What does openSuse have to offer?

King0 · April 19, 2010, 4:14am

I’d like to better understand what openSuse has to offer as a distro and how it is different than other distros - specifically ubuntu and fedora. I’ve read/heard that some of openSuse’s selling points are that it is more interoperable than other distros and “Yast” is great. Can anyone tell how it is more interoperable? Also, why is “Yast” something special? as I understand it, Yast is a package manager just like synaptic and kpacketmanager.
Lastly, overall how stable is openSuse? From my experience ubuntu has worked as wanted out of the box, Fedora on the other hand some times works some times doesn’t.

caf4926 · April 19, 2010, 4:45am

Welcome.

Yast is a Sytem Management tool which includes package management, but also much more. It is great.
Yes it’s stable, but of course you might make it less so if you add too many 3rd party repos.
Inter-polarity is on a par with most distros out there.
NEW Users - openSuse Pre-install (general) – PLEASE READ - openSUSE Forums

oldcpu · April 19, 2010, 8:00am

software package management is only one of many functions of YaST, and it is a very very very small part of YaST’s functionality.

Don’t let the fact that YaST includes a link to a software management section confuse one to the fact that YaST is a configuration tool that does many things other than help install software.

Stability in Linux is typically related to how robust the operating system is against a user doing silly things. In openSUSE the way to make it go unstable is to add a zillion repositories. Users who restrict openSUSE to only 4 software repositories: OSS, Non-OSS, Update and Packman, rarely have stability problems. Of course if one is using a proprietary graphic driver, then updates to xorg or the kernel will break the driver and require a driver rebuild (or a NEW repository version of the driver installed, if available). But this is true for all Linux distributions and not just openSUSE.

Both Fedora and Ubuntu are technically good. My reasons for not using those distributions are NOT related to their technical capabilities.

Be also very wary of the typically very inaccurate reviews of distro hoppers (which is what one often see’s posted in magazine articles, web sites, and even in forums such as ours).

My experience is distributions work better the longer one sticks with one. Distro hoppers are never satisfied with any distribution, because they never stay long enough to learn how it is properly done in that distro. Hence they hop endlessly until fatigue sets in and they are finally forced to learn a Linux distribution where that distribution is typically the one they last visited and hence they stayed not because of technical functionality, but rather stayed because finally the desire to hop was exceeded by the fatigue of constantly hopping. Of course they will never admit that being the reason they stayed

Fedora is a good distribution. It has its hiccups, and so does every other Linux distribution and indeed so does every other computer operating system.

What I like about openSUSE:

superb 3rd party multimedia packaged by Packman packagers for openSUSE (and sticking with ONLY packman ensures stability)
openSUSE’s excellent KDE implementation
openSUSE’s YaST configuration tool
openSUSE’s community (forums, IRC chat … )
potential of the new openSUSE Build_Service and SUSE_Studio
openSUSE’s adherence to the Free_Software_Philosophy
My biased view is the openSUSE community , while somewhat fragmented across mailing lists, irc chat, and our forum, is in each of these areas is more polite and friendlier than Fedora’s equivalents and is more technically precise than Ubuntu’s equivalents.

The importance of a friendly but also technical accurate and supportive community is essential for Linux users, since most people do not know Linux, and one typically can not ask their family, neighbours, work colleagues, nor friend’s for help with Linux. Instead one must rely on the Linux community.

Good luck in your consideration, and note that “Linux is Linux” where ever you end up.

user · April 22, 2010, 1:14pm

King0 wrote:
> I’ve read/heard that some of openSuse’s selling points are that it is
> more interoperable than other distros

what do you mean by “interoperable”, or more importantly: Where you
read/heard that openSUSE is “more interoperable than other distros”
what did those writers/speaks mean, exactly?

and, interoperable with what? other Linux distros? other operating
systems? (which ones are important to you), or maybe they/you mean
‘operable’ on a wide variety of hardware…

define what you (or they) mean and maybe someone can address that
‘selling point’…

and, are you interested in “interoperability” as a web server, local
data base server, without a GUI, or just your own laptop’s desktop?

user · April 22, 2010, 1:46pm

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pistazienfresser · April 23, 2010, 9:35am

I think choosing a Linux distribution - distro - (or a operating system) is (always/mostly) not choosing the best at all but choosing the best for you or for your purpose of use. What is a pro for one purpose may be a contra for an other.

