Switched from Ubuntu to OpenSUSE

nagendra_appsec · April 15, 2011, 2:55pm

@Martin

Thanks, I haven’t came across this till now. Nice find!

dragonbite · April 15, 2011, 3:44pm

Welcome to openSUSE. As you have already noticed this is (usually ) a friendly forum and also I find more open-minded about things that get other people all hyperventilating.

Moving from Ubuntu to openSUSE do you find yourself going to the Gnome or KDE desktop envionrment (just curious)?

Glad to hear about finding stability with openSUSE! I know a couple of people that try Ubuntu and Fedora only to find openSUSE picks it up and runs without any issue. Ultimately, stability seems to be a moving target and each release “reshuffles” who is stable and who is not. Ultimately go with who works for YOU.

nagendra_appsec · April 15, 2011, 4:11pm

Hi dragonbite, thanks.

I’ve tried both DE’s GNOME and KDE and found GNOME is comfirtable for me. Previously I ran Ubuntu with GNOME and Fedora with KDE. But I faced stabililty problems with KDE on Fed. Usually I like KDE. But looking to have a voyage with GNOME 3.0 on openSUSE. And also looking forward to try Ubuntu 11.4 with Unity on VM.

nagendra_appsec · April 15, 2011, 4:12pm

Hi dragonbite, thanks.

I’ve tried both DE’s GNOME and KDE and found GNOME is comfirtable for me. Previously I ran Ubuntu with GNOME and Fedora with KDE. But I faced stabililty problems with KDE on Fed. Usually I like KDE. But looking to have a voyage with GNOME 3.0 on openSUSE. And also looking forward to try Ubuntu 11.4 with Unity on VM.

steffen13 · April 15, 2011, 4:24pm

swissinvestor:

Kind of interesting that the reason for switching from Ubuntu to Opensuse is “because it works out of the box”. I am now using Opensuse quite a while and also converted some Windows users to it. But every now and then and now again with Opensuse 11.4 these nasty little problems showing up, like the Nvidia thing, or now Skype problems, PulseAudio seems to be a real problem…Not something that makes you look good when you convert people away from Windows and then Skype is broken
Well, I have now tried Ubuntu and Kubuntu Natty and found that those actually worked out of the box. I will now wait for the final release of Natty on 28 April and then decide if I go the other way. Switch from Opensuse to Kubuntu, because it appears to me today there are less problems around. Nevertheless, I liked Opensuse, but the little nasty hickups are killers for former Windows users.Something like Skype just needs to work without fiddling around for hours.

I am also a Ubuntu-convert, means I have switched from Ubuntu to openSUSE. If you wanna try Ubuntu, or Kubuntu in special… good luck! I see that you are no native english speaker… have fun with this awful mixture between english and your language, installed by default.
And you will learn to love the KDE crashhandler. But please remember: it is not KDE, it is Kubuntu which is so freaking unstable.
As Kubuntu also has Pulseaudio, you will have the same issues with Skype.

In openSUSE, you at least have the possibility to disable Pulseaudio in Yast (don´t know how? Just ask) and then to try Skype if it works. In Kubuntu and Ubuntu you need to uninstall it completely in the first place…

As someone who has used Ubuntu only in the last 3 years, I know that openSUSE is running much more smoothly and supports much more hardware out of the box than Ubuntu. And if some harware is not supported you can at least set evrerything up in Yast and don´t need to tinker around in system config files.
And: openSUSE is also more stable and reliable than Ubuntu and specially Kubuntu. The level of stability of 11.4 right after release was amazing to me. I never experienced that with Ubuntu or Kubuntu right after release and even later on, as hundreds of updates were already rolled out.

So good luck then, I know, you´ll coming back soon

wellywu · April 15, 2011, 6:25pm

I find OpenSUSE to be extremely reliable and dependable even though I switched to both the Tumbleweed and Packman all of Tumbleweed repositories about one week ago. I have had no problems with any computer hardware or consumer electronics devices. Everything gets detected and it works flawlessly in OpenSUSE.

