Goodbye Ubuntu, welcome Suse....OpenSuse

[coolblue]

OK now this is not a distro-bashing article....I'm just sharing my thoughts after using Kubuntu & Suse 9.3 Pro.....

Why I love Suse.....Highlights of Suse 9.3 Pro

1. Comes in 5 CDs with tons of wonderful stuff!
2. KDE 3.4, Gnome 2.10, XFCE 4, IceWM 1.2
3. Java (SDK), Flash and Wine preinstalled & ready to use
4. Opera, Real Player, Adobe Acrobat Reader & PDF-to-HTML converter
5. Web browsers: Mozilla, Firefox, Opera, Epiphany, Konqueror
6. IM clients: Kopete, Gaim
7. IRC clients: KVIrc, Xchat, Mozilla IRC
8. Email clients: Thunderbird, Evolution, Mozilla mail
9. Media players: Kaffeine, Real Player, XMMS, Amarok, Xine, Totem
10. Telephony: Gnomemeeting, Kphone
11. Video editors: Kino, MainActor, MPEG capture & processing
12. Gimp 2.2.4
13. Novell OpenOffice 2
14. Beagle 0.0.8 (Desktop search application), Xen Virtualisation
15. LILO & Grub

For newbies & students
1. Over 100 fantastic free games like Pacman, Lincity, Chess, Supertux, Tuxracer & much much more!
2. Lots of educational stuff like Tuxtype, Kalzium, Ktouch, Rasmol plus those on astronomy, maths, physics, chemistry and more.......
3. YaST GUI tools to reinstall Grub & troubleshoot Grub issues
4. Beautiful graphical bootscreen (u won't see text roll by the screen at bootup)
5. Beautiful KDE desktop
See SCREENSHOTS here
http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/slideshow.php?release=322&slide=8&title=suse+linux+9.3+screenshots

For developers
1. IDEs & editors: Kdevelop, Anjuta, Eclipse, Emacs, XEmacs, Vim, KVim
2. Checkinstall, a program enabling u to remove programs compiled from source.
3. KDE development suite, Gnome development suite
4. Perl 5.8.6, Python 2.4, MySQL suite 4.1.1, GCC 3.3.5

+Special programs for handicapped/visually impaired/ppl who can't speak!

And Suse is ideal for laptops too!

Whats more OpenSuse has now been launched which means Suse will now be really free & community-developed! Check out www.opensuse.org! If u wanna know what u'll find in Suse Linux 10, explore this site.

All this does NOT mean Kubuntu is a bad distro or anything......Kubuntu is the best REALLY free distro.......but its only downside is that there are no ways a newbie can troubleshoot things in a nice GUI manner, like grub issues which I ran into recently....and didn't know how to fix it........with Suse install CD, troubleshooting these things is a matter of pointnclick..

And more than the distro itself, I love what Kubuntu stands for and this helpful community:)

This is not a suse-is-the-best article so u don't need to give any rebuttals...I'm not denying that (K)ubuntu ain't good.......

BTW anyone tried Suse before Ubuntu? If yes, why u left it coz I think its so user-friendly??

Regards

[GavinX]

I use SuSE some years ago. I really enjoyed it. However, I find that anything that SuSE offers on the five disks, I can get it from the net for any other distro. SuSE works nicely if one does not have high speed internet. In that case the CDs really do wonders. However, keeping updated is easier if I don't use a distro like SuSE. The truth is, since I've discovered Debian-based distros, I have made a vow never to return to RPM-based distros. As a result, SuSE has suffered. I jusr feel more at home with the Debian-based distros. Just my $0.02 worth.

[aysiu]

BTW anyone tried Suse before Ubuntu? If yes, why u left it coz I think its so user-friendly?? I liked a lot of things about SuSE, to be honest. The lizard is cute, for one thing. It's a lot better than the scarecrow drugged-out penguin Mandriva has. YaST just wasn't doing it for me, though. Synaptic Package Manager is the sh t. I also don't like Novell's website or the fact that there are pro and personal editions and it can cost money to get the latest and greatest.

