And now is there something that resembles the Suse Linux i used to get boxed? Maybe yast. No: i was used to pay for something that was worth for it. It really worked fine. From release to release we had a better working environment. Now from release to release and even from ‘upgrade’ to upgrade we have an almost unusable os. Is this the way we should leave a closed source environment but working? Is this the desktop we should recommend to our friends? Once upon a time it was. Now? P.s. I use Suse Linux as my ONLY os from the times of 7.3.
Is this the usual rant when (if) someone has a particular problem?
My first SUSE was the 8.2. I agree with you, and no, I’m not recommended this OS to my friends. I have had some serious problems with the last 2-3 leases (after 4 years of Linux experience). How to recommend this to someone who want to start with Linux.
ps.: no it isn’t a rant. I’m still using openSUSE on my server, but for desktop it isn’t the best choice IMHO.
I tell my friend DistroWatch.com: Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD. to look in there and you can pick and like;).
Yes, I agree with you. Great site if you can’t decide what to recommend.
i’m a newbie I guess, been using it since 10.2 or 10.1, can’t remember, never had any serious problem, and always recomend it to people.
I am using openSUSE from 10.2. I am not sure about the early releases and stability and ease too. But from 11.0 i face more problems than 10.2 and 10.3. 1st of all, i would recommend that the developers did not have to include any beta or alpha package in final release. This makes the things more worse for new users.
Most of my friends uses windows, i recommend just LINUX, not any specific one. If they ask, which Linux distro you using, my simple answer is ‘openSUSE’.
But personally i like the Ubuntu strategy, business model, and that’s why most of the people know, Linux=Ubuntu.
These are just my opinions.
I agree with ram88 on his thoughts.
If asked (and only if asked) about openSUSE, then I recommend it. I also volunteer to come over to their place and for the cost of a beer (or glass of coca cola) I’ll help them install the 1st night and give them a tutorial. … No takers so far.
Most people who ask me about openSUSE, also want to install openSUSE on a 400MHz PIII with 85MB of RAM with 1 GB hard drive space available. … Go figure. … rotfl!
No serious problems in nearly four years of using SUSE and openSUSE and things have got progressively better for the things I want to do.
Note that DistroWatch is easily manipulated, you can script it to forge the results - Ubuntu forum guys did this back in the day to improve their standing.
I’ve been with Suse sporadically in 10.0 & 10.1 then been with it solid with 10.2 since July '07, Yes I agree 11.0 & 11.1 were bad. However quite a bit of the problems,though not all, can be attributed to KDE4 IMHO. For me Suse has been & continues to be my distro of choice. Yes I do have problems, but thanks to the members of this forum & sometimes my own messing with it I do get things fixed. So overall Suse has been good to me.
As to recommending it to an absolute newbie, unfortunately I must say,“No” I don’t recommend Suse to them. Why?
Because if one is coming in from Windows Suse can be a bit overwhelming. Rather I introduce and/or start absolute newbs to PCLOS. It’s perfect for acquainting new people to Linux they get the basics down there 1st. Then once they’re comfy with how linux works, then if they ask I’ll intro them to Opensuse. I already have a nephew that is sold on linux in general, Opensuse in particular & I did it this way.
When I came to linux, it was coming from Windows XP.
I gave all the main distro’s a try, for me, the easiest distro was OpenSuse. I couldn’t even work out how to install fedora, well, by that I mean I couldn’t work out how to get an internet connection with it back then. I found opensuse to be the most user friendly, it worked without having to do anything to it, picked up my net connection from install, and it was pretty basic to work out.
Hi all. Since i started the tread i would point that mine is not a rant. Simply it seems to me that something has changed from time to time. I know that the opensuse project is like a place were to experiment something new but it is also evident that , leaving out the older boxed distros, 10.2 has been the last fully working release. I still use it side by side with 2 os11.1 so i can test the newest releases. On one of those i decided to upgrade the x environment from the official repo and voila the system was broken. I was also able to roll back but i also have years of experience on this system. Now imagine a complete noob: What should he think? I think that everything is released “official” should be carefully tested.
A point of clarification. The “official” testers are users like you and me. Us !! And if we don’t do it, nobody will.
Which is why I keep harping on users to set up a sandbox partition or PC, and download the beta versions (now the milestone releases) and test for the functionality that is important to them.
Sitting back and thinking Novell or SuSE-GmbH are going to test every last feature is simply not viable, and that is NOT the way their business model of openSUSE is setup. Its up to us to test it. Again, if we don’t do this, then nobody will.
Congratulations, you upgraded from a completely different Xserver version to another that changed a lot of internals for which much of the system has never been tested against.
For example the Intel driver in the new X is rather ‘unstable’ (and you can thank Intel for that) and often causes freezes and other nasties and more often than not upgrading X also breaks the nVidia driver.
A ‘complete noob’ would not add an OBS repository and upgrade Xorg from there as they wouldn’t even know what a repository is, much less install software from there. Moot point.
First of all there’s a HUGE disclaimer that says updating software from the OBS is at your own risk - if you want a ‘stable’ system, use the packages that are provided with it - not install random packages from various sources. I can guarantee you I can break Ubuntu, Mandriva and any other distribution or even Windows just as easily by installing software that I have no clue as to what they do - just by “upgrading my critical system components.”
As for 10.2, it was a complete disaster - 11.0 for example was a vastly better release overall.
It didn’t sound like a rant to me. There has been plenty of change in openSUSE, mostly for the better. Some didn’t work out and couldn’t be fixed quickly. However you did sound like this:
“Once upon a time there were fewer cars on the road. The cars were better built then, with fewer faults on delivery, and they lasted longer.”
