PDA

View Full Version : Novell gets smart: OpenSuSE.



darkmatter
August 3rd, 2005, 10:03 PM
http://os.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=05/08/03/1246236&tid=2&tid=138

The link says it all...

...Gotta love it when the big boys play. Yet another step towards a brighter future for Linux.

TravisNewman
August 3rd, 2005, 11:08 PM
Best news I've heard all day.

Freddy
August 3rd, 2005, 11:45 PM
Yep real nice to hear the news about SuSE, won't use it though :)

kvidell
August 3rd, 2005, 11:59 PM
Yep real nice to hear the news about SuSE, won't use it though :)
Ditto.
My fiance is in love with it but I _hate_ YaST with a passion.
I wouldn't mind if they didn't make it a default setting that the password you use when issuing commands via sudo is the root password. Kind of defeats the purpose, but what do I know? I'm just some silly Debian/Gentoo freak.
- Kev

Paul Bramscher
August 21st, 2005, 03:07 PM
http://os.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=05/08/03/1246236&tid=2&tid=138

The link says it all...

...Gotta love it when the big boys play. Yet another step towards a brighter future for Linux.

Whoa, I don't know how I missed this news...

Thing is, the big corporations giveth and they taketh. We'll see what their long-term committment is, whether it'll be just a testbed for their enterprise OS versions, or a bona fide production-grade OS. I've got 2 or 3 boxes to play with. I'll keep Ubuntu on my main box, maybe FC4 on another and give opensuse a shot on the last.

If opensuse is what it purports to be, then great! But the thing with linux is that in many ways the distros are complimentary, and needn't compete with one another.

Arktis
August 21st, 2005, 03:19 PM
Well, I for one have never even tried yast or SuSe. I'm going to take this opportunity to do so. Thanks for posting this topic, darkmatter.

weasel fierce
August 21st, 2005, 07:36 PM
Score one for the good guys :)

darkmatter
August 21st, 2005, 07:55 PM
If opensuse is what it purports to be, then great! But the thing with linux is that in many ways the distros are complimentary, and needn't compete with one another.

It's not about competition. It's about the freedom to choose, and I can't help but smile when another distributor gives us that choice.

I'm still sticking with Ubuntu, but I know of several boxes that refuse to run anything but SuSE. Now they can run a full install without the missing features of previous 'free' versions, as by going 100% FOSS, Novell have fixed the mistakes of the past.

And by doing it with one of the most popular distro's out there is a good thing.

By the way, if your interested, head over to openSUSE.org (http://opensuse.org/index.php/Welcome_to_openSUSE.org) to see just how dedicated they are.
Boston is out (10.0 Beta 2), and OSDir has the shots (http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/slideshow.php?release=415&slide=3&title=opensuse+linux+10.0+oss+beta+2+screenshots). One of the first things I noticed is that it appears they have rebuilt SaX2 from the ground up.

TravisNewman
August 21st, 2005, 08:19 PM
So is the default SUSE desktop Gnome now? They seem to have put a lot of work into it, and it looks GREAT. I'll be trying it out when the cable gets turned back on ;)

darkmatter
August 21st, 2005, 08:40 PM
So is the default SUSE desktop Gnome now?

No, it's still KDE. They have put much more work into GNOME, but it could still use some improvement.

The biggest problem I've always had with GNOME under SuSE is that the desktop takes FOREVER to load...

benplaut
August 21st, 2005, 08:47 PM
how the hell did they get 2 betas out that fast?!

darkmatter
August 21st, 2005, 08:54 PM
how the hell did they get 2 betas out that fast?!

Time warp?

I think the dev's may have discovered a productivity enhancing substance. See the Roadmap (http://opensuse.org/index.php/Roadmap). :shock:

Paul Bramscher
August 22nd, 2005, 04:14 AM
I've been thinking more about what Sun is doing with Solaris, and what Novell has done with SuSE. These companies, arguably, would never have made their OS free if it weren't for distros like Debian, Ubuntu, Slackware, Gentoo, etc. If people didn't have high quality and free distros to chose from, I don't necessarily think we'd get a lot of love from Novell.

In any case, we win! :-D

Brunellus
August 22nd, 2005, 05:37 AM
I've been thinking more about what Sun is doing with Solaris, and what Novell has done with SuSE. These companies, arguably, would never have made their OS free if it weren't for distros like Debian, Ubuntu, Slackware, Gentoo, etc. If people didn't have high quality and free distros to chose from, I don't necessarily think we'd get a lot of love from Novell.

In any case, we win! :-D
...and unlike Sun, novell's linux efforts will be GPL, so everyone will get a chance to pore over their goodies and improve them.