[TristanMike]

A few months back just before I discovered Ubuntu, I tried a SuSE live CD as my very first Linux attempt and all I got was a big green screen, that's it, no nothing, just a pretty, green screen. Couldn't get past it, couldn't press any keys, nothing, had to do a hard shutdown. Never did figure it out. I threw in Ubuntu(live/install) and it did everything for me. On the live CD I was browsing the internet, using the cd player, creating spreadsheets. And when it came to the install, it went smooth as silk, it was great. :) My first SuSE experience not so great :sad: .

Tho I do love that lizard.... :razz:

[jdodson]

Yeah OK, nice list, thing is, OpenSuSE wont have hardly as much in that list, why? Cause it strips down the propreitary. Oh and Ubuntu has all that you mentioned. Seriously, WTF are you trying to say?

I have one word that owns SuSEs house, "apt-get". Yeah ok, whats that? Right, thats what I thought.

Because in the end, the only difference is how packages are handled and that SuSE comes with proprietary bits, wopdie do.

I will try OpenSuSE when it comes out, though, its just not the cats meow or anything, its another Free Desktop, not "The God of Free Desktops."

[aysiu]

I'm glad, coolblue, that you view that huge list as all pluses. I guess it depends on the user, because for some users those things are minus.



1. Comes in 5 CDs with tons of wonderful stuff! For example, I love one-CD distros. Of course, I don't have dial-up, either. Multiple CD Linuxes always turn me off.



2. KDE 3.4, Gnome 2.10, XFCE 4, IceWM 1.2 I can apt-get install any desktop or window manager I want. I happen to like Gnome.



3. Java (SDK), Flash and Wine preinstalled & ready to use Not too hard to get those things. Honestly, I don't even use Java and Flash... or Wine, for that matter.



4. Opera, Real Player, Adobe Acrobat Reader & PDF-to-HTML converter
5. Web browsers: Mozilla, Firefox, Opera, Epiphany, Konqueror
6. IM clients: Kopete, Gaim
7. IRC clients: KVIrc, Xchat, Mozilla IRC
8. Email clients: Thunderbird, Evolution, Mozilla mail
9. Media players: Kaffeine, Real Player, XMMS, Amarok, Xine, Totem
10. Telephony: Gnomemeeting, Kphone
11. Video editors: Kino, MainActor, MPEG capture & processing
12. Gimp 2.2.4
13. Novell OpenOffice 2
14. Beagle 0.0.8 (Desktop search application), Xen Virtualisation
15. LILO & Grub
See, to some people, this screams, "Wow! Loaded with great apps!" To me, this screams "Wow! Bloated with great apps." I kind of like having a minimal number of apps that I can change up if I want. When I installed Mepis the first time, I loved how bloated it was. After a while, though, I was uninstalling more than I was installing...



1. Over 100 fantastic free games like Pacman, Lincity, Chess, Supertux, Tuxracer & much much more! Yes, apt-get is a great thing. The only game I play is Gnocatan anyway.



4. Beautiful graphical bootscreen (u won't see text roll by the screen at bootup) Once again, one of those things that's a matter of personal preference. I happen to like the scrolling text--that way I get to see what's actually happening when my computer boots up.



5. Beautiful KDE desktop Not distro-dependent.

[TristanMike]

Once again, one of those things that's a matter of personal preference. I happen to like the scrolling text--that way I get to see what's actually happening when my computer boots up.
Yup me too on that one. Same with the shutdown, I like to see the rolling text.

Edit: oh yeah, and can't you get everything listed there in Ubuntu anyway?

[TravisNewman]

" Not distro-dependent."

Not exactly, but SuSE's KDE looks a lot better than others. After-market customizations I guess. It's the only KDE i've ever used that didn't make me want to scream before customizing it to death.

[Brunellus]

SuSE 9.1 was my first distro. To its enormous credit, it rescued a dead computer, allowed me to ferry data off it, and was mostly useable...

until I started adding software. RPM really irritated me with all of its reported, but unresolved, dependencies. Apt4rpm was only partially helpful; I kept adding repos without knowing what I was doing.

in the end, the box was hopelessly broken. User error, of course, but I assign some contributary blame to the whole RPM packaging system.

Ubuntu to the rescue! Native .deb and apt were the main benefits...without all the attendant learning curve to regular Debian.

The advent of OpenSuSE can only mean good things for the community at large, though. I hope it means that SuSE's excellent installer gets many more eyeballs locked onto it...and that work on that will slowly, under the magic of the GPL, make its way into Ubuntu and other distros.