Well ok, that was nice, then. Our memories are selective over time. We tend to forget the breakdowns, the trips back to the garage, the discomfort, the poor road holding, etc. Cars were less complicated then. Less knowledge/skill was required to get them back on the road.
Now there are more drivers and car users, with many different requirements to satisfy. Users want better comfort, greater mileage, less frequent servicing, more gadgets included, better fuel consumption, and better physical protection in the event of accident. That’s just a few examples. I could have been talking about the PC in a similar way:O
So there you are with your useful day-to-day runabout model with quite a lot of useful features, but this is a PC and it can do much more by just replacing some software. So, you tinker and soup it up because you really want the latest F1 model. Guess what, it no longer runs around. Oh dear…
So you take your wreck back to the dealer and complain. Guess what - he tells you politely to **** off. If only we could…lol!
SuSE Linux was better before it became OpenSuSE.
Of course that was to be expected because the German guys who were running the shop had some unwritten rules:
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SuSE should be better than Red Hat and as good as Slackware.
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There should be an easy way to setup and maintain software.
That was before 64 bit … before the dark times… before the Empire.
The Empire was there but it really didn’t seem like an “Evil” Empire until it put the-good-one to IBM over OS/2 (Warp to some). Then the Empire almost destroyed Corel, Novell, and Borland. Some of us are still shaking our collective heads over the fall of Novell, Borland, and Corel. The result: Novell ends up with SuSE. Corel is on the edge of… disaster. Borland’s left overs get bought up by Micro Focus. Micro Focus is famous for COBOL. I’m old enough to admit I’ve used Micro Focus COBOL for DOS to work on small applications destine for a mainframe.
The question now becomes: If we put a tack on Ron’s seat, assuming he sits down, will the pain move fast enough from the padding to the brain to help save Novell? I’m sure there are Novell shareholders who want to run this experiment. Save Novell save OpenSuSE.
Yes once upon a time there was SuSE. Now we have a zoo… this zoo. I like zoos but I think we need zoo keepers. I think zoo keepers would help the OpenSuSE and Novell goodwill short and long-term. This is a business challenge not a social challenge. Unfortunately we have socially challenged individuals who can’t comprehend the fact that OpenSuSE and Novell face business challenges. Zoo keepers can help new OpenSuSE, and Old SuSE, users feel more comfortable and welcome here. The zoo keepers can use pepper spray, prozac, reverse-dogma-brainwashing techniques, and exorcisms to save the socially challenged; what ever works! A saved soul is a happy soul. Happy souls welcome new friends with open arms. OpenSuSE with that open arms concept… it could be like a Journey song; spiritually moving!
Assuming everyone feels welcome then we all win!
IMHO that analogy would apply to all Linux distributions, and not just openSUSE. Ever since its inception, Linux has moved forward based upon anarchy. Perhaps under SuSE-GmbH, “SuSE” (ie pre-10.0) had a rigid fiefdom, which provided some protection against the ravages of anarchy that were outside the SuSE borders, but it was limited. The SuSE-GmbH fiefdom was also on the verge of bankruptcy, and even cash infusions by IBM and Novell were not IMHO likely to keep it alive. Its only recently (since 10.0 and the takeover by Novell) that SuSE, now called and redirected as “openSUSE” (which in some ways is a front end for testing of SLED and SLES) has a more solid financial standing. And under this openSUSE, SLED, and SLES has thrived, not in leaps and bounds, but gradually. The new Novell fiefdom is stronger and better protected in this world of Linux anarchy.
So if this a Zoo, then as opposed to the old SuSE (pre-10.0) zoo where the zoo was almost bankrupt, and about to close its doors, the new one has expanded, and its cleaned up some of the ravages of near bankruptcy. Yes, its not the smaller quaint zoo it once was. It has some problems that need to be sorted as a result of the expansion. But in the view of some of us who were around in the old pre-Novell fiefdom, it IS an improvement now in many many other ways. Not the least of which is superior financial stability.
In essence my view to the Title "Once up a time there SuSE … " would continue to “which was adopted and gradually grew up to the community minded prince openSUSE” .
We have two different views, … two different perspectives, … and hence clearly form part of the evolving anarchy that makes up the pool of Linux users.
We have two different views, … two different perspectives, … and hence clearly form part of the evolving anarchy that makes up the pool of Linux users.[/QUOTE]
I’m hoping that the majority of OpenSuSE fans love you OldCPU.
All of this is a part of an interaction which will hopefully help OpenSuSE evolve. The future of OpenSuSE’s success and evolution is directly tied to the fiscal success of Novell. I believe that the business goals that Novell has for SLED and OpenSuSE are one and the same in the long-term. The health of the SuSE and OpenSuSE distributions depend on Novell’s health. For the short term I’d like to think we can collectively encourage as much dissension regarding the last few OpenSuSE releases as we can. In doing this we can give Novell’s best engineers the opportunity to maximize their efforts at refining and differentiating OpenSuSE from Ubuntu and Fedora.
If we do this we win short-term and, hopefully, long-term.
In the end the ultimate goal is happy end users!
As Ren and Stimpy might say: Happy Happy Joy Joy!
> I’m sure there are Novell shareholders who want to run this
> experiment. Save Novell save OpenSuSE.
thankfully i sold all my NOVL for $5.69 in July 2008
and, i don’t think it is a good buy today at $3.94 (not too late to
short though!!)
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heartless_bot