OpenSUSE 11.2 the Perfect KDE Distribution

[faolan]

Originally Posted by michael_cheah

Maybe we can come out with a script to query Distrowatch on every single minute...

Linspire / Freespire tried that and they got bumped way down after distrowatch blocked their IP addresses Moral of the story: "Dont f* with Distrowatch. They be some gangsta mothaf*!"

I would suggest a blitz, you know maybe stuff like mentioning openSUSE in your sig on other forums (I do that, along with Archlinux). Or even listing the distrowatch link in your sig

[michael_cheah]

Originally Posted by faolan

Linspire / Freespire tried that and they got bumped way down after distrowatch blocked their IP addresses Moral of the story: "Dont f* with Distrowatch. They be some gangsta mothaf*!"

I would suggest a blitz, you know maybe stuff like mentioning openSUSE in your sig on other forums (I do that, along with Archlinux). Or even listing the distrowatch link in your sig

Wow.. I was never aware of the Linspire / Freespire news.

Anyway Freespire is at #97 now.

[faolan]

Originally Posted by michael_cheah

Wow.. I was never aware of the Linspire / Freespire news.

Anyway Freespire is at #97 now.

You see my point Plus, it would be so much better to get to the top fair and honest. If there is any distro that can pull it off, it is openSUSE. I've been using it since 7.3 (not always as my main distro, but still) and have used almost every version since then and have to say even in the early days it was ahead of the big names (RedHat, Mandrake, Lycoris, Connectiva, and a bunch of other ones that have been forgotten).

The only other distro I recommend nowadays is Ubuntu and it's generally the one I recommend to non-tech types because it just works. I generally tell them if they don't like it to try openSUSE as well because each brand is a different experience.

[zak89]

@faolan

Up until 11.2 the last several versions of openSUSE were even defaulted to Gnome.

Could you back that up with some documentation? I have been using openSUSE(and SuSE) since 8.0 and never have I seen GNOME used as the "default".

And while I don't deny that GNOME is very popular, two out of the top five distros default to KDE (Mandriva and openSUSE), and another two have well supported KDE versions ((K)Ubuntu and Fedora).

I don't know if you read Distrowatch's weekly newsletter, but for the past several months the majority of the new distros appearing are using KDE4, I think a couple weeks ago four or five KDE4 distros where announced. Obviously many of these won't go anywhwere, but KDE is certainly making a comeback with version 4.

I'm betting we'll get Linus back soon...

[Akoellh]

Originally Posted by zak89

Could you back that up with some documentation?

I don't think so, because there will be none.

Originally Posted by zak89

I have been using openSUSE(and SuSE) since 8.0 and never have I seen GNOME used as the "default".

Yep, and it never was on SuSE/openSUSE.

Originally Posted by zak89

... two out of the top five distros default to KDE (Mandriva and openSUSE),

And for SuSE/openSUSE the story goes like

a) defaulted to KDE for quite some time (9.x)

b) No preselection after that

c) preselected KDE again since 11.2

this.

[zak89]

Originally Posted by zak89 View Post

I don't think so, because there will be none.

To be honest, I already knew that. I'm afraid I was using a pinch of sarcasm.

But for someone to have been using (open)SUSE since 7.3 and not already know that strikes me as slightly odd.

[faolan]

Originally Posted by zak89

To be honest, I already knew that. I'm afraid I was using a pinch of sarcasm.

But for someone to have been using (open)SUSE since 7.3 and not already know that strikes me as slightly odd.

I haven't installed every version straight from the disc. I've went the upgrade route on most of the recent releases. But yes, now that you mention it I actually do recall that the desktop option had no default selection in a recent release that I had to install for someone other than myself (11.1, was it?).

However, Gnome is at the top of the selection list IIRC and that's probably why I thought that or maybe I'm going senile Though to be honest it does make sense that if the list was in alphabetical order for Gnome to be on top, but there is still a psychological effect that being first on a list shows superior precedence over the following list members (ie, the first item is more noticeable).

Also, as of late, it did seem like Novell had been pushing Gnome more than KDE. With the acquisition of Ximian, development of Evolution, Mono, Banshee, F-Spot, and whole host of other Gnome related projects.

[zak89]

As of 11.2RC2, GNOME is still the 'top' selection, but KDE's radio button is selected by default. As far as I know, GNOME has always been "on top", for alphabetical reasons, I'm sure.

Novell on the other hand defaults to GNOME (and pushes it quite strongly) for it's enterprise desktop offerings, and personally I think that's a fairly wise decision, as GNOME's "utilitarianism" would suite an enterprise application well; it looks good, but simple, and is stable and robust.

[faolan]

Originally Posted by zak89

Novell on the other hand defaults to GNOME (and pushes it quite strongly) for it's enterprise desktop offerings, and personally I think that's a fairly wise decision, as GNOME's "utilitarianism" would suite an enterprise application well; it looks good, but simple, and is stable and robust.

That does make sense. Personally, I don't see why so many people abhor Gnome: It's not a bad desktop environment. Want to see a bad working environment, fire up Windows and compare it's UI in terms of usability to that of ANY of the three big desktop environments in Linux. As far as UI goes, Linux has Windows beat in so many areas.

I wasn't really complaining that openSUSE treats Gnome as being a better piece of enterprise software when compared to KDE. It's true. Yes, there are things that KDE does better and it is more configurable, but in the office most of those options don't matter. What matters is that the applications are rock solid and simple to use. Gnome achieves this objective.

That being said, I still think KDE is a good piece of software that in many cases is better than Gnome; however, with 4.x (even some of the later releases) it still feels rough around the edges. Maybe openSUSE 11.2 will solve most of these complaints, and I'm optimistic because I really do like a lot of the concepts that KDE 4.x bring to the table.

They may be shipping Gnome now, but I think the future of desktop Linux will be with KDE and it would not surprise me if by the time 4.5 comes out that we see a lot of distros "switch over" or "switch back" to using KDE as the default. Heck from what I've seen from Gnome 3.x, I'd say run from it like it's hair is on fire (then again, it's also not ready for prime-time just yet).