To Interoperability:

Interoperability - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This may not match exactly to the definition in wikipedia for interoperability but for me on my laptop(s) it is also important that I am able to use much programs on openSuse and its’ equivalent on Windows (XP), too. So I have not to learn all things two times.
But I think also being able to exchange data between (in my case) Windows and Linux or even to use the same data in both operating systems is related to that (using the same/"sister-"programmes) often.
Maybe King0 can look for the programmes that are in openSuse repositories and that can be used in his other operating system or by people related to King0.

Other topics of “interoperability” my be visualisation, Wine and using (or at least reading) partitions with more than one operating system.

Maybe someone else (with more knowledge) can say anything more about that.

Greetings
pistazienfresser

user · April 23, 2010, 2:45pm

pistazienfresser wrote:
> ‘Interoperability - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia’
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interoperability#Software)

Linux in general, and openSUSE in particular is highly interoperable
with all networks and systems which meet open international standards
for interoperability…

however, it is impossible to run native Linux or SUN programs in
Windows, and sometimes vice versa…

in fact, as far as i know MS Windows is the least interoperable of all
operating systems on the market today…sure, Windows systems
sometimes work well with each other, but almost never work smoothly
with other systems…

your cite uses this phrase: “If competitors’ products are not
interoperable (due to causes such as patents, trade secrets or
coordination failures), the result may well be monopoly or market
failure.” and i draw your attention to the fact that MS has been found
GUILTY, and paid heavy fines (millionS of dollars), in the courts of
law of several different countries precisely for being intentionally
non-interoperable for the purpose of operating as a monopoly…

if you need to work with both MS and Linux systems you will find a lot
help here in trying to get MS software to work with your
Linux…however you will get exactly ZERO help from MS in making it
easy for you to “not to learn all things two times”.

summation: here we try to work with all, and it is MOST difficult to
sometimes impossible to work with MS because they do NOT what you to
have the freedom to use anything else…

and, i find it completely unnecessary to use MS software of any kind.

pistazienfresser · April 23, 2010, 4:44pm

I only still use my Windows XP to

have just one OS working if I played to much with my openSuse.
explain some things to my sister, to my father etc.
run the DRM-Software for audible.com/audible.de audiobooks (but somebody working there wrote me that she would run something under Ubuntoo and Wine, if I recognize right).
Also I am just not quit enough familiar with OpenOffice.org as I am with MS Word (but have the hope that I would be able to bring somebody to change if there are so funny things like footnotes on the page before or after page with the number in the main text).
Also some software is still not available for Linux: There is a Spellchecker for the normal German Language for OpenOffice.org both for MS and for Unix-like Systems but only a Redmond-Redmond or a Redmond-OpenOffice.org version for the German legal terms/language.
And things like that.
Maybe I will try to bring linux to my niece and nephews to be sure they don’t get out of the “right way” like I did?

But are we just in the topic?
Was it not more about comparing some GNU/Linux versions? Do you think so many people read this forum if they are not already more or less willing to give linux a try?

Greetings
pistazienfresser

user · April 23, 2010, 5:59pm

pistazienfresser wrote:

> But are we just in the topic? Was it not more about comparing some
> GNU/Linux versions?

my first sentence said that Linux in general does that…that is ALL
GNU/Linux does that…

and, that same sentence noted that Linux is interoperable with all
systems which conform to accepted international standards (which MS
does not)…

> Do you think so many people read this forum if they are not already
> more or less willing to give linux a try?

my answer had nothing whatsoever to do with how ready or not you were
to trying Linux…

i asked what systems you wanted to be interoperable with and you only
mentioned XP, so i only addressed that so as to let you know you
will have lots of trouble trying to force interoperablity with a
system which absolutely does not attempt to be such…

and, you will find that many of the systems operations techniques you
learned with XP will not work in Linux…in fact, many things you
might do on an MS machine will HARM your Linux system…

BuddelBob · April 24, 2010, 8:23am

Have you tried LyX? You will get most of the advantages of LaTeX without having to learn it. It’s available in the official repositories.

pistazienfresser · April 26, 2010, 10:36am

Hi BuddelBob!

Thanks. I will give it a try. But first I will look for spell-checking and grammar check (especially for terms and words in German jurisprudens, law and language at court).

Greetings
pistazienfresser