On a side note, I plan to submit my application for a Ph. D. degree program in Management of Technology at Polytechnic Institute at New York University in Brooklyn, New York City USA by January 2013. I already got accepted to their Masters of Science in Management of Technology degree program in 2008. It is extremely competitive.

I want to buy a second notebook PC to be used for NYU Poly. I am seriously looking into a new Hewlett Packard Elitebook mobile workstation with ISV certification and a 14.00" widescreen LED LCD screen for about $1,600.00 USD. Based upon my research, HP Elitebooks with the “w” designation are certified to run SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 SP1.

Has anyone here any direct ownership experience to bear this out?

This summer, I will be studying for my CompTIA Security+ certification. I will take my CompTIA Security+ SYO-201 exam by August 2011 and I will pass it on my first try. Then, I will move on to CISSP and CEH. I am doing my training with Exam Force (ExamForce). I am already CompTIA A+ and Network+ certified.

I really like the HP Elitebook “w” series mobile workstations especially if the fact is indeed true that it is certified to run SLED 11 SP1. Basically, I will buy it after being accepted to NYU Poly again and I will wipe out the Microsoft Windows 8 Professional 64 bit operating system with SLED 11 SP1 and I will install Oracle Virtualbox with Microsoft Windows 8 Professional 8 64 bit which I can get a free copy from New Jersey Institute of Technology when Microsoft releases their next operating system sometime in 2012. I also get a free copy of Microsoft software applications because I am a member of the Association for Computing Machinery and they give a MSDN subscription to students for a very low annual membership fee.

I doubt that my future profession will allow me to run OpenSUSE or SLED 11 SP1 exclusively so I am committed to Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office for the long term future.

RichardET · April 15, 2011, 7:52pm

wellywu:

It has been more than two weeks since I installed OpenSUSE 11.4 64 bit and I switched to the Tumbleweed and Packman all of Tumbleweed repositories. There have been some problems here and there which I posted threads and the people here have been helpful in resolving those problems. Right now, I am good to go and there are no problems that I am experiencing. I guess that was my learning curve. I will stick to OpenSUSE until I make the decision to purchase a subscription to SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 SP1 with LTSS from Novell sometime in the future when I purchase a new Hewlett Packard EliteBook mobile workstation with ISV certification.

I still do use Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 32 bit within an Oracle Virtualbox virtual machine so that I can do my homework assignments and projects while I pursue my Masters of Science in IT Administration and Security degree program at New Jersey Institute of Technology here in Newark, New Jersey USA. Once I graduate, I will probably upgrade to the newest Microsoft Windows 8 Professional 64 bit which I can receive for free from NJIT since I am a graduate student who is actively enrolled in a credit based course in 2012.

I rarely use Microsoft Windows 7 nowadays except when I have to study or do my homework assignments or projects.

Ubuntu is still a good GNU/Linux distribution, but its flaky support for Super Speed USB 3 devices and frequent crashes made me wary. I doubt that I will buy a System76 notebook PC preloaded with Ubuntu.

Thank you.

Upgrade to Windows 8? host or guest? I have never tried virtualbox but I have many years using VMWare and last two using it with OpenSuse; I like it

wellywu · April 15, 2011, 10:42pm

I plan to download, activate, and install Microsoft Windows 8 Professional 64 bit in an Oracle Virtualbox virtual machine as the guest operating sysytem.

I own VM Ware Workstation 7.1.2. for Microsoft Windows 7 and GNU/Linux. I prefer to stick with free and open source software packages such as Oracle Virtualbox.

VMWare is the gold standard for virtualization and cloud services. I like it a lot too.

martin_helm · April 15, 2011, 11:18pm

wellywu wrote:

>
> I plan to download, activate, and install Microsoft Windows 8
> Professional 64 bit in an Oracle Virtualbox virtual machine as the guest
> operating sysytem.
>
Have much fun with an alpha version from microsoft.

