Open Suse vs. Ubuntu- my take so far on install

[carlos1969]

I am checking out OpenSuSE

first the download of the ISO, Ubuntu wins hands down. It took me about 30-40 minutes to download the Ubuntu ISO, (I have DSL, not the fastest but it is DSL)

Open SuSE however requires 5 ISO's to install. I used Ktorrent to download the ISO's. It took 9 HOURS!!!!](*,) ](*,) ](*,) ](*,)

why can't they make just one ISO?

I installed Ubuntu in about 30 minutes, maybe a little less.

OpenSuSE...well let's just say it has been an hour and I am just finishing :rolleyes: :mad: :mad:


Ubuntu wins on both the download and install:KS

[carlos1969]

now that opensuse is installed, it looks pretty sharp. I installed the Gnome desktop just to compare and the Gnome Desktop looks better on Suse. I wonder though why it took so long to download and to install. I installed 3 out of the five disks. It did not ask for the other two. I tried to install them through all the ways I knew how and nothing....

oh well. I do got a working system and it seems good.

[hermesrules]

I just recently gave a try to OpenSuse 10.2 myself, as I had overwhelmed my Kubuntu Edgy (I actually started on Hoary and have been dist-upgrading ever since).

I personally preferred the DVD install - even though it took me about 17 hours on my DSL connection, I think it was well worth it. You end up having one medium, not 5 (which is a lot, I agree) with most of the software on it (but don't think you'll do well without an internet connection at some point anyway). In any case, it saves you the hassle of having to account for multiple disks at the time of installation or when you do upgrades. One of the first things I did after the system was installed, was to add online repositories, and disable the DVD repository, which is put there by default.

So far, I must admit I've been impressed with OpenSuse 10.2. Of course, I dumped Yast package management very quickly and replaced it with smart. It seems to be that a lot of Suse folks have been doing the same, and I wonder if in the next version the Suse guys will dump Yast altogether as a package manager, and replace it with something more intuitive and better at dependency handling. Of course, this is just my opinion as a long-time Kubuntu user used to apt-getting software. Yast somehow did not feel right to me.

Since I own a relatively old laptop, I also have a very old and not very fast ATI card. I don't know what Suse did, but KDE is times faster on OpenSuse than it is on Kubuntu with the OSS driver for the radeon chip. Getting XGL to work is also very, very, very easy (I can't possibly stress that enough), and beryl was actually quite stable. It worked really well on my slow machine, while on Kubuntu it would take ages to move a window around. In the end, it didn't matter that much since running XGL actually slows things down quite a bit, and video becomes rather choppy. So I reverted back to XOrg, cursing my current inability to buy a decent laptop with a decent video card.

Everything else went rather smooth during the installation. I spent some good time configuring things, as with any other OS I have ever installed. Oh, and I absolutely think that the Suse start menu is an improvement over the traditional KDE menu. There are some other perks (in my view) of Suse, which I had missed on Kubuntu, so I am giving OpenSuse a try, let's see where I go.

What Suse does not really have, or at least I have not yet discovered, is the amazing community like Ubuntu does. I have learned the most about Linux on these forums, not anywhere else, and I consider myself a Linux enthusiast, no expert in any way or professional capacity. I guess a desktop Linux user well matches my experience with Linux so far...

Happy New Year to everyone, and best of luck!

[_simon_]

As far as I know you do not need all 5 CD's. It will install with one, however the extra CD's have extra software on. If you choose to install with the 1 CD then it downloads the extra software.

I tried OpenSuse 10.1 a good few months ago, whilst it looked very professional YAST was broken and I was unable to download anything!

[SpEcIeS]

You could have used the net install method. For many versions of SuSE have provided this option.

[dca]

Simple desktop install require first three CDs of the set... I agree, if you have a DVD drive, a DVD ISO is a better way to go...

The whole discussion of one CD install vs five is unimportant, really. The Ubuntu peoples think one CD install for desktop and one for server is where it's at. The problem with that ideology is what if you want a server install w/ DE. Then you're back to d/l'ing and installing add'l packages, etc. The same goes for multi-CD installs. "Oh man, it took twelve days to d/l openSUSE 10.2".... But, for Linux admins, having one kit whether you're doing a server install or desktop install is all there.... I dunno', there is no clear answer. Just use whatever you're comfortable with...

