Where do I see SUSE Enterprise and openSUSE?

[dragonbite]

(The description does say "Strong opinions about mostly anything" These are just my thoughts.)

I see openSUSE being a stepping stone from individuals and small businesses to paying SUSE Enterprise customers of Novell.

INDIVIDUAL CONSUMERS

First off, openSUSE should be Linux for the individuals from desktop/laptop comptuers to home servers. The community can draw more upon the "power user" variant, fitting between the "mass consumer" (Ubuntu) and "professional developer" (Fedora) distributions.

It would need to be familiar and easy enough for people wanting to move up from their entry-level distributions while providing the tools for professional and developers who don't see a reason to move into more technically orientated distributions.

SMALL & MEDIUM BUSINESSES

The next segment of users is just a step-off from the Individuals, and that is Small & Medium businesses. Often, business practices find their way to individuals and hobbyists for their personal life.

S&M businesses do not have the same technical aptitude or resources that a full enterprise, so more effort will be required to handle the gaps in knowledge and provide a "best practical practice" ready solution. Many aspects, from the user's point of view, need to "just work" and provide concise information about the applications/service/settings. Yast would be in the forefront of providing this.

Although Yast will provide a lot of the necessary support, the users may need help in selecting and deciding what "packages" they need, even for such simple tasks as setting up a LAMP server, or Print/File server, or LDAP and port-forwarding, backing up, etc. This is where some "best practices" settings would be pre-configured but still allow unfettered access for people who know what they are doing as well as rollback to a safe, stable mode.

Once installed, Yast takes over as the primary support for configuring and setting-up.

DROP-IN REPLACEMENT

A barrier of moving an existing system to any Linux solution is the time spent cultivating the existing framework. OpenSUSE should take advantage of Novell's business relations to provide openSUSE the easiest "drop in" integration as possible; Active Directory integration, Exchange access, file/print sharing, etc.

If a small business owner with a few computers networked can take a system runnign openSUSE, plug it in and be able to be fully operations after just logging in then the barrier of moving to a Linux-only solution crumbles and with the greater older-component performance, may replace the migration to the latest Windows (saving them money).

Once the system has its "foot in the door", then ther performance, stability and return on investment of openSUSE would facillitate the concept of migrating the entire environment to a Linux solution.

ENTERPRISE LEVELS

One openSUSE has been integrated and proven itself in a small or medium business environment, the next step is to be ready for when the business grows up and needs a more robust and supported system such as SUSE Enterprise * from Novell.

To facillitate this, not only will openSUSE have to be aligned to fit heterogeneously with SUSE Enterprise Linux, SLED/SLES will need to be tooled to accept the changes, configurations and settings seamlessly. SUSE Enterprise Linux would need to accept the settings and customized configurations without any regression or breaking of packages.

SUMMARY

In essence, openSUSE should be the Individual's Linux as well as for businesses harnessing the power of it's relationship with Enterprise SUSE and Novell's relationship with Microsoft for drop-in integration and easy migration. When the time comes for these businesses to grow-up to Enterprise level the path should be just as seamless and painless as possible so cultivated settings maintained and not forced to be recreated.

It provides lateral migration (Windows environment to pure- or mixed-Windows/Linux environments) as well as vertical migration (openSUSE to SUSE Enterprise Linux).

[dragonbite]

I'm curious, does this look possible? Is openSUSE already "there"? What are you thoughts on it and why?

[consused]

Firstly, why didn't you post this in the Marketing forum?

Secondly, not keen on the "power user" variant. I wouldn't call myself that although like me it's a label that has been around a long time and is typically used by/for techies, nor the rather degrading "mass consumer". Consumer smacks of shopping for consumables. We don't cosume computers, we buy them, own them, and "use" them. Just some early thoughts.

[dragonbite]

Firstly, why didn't you post this in the Marketing forum?

Secondly, not keen on the "power user" variant. I wouldn't call myself that although like me it's a label that has been around a long time and is typically used by/for techies, nor the rather degrading "mass consumer". Consumer smacks of shopping for consumables. We don't cosume computers, we buy them, own them, and "use" them. Just some early thoughts.

I wasn't sure which forum would be best for it.

What I mean by Consumers, I guess, is average Joe's who don't know much about the computers and basically just use what's available without returning much to the community. (?).

It's very much a work-in-progress, though. Thank you for the feedback!

[growbag]

I think you miss the point and real purpose of openSUSE.

SLED is aimed at business use, openSUSE is merely a test arena for perfecting SLED.

openSUSE is NOT a "desktop replacement" for the average "mass consumer" market, as it is purposely focused away from it by not providing video and audio codecs, or proprietary video and wireless drivers. Things that are a necessity for an everyday "home" user.

It only comes a little closer to the desktop "market" when we manually add third party software repositories (Packman et al) in order to get useful multimedia functions.

This is actively dissuaded by Novell, the proof of which being the supply of "crippled" versions of media players which will not allow one to simply plug-in a codec, you have to either recompile the entire application, or replace it with an uncrippled version from a non-Novell repository.

As I have no desire to be a part of Novell's research, and need a Linux distro that is geared toward my "everyday non-corporate" use, I sadly no longer use it on my everyday systems, but use it on my server where it does a fantastic job.

Servers and corporate business systems do not need all the bells and whistles, hence SLED and openSUSE fit the bill perfectly, as they are designed to do.

But openSUSE will sadly never be anything other than that, therefore will never be used as a "desktop replacement" or become the "Number 1 Linux Distro".

If you don't believe/agree with that statement, then I challenge you to re-install openSUSE and use it without adding any unofficial non-Novell repository or software to understand what I'm talking about.