Best of luck to Novell and OpenSuse. The universe only gets bigger.

[Corey]

OK now this is not a distro-bashing article....I'm just sharing my thoughts after using Kubuntu & Suse 9.3 Pro.....

Why I love Suse.....Highlights of Suse 9.3 Pro

1. Comes in 5 CDs with tons of wonderful stuff!
2. KDE 3.4, Gnome 2.10, XFCE 4, IceWM 1.2
3. Java (SDK), Flash and Wine preinstalled & ready to use
4. Opera, Real Player, Adobe Acrobat Reader & PDF-to-HTML converter
5. Web browsers: Mozilla, Firefox, Opera, Epiphany, Konqueror
6. IM clients: Kopete, Gaim
7. IRC clients: KVIrc, Xchat, Mozilla IRC
8. Email clients: Thunderbird, Evolution, Mozilla mail
9. Media players: Kaffeine, Real Player, XMMS, Amarok, Xine, Totem
10. Telephony: Gnomemeeting, Kphone
11. Video editors: Kino, MainActor, MPEG capture & processing
12. Gimp 2.2.4
13. Novell OpenOffice 2
14. Beagle 0.0.8 (Desktop search application), Xen Virtualisation
15. LILO & Grub

For newbies & students
1. Over 100 fantastic free games like Pacman, Lincity, Chess, Supertux, Tuxracer & much much more!
2. Lots of educational stuff like Tuxtype, Kalzium, Ktouch, Rasmol plus those on astronomy, maths, physics, chemistry and more.......
3. YaST GUI tools to reinstall Grub & troubleshoot Grub issues
4. Beautiful graphical bootscreen (u won't see text roll by the screen at bootup)
5. Beautiful KDE desktop
See SCREENSHOTS here
http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/slideshow.php?release=322&slide=8&title=suse+linux+9.3+screenshots

For developers
1. IDEs & editors: Kdevelop, Anjuta, Eclipse, Emacs, XEmacs, Vim, KVim
2. Checkinstall, a program enabling u to remove programs compiled from source.
3. KDE development suite, Gnome development suite
4. Perl 5.8.6, Python 2.4, MySQL suite 4.1.1, GCC 3.3.5

+Special programs for handicapped/visually impaired/ppl who can't speak!

And Suse is ideal for laptops too!

Whats more OpenSuse has now been launched which means Suse will now be really free & community-developed! Check out www.opensuse.org! If u wanna know what u'll find in Suse Linux 10, explore this site.

All this does NOT mean Kubuntu is a bad distro or anything......Kubuntu is the best REALLY free distro.......but its only downside is that there are no ways a newbie can troubleshoot things in a nice GUI manner, like grub issues which I ran into recently....and didn't know how to fix it........with Suse install CD, troubleshooting these things is a matter of pointnclick..

And more than the distro itself, I love what Kubuntu stands for and this helpful community:)

This is not a suse-is-the-best article so u don't need to give any rebuttals...I'm not denying that (K)ubuntu ain't good.......

BTW anyone tried Suse before Ubuntu? If yes, why u left it coz I think its so user-friendly??

Regards
I really like Novell and what they're doing. I'm in the middle of a move now, but once I get settled in I'm going to try out OpenSUSE on a spare desktop. I'm not a debian/apt zealot. In fact I used gentoo for quite some time because of the control portage offered me in the way of compile time dependencies. I also used Archlinux for a time and was quite impressed with pacman. My first experience with linux however was with Mandrake. I now LOATHE rpms. Mandrake was probably the best distro at the time to get me started with linux, but everyday I continually faced new problems all because of rpms. I really wish they would up and dissapear. I don't care what replaces them, whether it be apt, autopackage, portage, pacman or something entirely new, but I pray everyday they disappear! Other than that it looks nice and I hear it is very far ahead in the usability department.

[Pcghost]

I would never have left SuSE (which I used from 9.0-9.3 Pro) if they would have only ditched the last gasp of redhatness they have, ie. RPM. If SuSE were Debian based at 9.0 on, I doubt whether half of the newer Debian offshoots would ever have come to being. SuSE does a lot of things right in my opinion, but as long as RPM is present, it's a deal killer for me. And as stated above, apt-for-rpm is a recipe for disaster on a SuSE box. It worked great in Red Hat 9, but for some reason it really sucked in every version of SuSE I have run.

