When I first tried OpenSUSE several months ago, I was blown away both by the maturity of the distro and the visual quality.
My only long-term encounter with Linux was a couple years ago with Ubuntu 6.x through 7.x, and it was not the most happy relationship. I finally gave up on Ubuntu when the new release broke drivers for my video card.
So, I had more or less happy sailing with OpenSUSE (dual booting with XP), I am still trying to fix a few issues, one of them being no mic. Yesterday, I spoke to a friend of mine who is a self-employed IT pro. He suggested I should try Ubuntu, claiming the distro got much better than it was. I did, even though my original encounter with it didn’t leave a good impression.
Well… wow.
Did they improve.
Right from the Live CD - no install - it took off like a rocket. The fonts are great - slightly better than what I have in SUSE after some tweaking. The mic is working. The boot speed is fast. Most importantly, it seems faster overall.
So. What do I do. I love the looks of Plasma desktop and icons in Suse. I love Yast. But I also like the speed and overall simplicity of Gnome desktop in Ubuntu…
Would someone who has knowledge of both distros give me a quick comparison ? Obviously, what I see is the eye candy and most obvious differences. What else is there I can’t yet comprehend ?
For now, I’ll just add another partition and triple-boot.
Some computers like some distros better, no shame in that. The terrible secret, kept buried during the long years of the Linux wars, is that most distros are pretty much the same - so I guess you should use whichever system works best for you. Personally, when I’m not running SUSE, I prefer Debian to Ubuntu. Less bugs, more configurable, rolling release option (well… sort of).
Well to start off your not a “traitor” as such :p, Both have thier good and bad thing’s
KDE in Suse is prob one of the best integration’s you can get. Kubuntu on the other hand doesnt feel at all the same.
As for Gnome well they both have theyre place Suse imo isn’t as good at gnome as it is at KDE, but they do still put a lot of effort into it. Ubuntu on the other hand has a very good integration of gnome.
The thing that stopped me using Ubuntu was the whole approach they have to PulseAudio (its also probably why your mic now works). PulseAudio is a bane for a lot of people, It has it’s good point’s, but at the same time has some really bad one’s. Wine does not work at all with Pulse and leads to many problem’s within Ubuntu stemming from that. Lot’s of programs in general to do with sound do not like PulseAudio as it doesn’t allow direct control of the soundcard.
Both Ubuntu and OpenSuse have a place and being they are both Linux give’s us the choice.
The thing i find interesting is the difference’s about boot speed, now OpenSuse uses Splashy where as Ubuntu use Plymouth. Ubuntu and Fedora both seem faster to boot than Suse and Plymouth may be a part of it the project has worked extremely hard on a graphical boot that give’s great performance. There could also be difference’s in the kernel setup of each but as far as i can tell they are almost the same.
Either is a very good choice imho, Ubuntu has it’s problem’s but it is a distro based on a very stable Debian foundation. OpenSuse is basically what Debian is to Ubuntu. OpenSuse is the Base for other thing’s to go ontop of and some distro’s actually use Suse as a base.
Apart from that really the package management in Suse isn’t as user hidden as it is in Ubuntu with the Deb’s. Ubuntu is a very strong system though.
In the end it’s down to personal preference really. I prefer OpenSuse as I’m not a fan of Gnome and even less of a fan of what they have planned with Gnome 3.0 and GnomeShell. I prefer KDE and Ubuntu isn’t very good at KDE imo.
> For now, I’ll just add another partition and triple-boot.
I think that is the best way to decide, just use it for a while and you
will make your own mind up.
I have used both and prefer openSUSE, I replaced Ubuntu with
openSUSE11.2 GNOME. I prefer the look and feel of the openSUSE GNOME to
the Ubuntu GNOME and I also like YaST and Zypper.
Also I use openSUSE on my main laptop every day so I have a
lot more knowledge about openSUSE than Ubuntu, for me, it is a waste of
time to search the internet to find out how to do something in Ubuntu
that I can already do in openSUSE.
Amamba,
You’re no traitor despite what some in this forum would have you believe. Linux is all about choice a little later on you may find still another distro that works for you.
Hey! the last time I knew the count it was 325 distros. It’s more than that by now.
So why limit yourself to just Opensuse & Ubuntu? You stated that you like the KDE & yast, may I recommend PCLOS find it here: Radically Simple » PCLinuxOS
You also mentioned that you triple boot, welcome to the club quite a few of us here are multi-booters.
Finally, I’ve said this many times,“If you’re using Linux it’s all good!”
I don’t like Fedora or Ubuntu either one (and as stated in another thread, one big reason is Yast), but plenty of people do. You should use what makes you happy.
It also depends on what you like to do. OpenSuse is more anal-retentive about codecs, for legal reasons, but that’s not important to me. If I absolutely need a Windows codec in my work, I just fire up XP in a Virtual Box, use it, then close the box and go on with OpenSuse. But other users might find that annoying.
Do the triple-boot thingy and play with them. Choose that which fits you best. You’re not a traitor.
@Amamba, when you know more about Linux you will realise that there are more similarities than differences between distros. It’s FOSS and it’s all good. Just have fun, whatever you do.
I use Ubuntu on the side, love it or hate it I personally think its a good beginners distro and I might suggest it over openSUSE due to its simplicity.
Of course being a debian fan I am a little biased