> I own VM Ware Workstation 7.1.2. for Microsoft Windows 7 and GNU/Linux.
> I prefer to stick with free and open source software packages such as
> Oracle Virtualbox.
>
> VMWare is the gold standard for virtualization and cloud services. I
> like it a lot too.
>
It is omnipresent and widely used but for sure not the gold standard.

wellywu · April 16, 2011, 1:09am

I have found that Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate to be stable, reliable, and dependable prior to the release of Service Pack 1. Microsoft does a good job of releasing software patches, hot fixes, and service packs for their operating systems and Microsoft Office portfolio. Microsoft Vista represented a new direction for the Redmond company. It represents a new code base that offers some tantalizing opportunities for innovation. I found Microsoft Vista Service Pack 2 to be as stable as Microsoft Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3. Microsoft Windows 7 Service Pack 1 expands upon that code base and it is suitable for production environments in enterprises. Microsoft will continue to build upon its lessons learned with Microsoft Vista and 7 when it ships Microsoft Windows 8 to the general public sometime in 2012. There used to be an old adage which said to wait until the release of the first service pack before purchasing a new version of Microsoft Windows. In my opinion and experience, Microsoft has put that to rest when it shipped Windows 7 prior to the recent release of Service Pack 1. I fully expect Microsoft Windows 8 to be the most stable, reliable, and dependable shipped version yet released by the company. On a side note, I am happy to see that they have returned to their normal three year release cycles which should help foster more rapid innovations and introduce cutting edge technologies to the general public in the future. I will continue to use Microsoft products for the foreseeable future especially in my new career change into the computer industry.

VMware is the best at what they do. VMWare Workstation 7.1.4 has the edge in terms of the features set compared to free and open source competitors such as Oracle Virtualbox, Xen, QEmu, etc. VMWare Workstation is easier to install and configure than Oracle Virtualbox and it runs consistently well with far fewer software problems. I expect to install and run VMWare Workstation when I purchase my HP Elitebook “w” mobile workstation and SLED 11 SP1 so that I have the best in breed technologies to equip me for a very rigorous Ph. D. degree program at NYU Poly for many years.

martin_helm · April 16, 2011, 2:29am

I work with several vmware products now for several years including the free
vmware server, vmware workstation and esx. If that is the gold standard
(that is just what vmware says on their website) then simply forget it.

RichardET · April 16, 2011, 5:16am

Martin, which VM product suits you the best if not something from VMWare?

Thanks,

Richard

wellywu · April 16, 2011, 2:05pm

I subscribed to this thread, but I am no longer receiving instant e-mail messages that let me see updated replies. Why?

robin_listas · April 16, 2011, 2:50pm

On 2011-04-11 21:06, suse kid wrote:
> Please consider including Winff in the 11.4 repos. I really need it a
> lot.

Packman

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” at Telcontar)

martin_helm · April 17, 2011, 12:17am

RichardET wrote:

>
> Martin, which VM product suits you the best if not something from
> VMWare?
>
I cannot answer which would suit best, because in my case (our the companies
case) this is hypothetical. The decision about which virtualization to use
cannot be made inside my department, it was decided outside by the system
administration.
To elaborate a bit why I made this sarcastic comment about vmware as a gold
standard.
In the last seven years until today when I and the rest of my department
were and are forced to use the software, we had a lot of realy nasty
glitches with it.
Broken update paths which lead to unusable virtual machines after the
updates of the (commercial not the gratis) software. The costs to restore
them from backup and migrate them again and again until every problem was
solved to the new versions were definitely higher than the price of the
virtualization software.
Intermittent corruption of the virtual harddisks of some of the virtualized
systems over the years. If that happens once or only on one host system I
would say the hosts hardware or software configuartion was the problem. But
this happened over the years on three different servers acting as hosts and
also unrelated to the guest operating system. Again costs in terms of
working hours spent on that.
I do not have a proper statistics now, but from my memory I would say that
the problems happened with at least 10% of the virtual machines (we have
about fifty at any time, if you count that some of them are only for
temporary use and some were no longer needed and new ones were added the
total number is clearly over 100 and we will have more in the future).