[barnabas]

I have been using ubuntu for about a year and a half now. I didn't really like gnome so I tried out Kubuntu and Xubuntu...Xubuntu ran very quickly, but I didn't like its lack of "extra" features. Kubuntu was just too slow but I loved the KDE environment. Lately I have been having problems with my Kubuntu installation not shutting down properly and packages not installing correctly. I had heard that Suse seems to have a "faster" KDE desktop so I figured I would give it a try.

I installed it about 2 days ago and it really does run quicker than Kubuntu. Although it doesn't start up quicker. For the most part I enjoy Suse a lot more than Ubuntu because the system just worked. I have flash, java, and everything else "extra" already working. In Ubuntu I had problems with automatix installing these things. The community is horrible compared to Ubuntu's, but I think I can get over that. And I don't like Yast at all....I think I will try replacing it with smart.

The ISO is huge, but I haven't had to download anything for new package installs. Everything I have wanted to install after the initial installation has just asked for the dvd. I pop the dvd in and it installs in seconds.

[floke]

You evil, wicked creatures. Haven't you heard about the Novell-MS deal?
You should throw your SUSE in the bin forthwith and promise never to be so naughty again.

It's not big. It's not clever. And it's not Ubuntu!

[pain of salvation]

openSUSE 10.2 just rocks.

[Quillz]

I'm pretty sure openSUSE only needs the first CD to install, with the other four being filled with extra, non-essential packages. Frankly, I just spent a little extra time getting the DVD ISO, which has everything you could need on it.

[ucsdrake]

ive just d/led both the DVD ISO of OpenSUSE 10.2 and the ISO of Kubuntu 6.10

i believe im going to stick with Ubuntu but being new to linux ... i want to try out all the distros!

[Quillz]

openSUSE 10.2 just rocks.
I agree. I use it on my laptop, and I actually prefer it to Ubuntu, to be honest. Whereas my monitor didn't work properly on a fresh Ubuntu install, it worked out of the box perfectly with openSUSE. And even though it uses .rpm instead of .deb, its package manager is still very similar.

[kazuya]

Well, I shall be trying this out this evening on a separate PC.

[kazuya]

I tested SUSE out yesterday. I could not even get it to install or configure my network. This is something, Ubuntu, pclinuxos, mepis, and Sabayon do even from the livecd form and after install. I was dissapointed with this part, granted I knew how to later on do this after logging in from the system or admin module.

Another disspaointment is that with the Opensuse 10.2, it seems to install just like with Windows XP. It was a lengthy process {30 minutes.} At the end, I could not boot into gnome which was my selected desktop. I guess I shall try to install with kde. I am not given the option to install both kde and gnome; just one or the other.

Upon going to the terminal or fail safe, xconfig / xorgconfig command would not work. The boot screen comes up, but gnome would not load.

Not a success story for me. What does it mean by clone autoyast. A lot of things were left in the air. I was not impressed at all thus far. I shall try again this evening after refering to their forum again. Not much help there. Then again, I should have posted my error message. That was my fault.

Still zenwalk, wolvix, pclinuxos, mepis, sabayon, mint, vector linux., almost every other distro I have thrown at it has worked with the exception of Opensuse 10.2, which I am sure would eventually work.

I shall give it one more try tonight. I just want to see how it works and where the polish is so I can compare. Still pending. Right now, it is easier for me to use any other distro than this one.

[Quillz]

I tested SUSE out yesterday. I could not even get it to install or configure my network. This is something, Ubuntu, pclinuxos, mepis, and Sabayon do even from the livecd form and after install. I was dissapointed with this part, granted I knew how to later on do this after logging in from the system or admin module.

Another disspaointment is that with the Opensuse 10.2, it seems to install just like with Windows XP. It was a lengthy process {30 minutes.} At the end, I could not boot into gnome which was my selected desktop. I guess I shall try to install with kde. I am not given the option to install both kde and gnome; just one or the other.

Upon going to the terminal or fail safe, xconfig / xorgconfig command would not work. The boot screen comes up, but gnome would not load.