Net result: software gets better. I'm happy!

darkmatter
August 22nd, 2005, 11:07 AM
Net result: software gets better. I'm happy!

Just imagine the possibilities: A gtk+ 2.x build of SaX2 for use with GNOME based distributions. SaX2 was one thing I love about SuSE. Though I have no problem manually editing xorg.conf or using dpkg-reconfigure, there are a lot of users out there who are afraid of anything without a full GUI.

Also, SuSE has always had flawless GL (never had a single problem with 3D accel on a SuSE box).

Now both of these niceties will be available to the GNU/Linux community as a whole. :grin:

Dragonfly_X
August 22nd, 2005, 12:08 PM
how the hell did they get 2 betas out that fast?!

Novell put some major funding behind it. lots of money = lots of developers :smile:

Paul Bramscher
August 22nd, 2005, 05:42 PM
Novell put some major funding behind it. lots of money = lots of developers :smile:

If SuSE *depends* too heavily on a single funding source which could dry up at any time, then that's a shaky thing too.

I've worried about Ubuntu as well, how sustainable is the model? Where would it be without Mark Shuttleworth's backing? Clearly, we're extremely grateful for it -- but if he ever pulls the plug, then what'll become of Ubuntu?

Here in academia, very generally speaking, we get funding one of two ways: (a) through a research grant. This lets you do something quite interesting, and perhaps with no payback, but probably does not allow for perpetually maintaining a project. It's like a city that builds grand hotels or other architecture, then lets them fall into ruin, failing to maintain them. Good one-shot things, but not sustainable. or (b) through firm/recurring money. Nothing's guaranteed of course, but if you have this sort of firmness, you can plan further ahead and be really visionary about it.

So probably the best thing for any distro is to not be overly dependent on a single funding source. The distros with strong communities have a major advantage, regardless of funding. Anyone know whether Ubuntu is perpetually funded (like an endowment?)

jdong
August 22nd, 2005, 07:42 PM
As most of you guys know by now, I'm running SuSE (x86_64 edition, actually) on my primary desktop.

I've had a bit of fun with OpenSuSE via VMWare.

I'm extremely excited. An interesting tidbit most people probably overlooked: APT is included as of beta2, and there's currently talk about YUM being included, too. Even without APT, Yast has excellent dependency resolving skills, both while installing from SuSE's huge repositories and also when installing single rpms (Yes folks, yast -i file.rpm WILL resolve dependencies automatically from SuSE's repos, something that Debian distros have yet to get right). Yast System Update also handles version updates very well over the network or from CD's. SuSE Patch RPM's make security updates just a couple of KB's as opposed to hundreds of MB.

SuSE also includes KRpmBuilder and other sweet build tools, making the developer's life easier.



I'm also astounded at the development pace of OpenSuSE, with major bugs squashed in a matter of hours after being reported...

Note that OpenSuSE beta2 still has some major bugs that make it a pain to use as a mission-critical desktop OS. It's fun to play with, but don't depend on it for day-to-day work. Note that even during betas, SuSE will release a new beta to correct huge problems -- the SuSE repos aren't in live development like Breezy's -- basically, when you install beta2, how it functions now is how it will function until you System Update to a new beta (which can be either a good thing or bad thing -- you decide)

poofyhairguy
August 22nd, 2005, 08:07 PM
So probably the best thing for any distro is to not be overly dependent on a single funding source. The distros with strong communities have a major advantage, regardless of funding. Anyone know whether Ubuntu is perpetually funded (like an endowment?)

Yes. Mark set up a foundation for Ubuntu and gave it $10 mil.

KiwiNZ
August 22nd, 2005, 08:45 PM
I am also running Suse 9.3 on my main machine and it is excellent. I am watching the development 10 with interest . Currently I have no urgent need to install 10.

Just as a side note Suse 9.3 was the only Distro to make all my hardware work on install , including my WIFI .

darkmatter
August 22nd, 2005, 11:02 PM
Just as a side note Suse 9.3 was the only Distro to make all my hardware work on install , including my WIFI .

Even though I now use Ubuntu as my primary OS (I believe in learning through full immersion - so the best way to learn a new distro is to immerse myself in it an all its quirks), I've always loved SuSE's almost magical hardware detection/configuration.

When it comes to the underpinings of the OS and X, SuSE has always came across as the most bug-free distro I've used (and I've used MANY distro's)

crane
August 23rd, 2005, 12:20 AM
Very cool news. I decided I would download and install on my test machine as well. Man 5 CD's !!!! I've gotten used to Ubuntu and the single cd install. I used Blag before Ubuntu and it too had a single cd install.
Gonna take a while to down 5 cd's now. I have tries Suse before and thought it was OK. Kind of bloated but OK.

trivialpackets
August 23rd, 2005, 12:49 AM
As most of you guys know by now, I'm running SuSE (x86_64 edition, actually) on my primary desktop.