[drizek]

BTW anyone tried Suse before Ubuntu? If yes, why u left it coz I think its so user-friendly??

ya, i used it before when they sent me a free cd. it was slow, crippled, and the community sucked.

Edit: there is nothing wrong with rpm. actually, its probably better than dpkg. with apt4rpm, you can use synaptic and apt in a non-debian distro. and because suse makes all the packages on its own rather than use preexisting repositories, you wont see a bit of difference if they used rpm, deb, or any other half-decent package format.

[Brunellus]

BTW anyone tried Suse before Ubuntu? If yes, why u left it coz I think its so user-friendly??

ya, i used it before when they sent me a free cd. it was slow, crippled, and the community sucked.

Edit: there is nothing wrong with rpm. actually, its probably better than dpkg. with apt4rpm, you can use synaptic and apt in a non-debian distro. and because suse makes all the packages on its own rather than use preexisting repositories, you wont see a bit of difference if they used rpm, deb, or any other half-decent package format.
I left it because I was having too much of a hard time with dependencies.

I couldn't get apt4rpm set up correctly, and didn't know enough at the time to persevere. I'd stuck around long enough to want Debian's package management. I wasn't using just SuSE's repos, either, so the usual warnings about mixing repositories should have applied. I didn't know any better.

What's more, SuSE 9.1 seemed sluggish and unresponsive, and I didnt' know what else to do.

SuSE had done its job well--it had rescued the computer, gotten things stabilized, and taught me enough about linux to give me a sense of what I really wanted.

What I really wanted was Ubuntu.

[npaladin2000]

OK now this is not a distro-bashing article....I'm just sharing my thoughts after using Kubuntu & Suse 9.3 Pro.....

Why I love Suse.....Highlights of Suse 9.3 Pro

1. Comes in 5 CDs with tons of wonderful stuff!
2. KDE 3.4, Gnome 2.10, XFCE 4, IceWM 1.2
3. Java (SDK), Flash and Wine preinstalled & ready to use
4. Opera, Real Player, Adobe Acrobat Reader & PDF-to-HTML converter
5. Web browsers: Mozilla, Firefox, Opera, Epiphany, Konqueror
6. IM clients: Kopete, Gaim
7. IRC clients: KVIrc, Xchat, Mozilla IRC
8. Email clients: Thunderbird, Evolution, Mozilla mail
9. Media players: Kaffeine, Real Player, XMMS, Amarok, Xine, Totem
10. Telephony: Gnomemeeting, Kphone
11. Video editors: Kino, MainActor, MPEG capture & processing
12. Gimp 2.2.4
13. Novell OpenOffice 2
14. Beagle 0.0.8 (Desktop search application), Xen Virtualisation
15. LILO & Grub

1. And how much of it do you actually USE?
2. You use all 3 DEs at the same time? ;)
3. Got me there, but commercial distros can do things free ones don't
4. See #3
5. Mozilla: Dated/bloated. Ubuntu includes Firefox and Epiphany (it's part of GNOME and pretty good).
6. Who needs more than GAIM?
7. For IRC, see #6 ;)
8. Mozilla mail is no longer being developed. Between T-Bird and Evolution, Evolution is the better choice to include as Thunderbird doesn't have a PDA-compatible calendar or other PIM features besides the address book.
9. Awful lot of media players when Xine can handle nearly everything (I assume it can be made to handle WMV properly too).

Basically, to summarize, why do you need 5 million applications to do the same job? Pick one! Pick a single-CD distro that maches your choices the closest and then tweak it. :) Huge distros are good for servers, but desktop distros should be 1 CD, or MAYBE 2 max.

I installed SUSE 9.3 on my Thinkpad before Ubuntu. Had a lot of problems with Network manager (Between GNONE configs, KDE configs, YAST configs, and it's own, it got REALLY confused). Yast is probably the only remaining RPM frontend that can't resolve dependencies (Even Fedora has YUM). APT is hell to install and get working properly on SUSE 9.3. There's not much software, it's all for 9.2, and some of that doesn't work. So I replaced it with FC4. THe fact that they used GCC4 for everything broke a lot (critically synching with my Treo), so I went to Ubuntu.