Not a success story for me. What does it mean by clone autoyast. A lot of things were left in the air. I was not impressed at all thus far. I shall try again this evening after refering to their forum again. Not much help there. Then again, I should have posted my error message. That was my fault.

Still zenwalk, wolvix, pclinuxos, mepis, sabayon, mint, vector linux., almost every other distro I have thrown at it has worked with the exception of Opensuse 10.2, which I am sure would eventually work.

I shall give it one more try tonight. I just want to see how it works and where the polish is so I can compare. Still pending. Right now, it is easier for me to use any other distro than this one.
That's an odd situation. For me, openSUSE was just the opposite. So far, it's been the only distro to work with all my hardware w/o needing any additional drivers or configuring. I like it even more than Ubuntu, to be honest.

[kazuya]

How fast is the process of getting new updates from yast or smart versus debian's synaptic? How easy is it for you to have or add other DEs like gnome, kde, xfce, enlightenment, etc.

For me, install seems to work, but then after I enter in my login name and password, it refuses to log me in due to x configuration, etc. I have tried gnome and kde install options from the ISO DVD and was still unsuccessful. It appeared to detect all of the right peripherals, but even when doing the install and network detect, it fails everytime where every other distro passes. I wonder if it needs to pass the network test to get proper drivers for configuring my system. I did failsafe once, but do not know what commandline to use for configuring my network system.

I want to know how to use Suse since it is among the top distros. I do not think I could use it daily for my personal use as it seems troublesome thus far, plus the MS partnership.

It looked okay, but the install process was not as easy or as polished as say Sabayon or even most other distros I have used. For example, it asks me LDAP, NIS, or something for my network setup type. I was expecting like DHCP options, etc..

It doesn't appear to recognize xconf / xconfig from the failsafe mode. I guess I shall not go further, but I really wanted to just see what the buzz was all about and learn how to troubleshoot the rpm-based distro so it becomes a new skill in my arsenal.

X fails for me on it. How do I fix X or reconfigure X on Suse?

[Hendrixski]

hhmmm. 10.2 install CD doesn't install GNOME for me, so I installed it with KDE, and now I can't install GNOME easily. YaST is a pain in my ***, it takes too long to initialize each time.

I guess I'm spoiled by Ubuntu.

[Scheater5]

I'm all for trying new things and new distros - I've devoted one computer to just that, as a "sandbox." This weekend I set up a triple-boot - Windows 2000, OpenSuSE 10.2 and Kubuntu Edgy. I've had prior experience with SuSE, but as others have said, the community is nothing compared to Ubuntu. And I'd like to add that the documentation pales in comparison to Ubuntu, too. It took forever to find out how to add online repositories, and even longer to find a repository (which I eventually found in a forum, not even in a guide).
But once I got that taken care of, I like it well enough. From a philosophical point of view it will never be my primary OS - but part of the first things I do when installing a distro is to install some things of questionable legality anyway. I still prefer Kubuntu, but I do think it looks more "polished" than Ubuntu - there's nothing for hooking someone into trying Linux like seeing scenes from SuperTux on Grub and the sound played on startup. They're minor details to me, but they almost convinced my girlfriend to let me put Linux on her laptop by themselves!!

[rfruth]

I use Ubuntu & Mint (Bea) all is well - am going to give openSUSE (10.2) a whirl, whats on the add on CD, (# 6) do I need it ? (only download the first three install CDs so far) signed totally new to opensuse, ideas / suggestions :mrgreen:

[julian67]

OpenSuse repositories and mirrors:

A good place to start for everything openSuse is Welcome_to_openSUSE.org (http://en.opensuse.org/Welcome_to_openSUSE.org)

From there you can easily navigate to Additional_YaST_Package_Repositories (http://en.opensuse.org/Additional_YaST_Package_Repositories)

and to Mirrors_Released_Version (http://en.opensuse.org/Mirrors_Released_Version)

Suse has long had a reputation for some of the best documentation in the Linux world. That hasn't changed. For superb docs you can go to Novell openSuse Documentation (http://www.novell.com/documentation/opensuse102/index.html)

Docs are available as html and pdf. Currently available are:

Getting Started

openSUSE 10.2 Start-Up
KDE Quick Start
GNOME Quick Start

User Guides

KDE User Guide
GNOME User Guide

Administration

openSUSE 10.2 Reference Guide
AppArmor 2.0.1 Administration Guide
AppArmor 2.0.1 Quick Start
Additional Information
Release Notes html

The full user guides are comprehensive. The quickstarts are great for anyone new to Suse or Linux in general. The docs are well structured, well written and with great use of screenshots. You could use large parts of them as a guide to any Linux distro which uses Gnome or KDE (as applicable).