I've had a bit of fun with OpenSuSE via VMWare.

I'm extremely excited. An interesting tidbit most people probably overlooked: APT is included as of beta2, and there's currently talk about YUM being included, too. Even without APT, Yast has excellent dependency resolving skills, both while installing from SuSE's huge repositories and also when installing single rpms (Yes folks, yast -i file.rpm WILL resolve dependencies automatically from SuSE's repos, something that Debian distros have yet to get right). Yast System Update also handles version updates very well over the network or from CD's. SuSE Patch RPM's make security updates just a couple of KB's as opposed to hundreds of MB.

SuSE also includes KRpmBuilder and other sweet build tools, making the developer's life easier.



I'm also astounded at the development pace of OpenSuSE, with major bugs squashed in a matter of hours after being reported...

Note that OpenSuSE beta2 still has some major bugs that make it a pain to use as a mission-critical desktop OS. It's fun to play with, but don't depend on it for day-to-day work. Note that even during betas, SuSE will release a new beta to correct huge problems -- the SuSE repos aren't in live development like Breezy's -- basically, when you install beta2, how it functions now is how it will function until you System Update to a new beta (which can be either a good thing or bad thing -- you decide)
I too am currently using Suse 9.3. I still recommend ubuntu to many, but Suse has been very good to me as of yet, and there is little left to be desired. I love the KDE, and the gnome is pretty good as well, and while I don't think the RPM's are as good as debs, Suse has gone further than any other RPM based distro IMO to remedy the problems I've had with RPMs in the past.

asimon
August 24th, 2005, 11:20 AM
No, it's still KDE.
Is KDE really the default? In beta2 I was asked by the installer if I want a KDE or GNOME desktop, there was no default per se.

Paul Bramscher
August 25th, 2005, 07:08 PM
Is KDE really the default? In beta2 I was asked by the installer if I want a KDE or GNOME desktop, there was no default per se.

In SuSE 9.3 Pro it was KDE. I put it on an older box. Looks pretty good, but unless I was missing something it seemed like base system didn't quite allow me a granular choice of all the apps. that actually got installed.

For instance, it put RealPlayer on my box. I haven't really liked that piece of software for the past several years, and at times I consider it to be malware. It was easy enough to uninstall, but I'll have to hunt around more carefully.

So there's an important advantage with a purely FOSS philosophy like Debian & Ubuntu. Start out there, then add whatever you want (limiting your control/freedom/knowledge/etc. to your comfort level as opt-in rather than opt-out).

Still, if you have a couple different boxes to play with, and most of us do at this point, then you can put Ubuntu on your best box, distro-play with your second-best box, and put XP on your worst one to run legacy apps. :razz:

jdong
August 25th, 2005, 09:42 PM
KDE's certainly gets the most attention. SuSE has a long history of customizing their KDE until you can't really call it KDE anymore. Way back in the early 3's, SuSE was the first to add the Fast User Switching functionality, add QT Native Widgets to OpenOffice, and have their Mozilla-like browsers and other GTK stuff blend in with KDE, have a Power applet that can issue ACPI commands, change throttling, and otherwise interact with the ACPI subsystem in ways regular users don't.

GNOME in SuSE is still rather unpolished, even in the 10.0 betas. There are programs that don't blend in, and the general experience isn't as integrated as with KDE. You definitely get the most out of SuSE by using KDE. As far as using GNOME on SuSE, it isn't gonna be as "integrated" yet as Ubuntu's or RedHat's GNOME, but it certainly beats the straight varieties (Debian, Gentoo, and other WM-neutrals) by a lot.

jdong
August 25th, 2005, 09:55 PM
In SuSE 9.3 Pro it was KDE. I put it on an older box. Looks pretty good, but unless I was missing something it seemed like base system didn't quite allow me a granular choice of all the apps. that actually got installed.

Well, true, I do admit, SuSE does select quite a complete system by default. I personally don't mind... I've trimmed down the default KDE to my usually likings before, and I saved about 50MB of space on my 200GB RAID5.... big deal. Was that really worth 15 minutes of my time? Not really... SuSE's menu system is extremely well organized. I've installed the entire DVD edition on my system before, and even then the menus are still far more manageable than other distros.



For instance, it put RealPlayer on my box. I haven't really liked that piece of software for the past several years, and at times I consider it to be malware. It was easy enough to uninstall, but I'll have to hunt around more carefully.