[paul cooke]

I use SuSE some years ago. I really enjoyed it. However, I find that anything that SuSE offers on the five disks, I can get it from the net for any other distro. SuSE works nicely if one does not have high speed internet. In that case the CDs really do wonders. However, keeping updated is easier if I don't use a distro like SuSE. The truth is, since I've discovered Debian-based distros, I have made a vow never to return to RPM-based distros. As a result, SuSE has suffered. I jusr feel more at home with the Debian-based distros. Just my $0.02 worth.

Precisely... I've learnt, through painful experience, that the only way to safely upgrade a Suse installation is to backup my data and then install from scratch...

[cowlip]

BTW anyone tried Suse before Ubuntu? If yes, why u left it coz I think its so user-friendly??

ya, i used it before when they sent me a free cd. it was slow, crippled, and the community sucked.

Edit: there is nothing wrong with rpm. actually, its probably better than dpkg. with apt4rpm, you can use synaptic and apt in a non-debian distro. and because suse makes all the packages on its own rather than use preexisting repositories, you wont see a bit of difference if they used rpm, deb, or any other half-decent package format.
I agree, it's not very good and Yast is so slow on my comp :( I ddidn't know how ot upgrade by the internet either, only by installing a new cd.

[Knome_fan]

I don't know why some people reacted so aggressively to the initial post. Though there are some points I don't agree with, for example, Ubuntu just coming on one CD is certainly something I prefer over having 5 CDs, though I can see that there is an advantage in having 5 CDs if you don't have broadband, and I think some things are pretty moot, as for example all the desktop environments mentioned are also available for Ubuntu, I think the OP has some good points too.

One thing where Suse really has the edge for many users is Yast. Now I know that there are a lot of people who hate it and I can even understand it, but nevertheless, Suse simply has the most comprehensive collection of graphical tools for system management in my experience. So what's wrong in pointing this out?

Also, at least in my experience, this whole RPM is evil stuff isn't very convincing. Brunellus, you wrote of your experience using Suse and dependency hell, yet you admit at the same time that you didn't know what you were doing and wildly added repositories till finally everything was a mess. Now if you do the same thing in Ubuntu you'll end up with the exact same mess.

[KiwiNZ]

I am currently using Suse 9.3 on my main machine. It is one of the best Distros I have used to date.
I dont use Ubuntu on this machine as it just has way to many issues right now.
I will try Breezy when it is released.
Right now Ubuntu is on my test machine .

[heimo]

I am currently using Suse 9.3 on my main machine.


:shock: [-X



Right now Ubuntu is on my test machine .

:)



I will try Breezy when it is released.

:D

[manicka]

I used SuSe for years and found it a fantastic OS. I pretty much owe most of my linux knowledge to SuSE. I was such a joy after struggling with several crippled releases of mandrake.

Someone mentioned that the community sucks, well it's not as big as this one but most folks there are very helpful and I could always solve my problems.

I enjoyed my years with SuSe and would occasionally play with other distros and believe I was using the best distro around. Then I stumbled across Ubuntu.

Oh dear, what a difference. The best OS and community I've ever experienced :D

So Ubuntu is my number one, but I'd happily support anyone who decided to use SuSE. If it gets them into Linux then it's got to be a good thing and we can always work on them down the track to see the Ubuntu light.

[fng]

I really enjoyed my suse expierence.


We used to have linux game-servers on LAN's. I didnt know much about linux, but installing it in server mode was easy. Configuring it with yast was even easier. :)
If i remeber correctly, it was version 6.x maybe 7.

I never used suse as a desktop so i can't comment on that.

[Sushi]

Yeah OK, nice list, thing is, OpenSuSE wont have hardly as much in that list, why? Cause it strips down the propreitary. Oh and Ubuntu has all that you mentioned. Seriously, WTF are you trying to say?

Hey, take it easy :). SuSE is an excellent distro, and it being excellent, does not diminish the excellence of Ubuntu. And SuSe has done a lot for the community, benefitting everyone (including Ubuntu and it's users).

SuSE (7.0 IIRC) was the first Linux I ever used. I used SuSE for quite some time, and then moved to Debian. I moved from Debian to Gentoo, and now to Ubuntu. I might give SuSE a shot again in the future, it certainly deserves it.