There were more problems and that makes me refuse to say that I can accept
such a cheap marketing phrase like ‘vmware is the gold standard’ (It is
simply a marketing phrase directly taken from the vmware website).
It might be a standard, it might even be good compared to others but it is
not ‘gold’.

Beside that I have not much experience with other virtualization software.
For private purposes I began to use virtual box, but it is too early for me
to compare them. So far I am satisfied with it and I advised one of my
colleagues to start making a proof of concept using it in the future for the
needs of the development department, he has much more experience (several
years) with virtual box than I have. In addition we will start to evaluate
kvm/qemu, I hope it can all be done till summer, I still have to find out
who is the right person to do it.

If someone is really interested what the outcome is, I am willing to report
it or blog it somewhere, but this will be in a few months.

About 40 of the 50 virtual machines I mentioned above belong to my
department (department is a big word here, it is a small company the
department consists of only ten employees), most of this systems are
environments for software testing, five are virtual servers for the
development infrastructure.

I also use qemu now for some time (about 3 or 4 years), but this is a
completely different technology and I only use it so far as a private
person. I like that it can simulate different processor types, I never used
it myself in the classical sense of virtualization.

At the end I would say: Ask me again in three or four months. Then I can
give you a proper answer based on more and reliable facts.

Lykopis · April 20, 2011, 3:58pm

I started with OpenSuse somewhere around 10.0 when a neighbor showed me it on his laptop.
I ran it for a while and got pretty good with it. He switched to Ubuntu. So I did a follow the “Leader”
and switched also. I agree with the starter of this thread that Ubuntu 10.10 has a lot of issues. It would
lock up tight on my laptop, the touch pad was flaky at best, read a couple of CD/DVD’s —lock up.
I wanted to move back to OpenSuse, But 11.3’s kernel didn’t support my hardware.
So I was happy to see 11.4 with Linux Kernel 2.6.37.1-1.2 as this hardware requires Linux Kernel 2.6.35 or better.
Thanks guys for a fantastic job on 11.4, it seems to keep ticking (without the lock-ups).

dragonbite · April 20, 2011, 9:23pm

Was that hardware causing issues Intel 855 video?

Lykopis · April 21, 2011, 2:29am

No I have an ATI video adapter, It never was an issue on this laptop.
I think the Insyde Bios was the problem. They were not supported in
the Linux Kernel till 2.6.35.xx.
This support is also known as the copy_dsdt patch.

wellywu · April 22, 2011, 1:55pm

Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal is going to be released on April 28th, 2011. It marks a change in direction for Canonical. They will offer Ubuntu on the cloud for one hour for free so that you can test drive it without installing it on your computer. Unity is the new GUI which many users are taking in with mixed reactions. .04 releases tend to be of higher quality and polish than .10 releases.

I am not going to install it even in an Oracle Virtualbox virtual machine.

I am happy with my OpenSUSE with Tumbleweed distribution. This one will last me for the next year and a half before I buy another laptop.

wellywu · April 25, 2011, 8:09pm

By the end of April 2011, I will have been running OpenSUSE for a month. This may not seem like a big accomplishment, but I usually change out operating systems every few weeks due to security concerns, personal irritations with the quirks or technical problems, or I just feel like a change. OpenSUSE has been refreshingly different. There have been so many improvements that have come along such as GNOME 3, kernel upgrades, and the friendly community here that I want to continue using OpenSUSE and I plan to install it on my new computer in the future as well. Seriously, this is one of the best GNU/Linux distributions that I have ever tried and I have tried all of the major ones for brief periods of time. OpenSUSE just works and it is easy to configure to my liking with the available tools. I prefer OpenSUSE over Microsoft Windows 7 nowadays.