SuSE has RealPlayer because it's the only legal way of playing MP3's under Linux (Real actually paid out the MP3 royalty). The Linux version isn't as naggy and annoying as the Windows one, so I've found it tolerable. It's a nice 'safety net' until I get my codec packs installed. After that, good bye!



So there's an important advantage with a purely FOSS philosophy like Debian & Ubuntu. Start out there, then add whatever you want (limiting your control/freedom/knowledge/etc. to your comfort level as opt-in rather than opt-out).


Actually, Ubuntu doesn't fall into that category. Its default setup is pretty much set in stone, but it is much more minimalist than SuSE's defaults. Debian and Gentoo just take the opt-in philosophy too far -- I typically spend more than an hour selecting packages. In fact, I also tend to forget to select some stuff, and have to interrupt my work routine to pull up apt-get again.... ARGH. :)

I personally rather trim down a slightly overinstalled default system than have a painful first-week filled with "bash: command not found" messages. Since both debs and rpms uninstall quite cleanly (unlike certain MS OSes), having a working system to begin with is much better. I tend to get paranoid about running out of space, but my Hoary->Breezy install (which lasted a record 5 months) only had 60GB of data, 30 of which were disposable ISO's. Only about 10GB was software, and another 8GB was Backports support stuff.

"Extra Software" really doesn't add on that much, and I personally like installing a full system. On SuSE, I think it's about a 10GB-ish full install from the 5CD set for x86 (there's significantly more large packages on the DVD, and x86-64 installs lots of slotted 32-bit compat libs, so disregard that!), which on a modern system should be the least of your troubles :)

Paul Bramscher
August 25th, 2005, 11:09 PM
Actually, Ubuntu doesn't fall into that category. Its default setup is pretty much set in stone, but it is much more minimalist than SuSE's defaults. Debian and Gentoo just take the opt-in philosophy too far -- I typically spend more than an hour selecting packages. In fact, I also tend to forget to select some stuff, and have to interrupt my work routine to pull up apt-get again.... ARGH. :)


What's in the Ubuntu base/default install (not counting universe) which is not free/open source?

Most people aren't running 200 GB/RAID systems at home -- but I still found openSuSE 9.3 to perform reasonably well on my 5 year-old PIII 800, 512 MB RAM, 8 MB video, 12 GB HD. I picked & chosed the packages, but added all of KDE and all of Gnome. openSuSE took up 35% of the drive (just a bit over 4 GB), still giving me enough space to keep it useful.

This has always been another key advantage with linux (in general), a way to keep older machines useful. xfce, print server, firewall, whatever you want. Or take a box like old one -- worth almost nothing on the market today -- spend about $175 for a 250 GB drive, and suddenly it's a reasonable fileserver.

jdong
August 27th, 2005, 02:27 AM
What's in the Ubuntu base/default install (not counting universe) which is not free/open source?

Sorry, misread your original statement. Thought it was along the Gentoo lines of typing in every single specific package you want = freedom of choice ;).



Most people aren't running 200 GB/RAID systems at home -- but I still found openSuSE 9.3 to perform reasonably well on my 5 year-old PIII 800, 512 MB RAM, 8 MB video, 12 GB HD. I picked & chosed the packages, but added all of KDE and all of Gnome. openSuSE took up 35% of the drive (just a bit over 4 GB), still giving me enough space to keep it useful.

True, usually people don't go crazy like that! I only have the RAID thanks to a fellow Ubuntu Forums user, who graciously donated 5 hard drives to support the Backports project cause.

SuSE is a great performer, especially with the help of reiserfs (it's not just reiserfs like Ubuntu's or vanilla's -- SuSE heavily tweaks and stabilizes their Reiser) as the default filesystem. I currently use it as a development platform on a 600MHz laptop in robotics, and it runs the default KDE and KDevelop just beautifully!


This has always been another key advantage with linux (in general), a way to keep older machines useful. xfce, print server, firewall, whatever you want. Or take a box like old one -- worth almost nothing on the market today -- spend about $175 for a 250 GB drive, and suddenly it's a reasonable fileserver.

Absolutely. The comps my school's throwing out (high P3's, low P4's) which just choke with a fully networked and loaded XP install, are great standalone servers. In fact, with permission, I setup a Squid+DansGuardian proxy on a high P3 using SuSE 9.3, and it outperformed their dual Xeon Novell BorderManager server! (probably a misconfiguration on their part, but hey, it was a huge wakeup call for the netadmin)

eyal_allweil
October 30th, 2005, 10:20 PM
My two cents is that yesterday, on my way to work (SAP in Israel), I noticed the words Novell SuSE in big letters on the building across the street.

I wonder if it's marketing or more?