I have one word that owns SuSEs house, "apt-get". Yeah ok, whats that? Right, thats what I thought.

The benefit apt-get offered when compared to rpm-distros (Red Hat, SuSE etc.) was that Debian used central repositories for downloading apps. rpm-based distros did not. Usually users tried to install some rpm they found in the net, and that caused problems. These days rpm-distros also use central-repositories, which largely eliminates the "dependancy-hell".


Because in the end, the only difference is how packages are handled and that SuSE comes with proprietary bits, wopdie do.

Well, there's a quite a bit more difference than that. If you really believe what you wrote, I think you are not giving enough credit to SuSe or Ubuntu.


I will try OpenSuSE when it comes out, though, its just not the cats meow or anything, its another Free Desktop, not "The God of Free Desktops."

Neither is Ubuntu ;).

[foxy123]

I found SuSE being a great distro. It was my first Linux OS I used some months ago. YaST is a really good thing and it makes it easy to configure stuff. Community is also very nice and helpful. There is a good section on LinuxQuestions forum and a great newsgroup. Also sometimes it easier to find a SuSE rpm than an Ubuntu deb. And if you use apt4rpm, you will have something similar to Debian package management. Also people say that SuSE has the best user manual shipped with it if you buy it and it is worth the money paid for the distro.

So I would recommend SuSE to anyone who is new to Linux. However, personally I found SuSE slightly bloated and also Ubuntu philosophy appeals to me.

Another thing, if you have broadband, you do not need a SuSE DVD or 5 CDs because you have to update the stuff anyway over Internet and using YaST or Synaptic with apt4rpm you can get most of the software online.

[coolblue]

Yeah OK, nice list, thing is, OpenSuSE wont have hardly as much in that list, why? Cause it strips down the propreitary. Oh and Ubuntu has all that you mentioned. Seriously, WTF are you trying to say?


I agree with Sushi...u've turned a nice cool topic into a battlefield. Well u say that OpenSuse will strip down the proprietary stuff - cool - but the user-friendliness, the beautiful desktop, YaST, the ease of system management & troubleshooting, the easy way in which u can fix up grub issues in a gui way (which is great for newbies), the presence of so many apps & the freedom to finetune the package selection during installation.......all these things are going to be there. I DEFINITELY agree that desktop distros should be 1-CD only...more is not needed.....but I'm also learning to program and I wanna see what program would be best for me so its all very convenient...besides newbies usually are very curious to try out more apps and all they want is ease of use & troubleshooting...ALL of which Suse offers it...I never said Ubuntu is bad,,,its wonderful and so is the community...but seriously u have single-handedly affected my opinion just now with ur INCREDIBLY STUPID & UNWARRANTED COMMENTS....All I want to say is that for me & ONLY ME, Suse truly ranKs above every other distro....just as Ubuntu does for most of u...thats bcoz we all have diff prefs & likes..
Plus I've got a bit slow connection so it all makes sense to have a 5-CD distro saving me the hassle of downloads..As for proprietary stuff I can only think of Acrobat, Realplayer & flash..ONLY 3 things dear.

In the future, look CAREFULLY before u leap!

[jdodson]

.I never said Ubuntu is bad,,,its wonderful and so is the community...but seriously u have single-handedly affected my opinion just now with ur INCREDIBLY STUPID & UNWARRANTED COMMENTS....

First off, grow up OK? I can have whatever opinion and make whatever comments I want. If that effects how you see Ubuntu so be it, I am a mod, not the "Jesus" of Ubuntu. Take what I say like any other person, shessh. And for what its worth, you can think my opinions are stupid, I really don't care, just grow up a little, we are all entitled to our own views.


All I want to say is that for me & ONLY ME, Suse truly ranKs above every other distro....just as Ubuntu does for most of u...thats bcoz we all have diff prefs & likes..

Thats super great, SuSE is a pork loaded propretary desktop that offers you the same thing you could get anywhere else. I will explain below.


Plus I've got a bit slow connection so it all makes sense to have a 5-CD distro saving me the hassle of downloads..As for proprietary stuff I can only think of Acrobat, Realplayer & flash..ONLY 3 things dear.

Flash and Acroreader are in ubuntus uni/multiverse, real player is i386 only. I can download it on a whim, its not like that stuff is broken in Ubuntu.

