'd ever be able to really integrate xfce and all the Yast tools, this is something that probably needs to done at the development level. But the Xubuntu devs have done an incredible job with Xfce and Ubuntu. It's slick and very very fast. I'm running a core duo and 512 Mb RAM and I feel this should be enough for any OS and there is no real excuse for apps to be opening slowly but in Gnome on both openSuse and Ubuntu I could probably go make a coffee in the time it takes to open Epiphany, which I wouldn't mind too much if it was preloaded for the next time but it's always damn slow to load. Same browser in xfce and it pops on your screen as you click the icon :) That's just one example but it's similar all the way through with different applications. And if I use beryl it's working more smoothly and not having much impact on system performance. It's the first Ubuntu I've used where the positive 1st impression survives the first week intact...maybe this is a triumph of reality over marketing???

[RedGretsch18]

one of the biggest reasons i switched is that ubuntu's forum was way more helpful and

[juxtaposed]

debian seems better imo,

I tried to install it, it was complicated and I couldn't get it working.

I HATE brown (thus I used kubuntu) it's not very fast,

System - Preferences - Themes

and it's not all that easy to use, like it claims it wants to be,

Easier then any other OS ive used.

it's newest version is just buggy,

Not for me.

I like ubuntu, but it's nothing special

It's a one CD install, apazing repos, live/install cd is combined to one, great installer, gnome, etc.

Seems special to me.

has a beautiful gui for everything,

Isn't it KDE?

I just tried KDE (ive tried it before) and I am now trying to find out how to remove all the KDE applications it put onto my system (that all start with K).

1) FUD, plain and simple... besides, OpenSuse is GPL, so theres nothing to worry about anyway

Noone expects OpenSuse to somehow find some way to stop being GPL. People just don't like Microsoft, or anyone who associates with them.

Fedora has the best CLI package manager around (yum), so I tend to use that.

I tried that and got only 4KB/s, but that was on Core 4.

openSUSE and novell have contributed ALOT to the open source community,

I aggree.

[igknighted]

It's a one CD install, apazing repos, live/install cd is combined to one, great installer, gnome, etc.

Seems special to me.

Well, you could have just described about 20 distro's there, so no, not that special. Ubuntu is great, but nothing amazing when compared to other distro's. It's just another really good one. And really, the Ubuntu installer is terrible compared to Suse, you have next to zero configuration options, even with the alternate CD.

Isn't it KDE?

I just tried KDE (ive tried it before) and I am now trying to find out how to remove all the KDE applications it put onto my system (that all start with K).

It can be KDE, Gnome or Xfce (or even fluxbox I think). You get them all and a choice as to which to use. Thats why you get so many CD's or a DVD. You don't have to install a single KDE app if you don't want to. And you still get those beautiful GUIs for everything.

I tried that and got only 4KB/s, but that was on Core 4.

Repo's must have been busy, I'm using Fedora 7 now and the repos are just as fast, if not faster, than Ubuntu.

[Pobega]

I tried to install it, it was complicated and I couldn't get it working.
Have you tried the Etch installer yet? It's simple to use (My favorite installer next to FreeBSD), and grabs packages straight from the internet through a wired connection.

Easier then any other OS ive used.
Debian and Ubuntu are equally easy, so long as you aren't afraid of learning a few cli commands. But I guess if you use non-free drivers (ATI/nVidia, as opposed to Intel) then Ubuntu is a world easier than Debian is. But those proprietary drivers aren't hard to set up really, as long as you have a good HowTO to follow you should be able to do it in under 30 minutes (Just don't use Xorg 7.2 from Sid's repositories, too new to work with the drivers)

It's a one CD install, apazing repos, live/install cd is combined to one, great installer, gnome, etc.
Debian is a 1CD install (60MB ISO), and it grabs the newest versions of packages from the servers while it installs. Debian's repositories are much larger than Ubuntu's (Including contrib and non-free, I believe the repositories are over 20,000 packages large), and Debian's default desktop is also GNOME. And if you want you can install KDE by booting the CD with install tasks=kde if you want (Xfce works as well). And if you're afraid of the keyboard, then you can install Debian with a GTK+ GUI by running installgui as a boot parameter.

I just tried KDE (ive tried it before) and I am now trying to find out how to remove all the KDE applications it put onto my system (that all start with K).
aptitude search "~i" | grep " k" and go through all of the installed packages manually.


I normally don't respond to posts like this, but I couldn't stand around and let my distribution of choice take hits for no reason whatsoever.

[julian67]

I tried to install it, it was complicated and I couldn't get it working.


Didn't you know that Ubuntu is the word in the Xhosa, Tsonga and Tswana languages of southern Africa that expresses the meaning "I couldn't figure out how to install Debian"?

[Churnd]

Didn't you know that Ubuntu is the word in the Xhosa, Tsonga and Tswana languages of southern Africa that expresses the meaning "I couldn't figure out how to install Debian"?

:lolflag: :lolflag:

[clevin]

i had suse 10.0, and its slow

now, suse 10.2 asks me to download 4G file, and no LiveCD+installCD hybrid, I have to install it before i can check it out like Ubuntu. I just can't do that.

[julian67]

The old jokes are the best :)

[igknighted]

i had suse 10.0, and its slow

now, suse 10.2 asks me to download 4G file, and no LiveCD+installCD hybrid, I have to install it before i can check it out like Ubuntu. I just can't do that.

There is a LiveDVD, but I don't think it can install. So you can check it out, but not easily. Also for the download, you only need the first 3 CDs, not all 4gb of the DVD (although they are nice to have).

[julian67]

There is also a net install CD (mini.iso). It's 44MB.

[Adamant1988]

I think if the openSuSE devs switched to SMART as a package manager, and managed to work with someone for repos that don't suck (can I get my non-free please?) openSuSe would be much more popular.

[Wight_Rhino]

I know it's just Distrowatch, and that it's ranked on page hits not users, but configure it to show the results of the last 7 days and see the result.

Ubuntu #2!

It's been a while since that happened.

[darkenedday]

I know it's just Distrowatch, and that it's ranked on page hits not users, but configure it to show the results of the last 7 days and see the result.

Ubuntu #2!

It's been a while since that happened.

about time if you ask me, I love ubuntu, but pclinuxos is definately better imo:guitar:

[RAV TUX]

SuSE is #2 on distrowatch, that means absolutely nothing at all. Where it really matters SuSE/SLED is right there next to Red Hat, and the two are really fighting to be #1. With the new Linux installation talks happening all over the place, Novell and SuSE are primed to be THE most installed Linux distribution on the desktop, I bet Red Hat is really kicking themselves for leaving that market.

Good points Adamant.

[igknighted]

Good points Adamant.

Agreed.

Very nice avatar Rav

[julian67]

I think if the openSuSE devs switched to SMART as a package manager, and managed to work with someone for repos that don't suck (can I get my non-free please?) openSuSe would be much more popular.

http://en.opensuse.org/Package_Repositories#Non-oss

non-oss = non-free

edit: using the suse repos is a much better experience if you spend some time to find the best mirrors for your location. Using smart with mirrored repos is usually extremely fast.