If it completely fulfills your everyday computer needs, then you can be happy in the knowledge that openSUSE is the best distro for your use. If however you find that you need to add a repo, or install any non-Novell supplied software, you have found the boundary of it's usefullness and should maybe look elsewhere.

There are plenty of other distros out there that are focused at the "average" user, my solution was to simply accept that and use whichever distro fits the bill .

[dragonbite]

@growbag, Great feedback!

Ok, I can understand openSUSE not being focused on the Consumer. That's part of the thinking of the "Power User" reference.

Instead of the average consumer, openSUSE would focus on the people who are not afraid to get into the system some to get it working. Doesn't mean it can't help with making easy 3rd-party repository additions and one-clicks (which I think they already do). Leave the Consumers to a Consumer-focused distribution(s) with proprietary drivers and multimedia codecs and focus on the users that have grown beyond that level and personal business owners/systems is what I was trying to refer to.

Due to the nature of computers these days some overlap is expected by users. Windows Professional is able to play multimedia just as well as Windows Home. The lines between business and personal has blurred considerably since the days of Win98 for personal use and WinNT for business.

This is where openSUSE would bring some Enterprise-level practices (made easy with pre-configurations) from the SLE* side, yet offer some of the non-Enterprise features people have come to expect from their computers or features that haven't taken hold of Enterprises (yet).

Your comment does bring up about the "Number 1 Linux Distro", and considering it I agree, I don't see openSUSE reaching that goal. I also don't see it as BEING openSUSE's goal either.

One of openSUSE's strength is that it is an OK Desktop Linux, as well as a pretty good Server Linux. I would willingly use Red Hat for servers, but not desktops, and maybe I would try Mint for the Desktop but I don't think so for a server. Ubuntu is the closest at the dual-offering but openSUSE includes Yast for settings and all from the command line, while Ubuntu leaves you at the prompt.

Fedora is not focused on the average consumer and according to Distrowatch's extended ranking, Fedora has been in the top 3 in the past 12 months. OpenSUSE has been in the top 5 during that time period with Mint and PCLinuxOS, consumer-orientated desktop linux distros, rounding out the top 5 (with one entry for Mandriva at about 12 months ago).

So I do see that openSUSE shouldn't focus on being #1 on the Desktop, but I see openSUSE as being the first Linux distro to think of when you are looking at using it in a small office when you want Enterprise-level stability and security with a "I'm not an IT Professional" orientated ease of use.

[consused]

SLED is aimed at business use, openSUSE is merely a test arena for perfecting SLED.

SLED-Yes. OpenSUSE - test arena for SLED is only part of it's role. You left out its contribution to other projects e.g. KDE, and the linux community at large. You left out the large number of repositories provided for openSUSE users - not needed for SLED. You left out innovative community facilities such as the OBS and SUSE Studio - not needed for SLED. I may have missed some.

openSUSE is NOT a "desktop replacement" for the average "mass consumer" market, as it is purposely focused away from it by not providing video and audio codecs, or proprietary video and wireless drivers.

This is spinning. The absence of something doesn't "purposely focus away from by not..." It's just an absence. In this case effectively filled by a third party that satisfies many users.

IMO this is a typical response you can get when you place a well intentioned post in SoapBox. A couple of good points about distro positioning, confused by personal experience, a slice of prejudice, and a bit of a rant, rather than an objective appraisal of the marketplace requirements. Sorry.

[dragonbite]

IMO this is a typical response you can get when you place a well intentioned post in SoapBox. A couple of good points about distro positioning, confused by personal experience, a slice of prejudice, and a bit of a rant, rather than an objective appraisal of the marketplace requirements. Sorry.

Don't worry. This, so far, is what I want; active dialog on a concept of what openSUSE should/could/would be. I know some people aren't going to agree, or some only agree to parts.

This overall concept has mulled around my head for a while and this is basically the chance to see if it can survive or is really off-base!

[growbag]

On the contrary, I applaud and value the massive contribution that openSUSE gives to the Linux world. I can't seem to find the part where I denounced them.

As you pointed out, the absence of something doesn't provide evidence to the contrary.

But I do notice you picked out the wrong line in order to criticise my overall point.

openSUSE is NOT a "desktop replacement" for the average "mass consumer" market, as it is purposely focused away from it by not providing video and audio codecs, or proprietary video and wireless drivers.

This is spinning. The absence of something doesn't "purposely focus away from by not..." It's just an absence. In this case effectively filled by a third party that satisfies many users.

This is not spinning, because my next few lines cite the evidence of Novell's purposely supplied "crippled" apps. That is not absence, it is a deliberate diversion.

Opinions are based on personal experience, that's how humans function, and that's why they are called opinions.

If I hit my finger twice with a hammer and it hurts both times, should I not then conclude that hitting my finger with a hammer hurts? Or is it my fault because I don't know how to hold the hammer properly, or position my finger in just the right place?

And where do you get that I am prejudiced against openSUSE? Just because in my opinion and for my requirements I believe it is not a good everyday desktop distro, and I choose to use something else that constitutes prejudice?

[consused]

Growbag, I didn't say you denounced them - no wonder you can't find it. My problem with your view about openSUSE was that it was unbalanced by omitting important and unique facilities - "merely a test arena for perfecting SLED" - NO!

A slice of prejudice doesn't equate to "prejudiced against openSUSE". It was more about the tone, on reflection slice wasn't the best word to convey that, a "dash/splash of" would be better maybe.

It seemed to be more about your personal wants, and therefore a rather limited critique of openSUSE versus a positioning of the product. Thats all.