Though I feel your pain for a slow net connection, seriously. Breezy will have a DVD you can get with all of universe(i believe), so that will clear up some of that, if you can get the DVD that is. So Breezy will get your back soon.


In the future, look CAREFULLY before u leap!

You ASSumption is that I did not look before I leaped. I think about what I type, I just did not explain myself well enough, I will. I could be wrong though, I reserve that right just like you do.

-----

Explanation of what I meant. OK since a few SuSE lovers have railed me a bit(aptly so, I did not make complete sense) I will explain myself.

* I will start with an assertation: You can do everything in Ubuntu you can do in SuSE.

Now there are some underlying differences, RPM vs. DEB(imo DEB and apt win here, I know people are trying to tack on apt-getness to RPM, however DEB is still by and large a better choice imo). YaST, which is worthless to me as I don't need and have never needed so many GUI config tools. And the 4 CD vs. 1 CD approach(I prefer the 1 CD approach with zillions other packages on the net). Oh right, and Ubuntu does not load down the default distro with proprietary bits(you know, some of us actually care about that).

So really, if you wanted, you could setup a box that was functionally equivalent to the SuSE desktop. They use the same Gnome, same KDE, same Kernel, same Browsers, same....... Except for minor variants in versioning and setup, its really the same stuff at its core and main functionality. I mean seriously, we are talking the same programs here.

And SuSE did nothing for the community for the most part(clear this up for me if I am wrong) until Novell decided to give away everything under the GPL(thank you Novell). And now Novell is giving away Hula, which will rock the bomb. So I guess I have some left over pent up agression twoard the "old" SuSE which was a pay to play propretary mess. Now I am not saying it didnt work, or it wasnt technically capable, I just wanted a desktop that was Free in both senses, remember than Freedom thing, some of us care about that.

So you like SuSE, sweet. Keep using it. I don't care, but when someone comes and says something like, "OpenSuSE to rule them all" I will take that card and play with it. I will also say things like "ok so WTF, Ubuntu does all that too, so whats the point?" See because OpenSuSE _WONT_ do everything that guy mentioned, because Ubuntu and OpenSuSE will not include propretary bits by default. So what the originatior of the post was supposed to say was, "OpenSuSE and Ubuntu basically the same, SuSE propretary has extra bits." When OpenSuSE is released I am going to get it, and like I do with every free distro, give it a shot. Now if it is not as easy to get things working, installed, and setup, I will give it the boot and say, wow that was fun, but in the end it wasnt what I was looking for.

Now I will document for you where SuSE falls down, now see please these, as in my entire post are purely my opinions now:

#1) SuSE has no community that rivals Ubuntu. This is a big deal to me, its the reason why we are talking here and not on the suseforums.

#2) Ubuntu sends free CDS to anyone.

#3) Ubuntus development proccess is completley open via wikis and all development communication is done in the open. SuSE has no notion of this(if they do please inform me, I will retract my statement).

#4) Ubuntu desktop defaults to Gnome. Say what you will, some of us care about this cause we are Gnome freaks.

#5) Ubuntu has a community council and membership. SuSE has nothing like this. I am a Ubuntu member for what its worth.

#6) Ubuntu is fun.

Ok so the last one doesnt count really, but I never found SuSE to be fun. I used 9.2 on my Xerox computer(I have since left and work for a Open Source programming company as a Software Engineer). SuSE 9.2 was a buggy chore to use, and it wasnt fun. Hard to explain that, so I won't its just what I found to be true.

Anyways, my comments are warranted because the originator of the post decided to comment on SuSE, I decided to reply. Some people are pissed cause they love SuSE and I don't. Some people are pissed cause, again, more distro "warring." Know that I don't care what you use, though I have an opinion and will throw it around at will. Feel free to throw yours around, I don't mind, it makes things fun.

For the record the title of this post is "Goodbye Ubuntu..." those be fightin words, so at least understand that when someone says something like that I will accept the challenge. Its a flame post subject anyway posted by a SuSE lover. Expect Ubuntu lovers to respond.

Rock on Free Desktop.

[jdodson]

So because of my last post I decided so say some nice things about Novell. Know that before Novell, I had no good things to say about SuSE, so as far as I am concerned, Novell is worth praising because if SuSE can be saved, and OpenSuSE might do it(saved, in my opinion a better option for Free sofware people) then Novell will do it. SuSE before Novell was not Free.

