Hello everyone, I’m an extremely new Linux user who has recently switched his main computer over to Leap 15.3.
Compared to my previous experiences with Pop_OS and KDE Neon (Ubuntu), I’m really enjoying Leap! Despite the smaller population of users for OpenSUSE distributions, I’ve found the documentation and general vibe extremely welcoming. YaST made it a lot easier for me to adjust to using the system and getting it running with most of what I needed without wrangling too much with terminal. I think the GUI for YaST in particular could be a huge selling point that differentiates OpenSUSE from other distributions if prospective users were exposed to how useful and versatile it is!
With most apps available through flatpaks and OPI, the supposed disadvantage of a non-Debian distro having access to fewer packages is greatly minimized as well.
openSUSE isn’t well positioned in the Linux distribution charts – DistroWatch & Co. – which then influences the ranking lists which in turn influences what the journalists write …
Curiously, despite the ranking lists, people try openSUSE and, are often delighted …
Why this is so? Personally, I haven’t got the faintest idea as to why it is so …
The question remains: why does this happen? Is there some cabal out to suppress openSuSe and to promote every flavor of Ubuntu? I’ve dabbled in a few other distros and the opensuse ease of use, helpfulness of the forums and the attitude of the people in the forums is really superior. On those occasions when I am pointed to another forum for a solution, it becomes obvious that opensuse is the best experience.There has to be a way to bring people to give opensuse a try. I believe its reputation will rise if that happens.
[HR][/HR]So, yes, once KDE Plasma 5.24 has settled down we may well have an “acceptable” – from the point of view of the journalists – GUI but, the prejudices will probably remain – unfortunately …
The desktop Linux community is a fickle and very diverse set of people. In recent years, Canonical has done a good job making Ubuntu the “easy” choice for people who want to leave Windows/macOS without too much hassle.
I think that openSUSE is also not as popular in North America, due perhaps to its provenance from Germany. Some people are still suspicious of “Novell,” despite it not existing any longer, for various reasons.
Then there’s the part of the community I really like: the professionalism and welcoming environment. This is a great feature, but doesn’t lend to openSUSE users running around (the internet) yelling about how great openSUSE is. Look at the Arch Linux memes–whether true or not, it has a lot of mindshare from the repetition and the l33t appearance.
When we , openSUSE lovers, can not even decide how openSUSE is written, how can we then forward the message that it is a well integrated, consistent and stable distribution? rotfl!
OpenSUSE has no magazine to spread it’s virtues. That’s why it is not the number 1 Linux.
Redhat has it’s magazine for those that pay for the enterprise edition. IBM might kill that now that they own Redhat.
Here’s what I know about in magazines:
There are 3 Ubuntu Linux magazines
There is 1 Mint Linux magazine
There are 3 Raspberry Pi OS Linux magazines
But I run openSUSE 15.3 on my Raspberry Pi 4b’s with no issues.
SLES/OpenSUSE must be pretty good as the world’s number 1 retailer uses it on 95% of it Unix/Linux boxes (the others have obsolete apps that have not been replaced by newer apps).
The default install of openSUSE is not very friendly to those folks wanting to leave Microsoft Windows. - Mint Linux has the look and feel of Windows 7 and installs wine and games by default. For openSUSE to gain more market share on the non-techies, the installer should offer a Windows migration install that uses Mate Desktop and ext4 files system as a single drive and a recovery partition like windows has done for years.
That what I do for my neighbors - all but one has moved to OpenSUSE. One still on Windows 10 due to one app and he did not want to run Windows in a Virtual Machine. He installed and had me uninstall Windows 11.
Number one reason that I’ve ran into over the last decade trying to get openSUSE into businesses and cloud hosting providers as images or supported OS; No LTS version.
End of story. No LTS, no interest. Leaps shelf life is way too short and Tumbleweed… well yeah, let’s not go there. Ubuntu has LTS, Rocky now does what CentOS used to do and so forth.
I’m sure you’ve all heard of Linux. It’s that one open-source operating system that nerds love talking about. But, Linux isn’t just meant for nerds. In fact, virtually all of the largest tech companies in the world use Linux in one form or other thanks to its superior performance when it comes to back-end development. In fact, even Microsoft has switched over from Windows to Linux for their networks, databases, and cloud infrastructure.
But, if Linux is so good, why hasn’t the average person even tried it, especially when it’s free? Well, one of the main reasons that Linux never gained that much popularity is because its low cost doesn’t really mean much to the vast majority of customers. The vast majority of people just be prebuilt machines and Windows/macOS comes preinstalled for no extra cost. **Also, even if you were building your own PC, Microsoft has made it extremely easy to get an unlicensed version of Windows running permanently. **On top of this, Linux is usually not as user-friendly because it doesn’t come preinstalled with much software. Not to mention, you often have to use the command line to accomplish simple tasks. This video explains the top reasons that Linux is not very popular despite its free nature and apparent superiority.