Let’s hope the SLE & openSUSE side is considered as part of the future, the bedrock for recovery.
They had been doing quite well with SLE at expense of RedHat in figures published not so long ago.
PLEASE reread the link: it has been CORRECTED at the top!
Though still depressing.
Less depressing! I guess Asay jumped the gun a bit. As tech lay-offs have been going recently, I guess it could have been a lot worse than 10%.
More detailed info from ComputerWorld here.
Lets all buy openSUSE… give them some revenue… I was planning on doing it… looks like I’ll have a better reason to do it…
Wait till the US car industry starts laying off people - then you can say “depressing numbers” 
> Lets all buy openSUSE… give them some revenue…
nope…i won’t buy openSUSE (i use it, but won’t buy it)…but, if
SLED v 11 pops out fully baked and stable i’ll buy that…i am tired
of this every six months comes a new load of pain…
That’s better news, I read the 25% off version.
> i am tired of this every six months comes a new load of pain…
How old is 10.2, that’s the one that security updates ended for.
10.3, 11.0 still work noone forces you to run the latest.
Someone forces you to upgrade every six months?
You don’t have to upgrade with every new release. Just keep using the one you like and when support comes close to an end you can then decide which newer version to upgrade to.
Makes me wonder why people think if there is a new release they have to use it.
i currently run 10.3, and will be FORCED to leave it in October 09
when security update support will end…
at that time i have the choice of choosing my new pain:
of 11.2 (which, if the last several releases are ANY predictor, will
be just FULL of unbaked and buggy code…but, with about 20 months of
support once the horrendous two to four months of bug killing and
tweaking is over…i jumped into 10.3 when it was fresh and
buggy…but, that ride is too soon over…)
OR 11.1 (which after completely updating in every way is probably
usable and reliable to end of Dec 2010 (11 months use), when its
support ends)
OR 11.0 with just 7 or 8 months until it FORCES as similar option
set, see how that works out??
as i said, IF SLED 11 pops out fully baked i just might buy and ride
it for its expected SEVEN YEARS of relatively pain free life…of
course, that path cost about 329 Euro (about $420 US) if they don’t
go up on their current costs…
see now??
11.1 is stable and good if you take two things into account ; You use KDE 3.5’er and disable PulseAudio from YAST / Sound.
That more or less wraps up most of the issues that crop up on #suse.
I would not even consider 11.0 when it comes time to consider leaving 10.3. One would need some very specific hardware incompatibilities with 11.1 and 11.2 (that hypothetically did not exist in 11.0) for me to consider installing 11.0 on a 10.3 PC at the end of 2009.
I also would not even consider 11.1 unless the news on 11.2 is horrific (or unless one MUST have KDE3, in which case 11.1 may be the last KDE3 in openSUSE (unless the openSUSE community steps up to the plate and provides KDE3 for 11.2)).
There is no reason why you can not run 10.3 until December 2009. Just because the support has stopped, its extremely unlikely there will be a “must have” security fix that will devastate your 10.3. EXTREMELY UNLIKELY. Hence that will give you many months to watch 11.2, and then decide to go for 11.2 or 11.1. MOST LIKELY 11.2 will be the OS to choose, and then you have approximately 2 years of 11.2 support, where 2 years is FAR MORE than the 6-months that you specified.
As for using SLED or SLES, which have a longer cycle, … a number of users do that. My criticism of SLED/SLES, is they do NOT have the 3rd party support that openSUSE has. So if you use applications (such as multimedia) where superb 3rd party support is essential, then SLED/SLES don’t “cut it”. Sometimes they work with Packman packages, but I have read of many cases where they have problems. But if 3rd party support is something you do not need, then the long life of SLED/SLES may be for you.
An example that is partly relevant to this discussion, … my 82-year old mother (83 in March 2009) uses openSUSE Linux, and she lives a continent away. She lives in North America, and I maintain her Linux PC remotely from Europe using ssh, vnc, and nx. Because of the distance, I only am able to visit her once/year. Every 2 years I update the Linux OS on her PC. In January 2009 I replaced openSUSE-10.2 with openSUSE-11.1.
Now openSUSE-10.2 support stopped in Nov-2008, so it was clear to me during my annual (once/year) visit in Jan-2009 that it was best I update her openSUSE-10.2. But openSUSE-11.1 was released only on 18-Dec-2008, and one month is not a long observation time for a new openSUSE release. IMHO one should watch for 2 to 3 months before deciding to install a new openSUSE version, especially if one has to go for an entire YEAR before one has physical access to the PC.
So, along the lines of your point (about the risks of a new openSUSE version), what I did to mitigate the risk, was participate in the later stages of the openSUSE-11.1 development release alpha process, beta, and RC1 process. I specifically tested functionality that:
- I knew my mother used/needed
- I needed to maintain my mother’s PC remotely
I also researched and watched the bug reports for reports on problems that could cause the OS to fail to boot on her hardware or cause Internet not to function. If there had been problems that I found, I would have written bug reports. There were no major problems in 11.1 (related to what I and my mother needed), and my testing proved 11.1 worked in the necessary areas for my mother, … and thus only a few weeks after the 11.1 release, I had the confidence to install 11.1 on my mother’s PC during my brief visit, in the full knowledge it could be more than 12 months before I have physical access again.
Now in your case, physical access is NOT a problem, so you can easily wait a few months after 11.2, … and then make your decision based on what you have there. I did not have that luxury, BUT there still was an acceptable way forward for me, without having to resort to SLED/SLES, where the 3rd party support is less than adequate (for the applications that my mother uses).
Again, note there is no 6 month update cycle being forced here. Rather I adhere to a 2 year update cycle.
This should read 18-Dec-2008.
Hi
I’ve been using the following site for a couple of years for my
requirements, else I just build myself from source
SLED 10 Custom Built
RPMs
I’ve put 11.1 on my main machine (no issues so far either) now as
hopefully in the next 2~4months SLED11 should be out.
–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 11.1 x86 Kernel 2.6.27.7-9-default
up 7:06, 1 user, load average: 0.03, 0.08, 0.08
GPU GeForce 6600 TE/6200 TE - Driver Version: 180.22
Upgrading in future may become easier. If you’ld like to be able to install a stable 11.1, and expect to upgrade to 11.2 without issues, then this entry in Fate might be something of interest Debian-like dist-upgrade live system full version upgrade
all good points, thanks for your analysis…
especially the parts saying (between the lines) i don’t have to
resort to pay money (i pay other ways)…
dd
> I’ve been using the following site for a couple of years for my
> requirements, else I just build myself from source
> SLED 10 Custom Built
> RPMs
>
> I’ve put 11.1 on my main machine (no issues so far either) now as
> hopefully in the next 2~4months SLED11 should be out.
hmmmmmm…clear this up for me please:
are you saying you use these sourced SLED 10 RPMs to keep your
openSUSE updated??
really?
what do you do: watch the security problem announcements and go get
the rpms?
wow cool!!
might i (say) be able to just stop using the openSUSE update repos
and switch to Mike Petersen’s builds and always catch the security
and stability fixes that way??
dd
Hi
No, I use SLED10 on my main machine, hence the link to multimedia rpms,
the SLE version of packman with respect to oldcpu’s comment re 3rd part
support.
Codecs are available via fluendo.
If I cannot find an application rpm in either the SLE SDK or searching
the repositories for SLED, I use the build service to generate the
required rpm(s) from source tarballs.
–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 11.1 x86 Kernel 2.6.27.7-9-default
up 9:43, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
GPU GeForce 6600 TE/6200 TE - Driver Version: 180.22