For community docs there are superb howtos in the wiki at suselinuxsupport.de (http://forums.suselinuxsupport.de/index.php?)

and also at suseforums.net (http://www.suseforums.net/)

The level of expertise and experience at these forums is outstanding in every respect and they are extremely well moderated. The relative absence of erroneous advice is very noticable compared to some of the larger and newer Linux community forums.

@ rfruth

The extras CD includes proprietary packages such as java, opera , flash plug in and so on. If you install from only the 1st 5 Cds you will have a completely Free system. I use DVD (which includes all 6 CDs) but I believe you can install openSuse using only the first 3 CDs and then get anything else you need from the Suse repositories. For the non free stuff there is an official non-oss suse repo. For all the multimedia stuff (assuming you'll be using non-free codecs etc) it's better to get your multimedia stuff from the Guru and Packman repositories. They are listed in the Additional Repsitories page I linked to above. I'd also recommend you browse the forums for howtos and also google for Tweakhound and Jem Report articles on openSuse 10.2, they have some nice walkthroughs.

[Peacepunk]

It's all a matter of useage, feel, looks, features & so on.

At some point in my past Linux Life, I used to try a lot of distros (gentoo, suse, redhat, ubuntu, xandros, & some I forget): Over a quick look, they usually "feels " the same, using either KDE or Gnome, and with very few noticeable differences.

For some reason, I ended up with Ubuntu-Gnome 6.06 on the widescreen Laptop & SuSE93-KDE on the Desktop: it just feetls right this way, the laptop running Enlightenment DR16 as WM is trully bringing a WOW factor to meetings & presentations I attend with it, while the bulky, slow but dependable KDE in SuSE93 flavour suits the real work on the Desktop front.

How to choose then?

Well, with performing Bootloaders (GRUB here) & cheap hard disk real estate, I always have a Testing Department here on the desktop, where I would play around with new distros (SuSE10.1 already failed the test!) - GRUB will autoupdate your current OS's list, you can enjoy severals, try them fully according to your needs: how easy to install more stuff, how "open" to "closed" source, how works with your work ?

Don't change your OS out of nowhere, just give yourself a partition where you can try it. & compare.

SuSE10.2 do bring an additionnal layer of good-looks to KDE indeed, it makes the difference with the others. Well, KDE is so configureable anyway that you can make it look as sleek or as obfuscated as you like it. And Enlightenment DR16 is natively available for UBUNTU, if you feel like going for the truly non-mainstream attitude.

SuSE is best in Install Config: you choose just how detailled you want it to be, if you feel like "default" it's going to be almost as straightforward as UBUNTU is. Both offer very good Partition tools during install, don't worry about that.

For the Community Factor, UBUNTU rules, clearly. For stability, with this ever-changing 6-month release scheme, well, it's another topic, & I currently stick to the 6.06 Long Term Support one: Why should I change my OS sooften, while my harware remains the same?

As for Install of More Stuff, UBUNTU rules again, but Synaptic is available as a rpm tool on SuSE also.... YaST too slow in SuSE, yes.

Kubuntu never felt convincing to me on the Tweak Settings side, while SuSE does. And Suse is as good in Gnome.

Lot's of Linux, all Linux... BSD needs a Primary Partiton to install! Think of it if you follow my "teting department" advice.

Never forget these are not leisure activity gadgets, we work with them... Both!

):P

@Kazuya:
Strange experience your experience - if you go into details in the software choice scren, you can add both KDE and Gnome (& others), + DCHP is definitely available in tthe Network Config, sware, from hands-on experience.