Novell opened up SuSE yast. That was a cool move.

Novell now employs Miguel and Nat and other Free Software developers from the Gnome, Evolution, Hula and other fine projects. The financial boon to Free Software is much appreciated, and we are reaping the rewards.

Novell opened up Netmail paving the way for Hula. This could be a serious contender for the Collab tools space that Free software has needed for sometime.

Novell uped the anty for many bounties in the Google summer of code. The list of features are incredible, and we will all reap the rewards in the Gnome desktop, evolution, GAIM and other programs.

Novell has spun off OpenSuSE a Free and Open system. This could be a very cool project as its goals are to be used by regular people. I am actually excited about this project, it might find a place in my Free computing lifestyle, or not, time will tell.

Novell is working on the Mono project. Mono(GPL) uses the C# language. Many cool programs have spun off from this, Beagle, Muine, Tomboy, Fspot, the list widens. C# is a standard, and whichever way you feel about it, it is GPL and I doubt it will come under attack by Microsoft. Think what you will about it.

So Novell has done much, more than I have listed, I just listed the things I know about most formally.

[az]

I am sorry to say that I only skimmed this thread. I would be interested to know what the author thinks of Novell Linux Desktop. I beleive that it is based on SUSE, although it uses the gnome desktop.

[KingBahamut]

The Beginning statement seems kind of premature. Novell isnt going to turn Suse (or OpenSUSE as they call it now ) into something of a community procject like Fedora is turning into (if they could ever get their paperwork filed properly for Non profit status), but more of a Beginners edition to Novell Desktop. My very clear issue with Suse (the ftp server I run was a Suse 9.3 box) is that they had no multimedia support. Also, another huge complaint to go with distros like Suse and Fedora is....Installing way too much software that the end user, specially if your a new guy to it all, will ever use in their life of the Dist.

That be said, Im here for Ubuntu, with Ubuntu, and Im stayin with Ubuntu. Suse is just turning into the Red'headed StepChild of Novell. they might succeed well in the Enterprise( and they have done strides with development suites NVU, Mono, and C#, with no question), same way Redhat does, but to the Community I feel they lack Spirit and Innovation.

[trash]

Maybe i missed it on the website but it doesn't seem that Suse is available for mac.. personally i'd never pay a dime for anything I couldn't use on all my machines.

[jdodson]

Maybe i missed it on the website but it doesn't seem that Suse is available for mac.. personally i'd never pay a dime for anything I couldn't use on all my machines.

They ship with x86 only binary propretary software, if they did make a PPC port, you couldnt use everything the originator of this post listed. Its one of the "benifits" of going propretary you get applications the vendors way, not yours.

[Oceola]

I'm really a newbie to Linux and I spent a month or so playing with Distros.
I tried three I got out of magazines on discs and I purchased a copy of "Suse 9.3 for Dummies" which came with a distro on it. . I also looked at Suse 9.2 in a store and a version of Fedora Redhat.
All these issues of proprietary or free mean very little if you have to upgrade hardware to make something work.

I couldn't run the p.3 disc as it was as it was a DVD and my old box wouldn't read it. You couldn't tell it was a DVD without a magnifying glass and no where in the book does it make the statement. Small print on the disc you couldn't get to until you opened the package. I found a lot of the distros lacking in driver coordination between hardware devices, modems, printers and scanners. Ubuntu had no issues with what I have in the way of hardware. It recognized everything and although some of the other drivers had the same cupsys and drivers, they never seemd to identify or create the proper pipes to run stuff.

In particular the Xsane which came on the discs I ordered from Ubuntu has been running my HP 3400 scanner with very little trouble. When you consider this is a salvaged scanner and I had to download 30 Mb of drivers and information from HP to get it to work with Windows and that software never did get along with Xnview, Xsane is a blessing. It also allows things and considers things even the HP software didn't.

I know Novell has good reputations but the whole idea of open source to me is nothing proprietary. I have some small issues with Ubuntu like the dependency stuff where you dump something you don't need and it takes something you need away or having no way to dump the entire Palm Pilot crap but otherwise, I'm kind of fixed with it.
;-)

[ubuntu-geek]

I think this thread has served its purpose.