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Open SUSE
Novell has decided it's time to release SUSE to the community. I first heard this today, and was a bit shocked. I told them NOT to turn it into some shitty OS like Fedora, but they aren't going that route. they are going to make it an open project like Fedora, but unlike RedHat it's going to be supported by Novell and even be bought in a store as Professional is now.
They said they are going to give it away as Free CDs too, so people don't have to download large ISO files. Meaning you can get it in a magazine, buy it form them, or go to a tradeshow, :
"Where Fedora is available chiefly by downloading multiple large CD images, Novell plans to distribute Suse Linux CDs in magazines, at trade shows and meetings, and possibly by sending them to those who just ask."
Not sure how I feel about this one. But anyway, there is no longer a reason to not use SUSE.
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-5816079.html
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Re: Open SUSE
Except of course because Fedora pwn3s SuSE. :p
Strike a nerve? ROFL
Just kidding. SuSE is pretty nice. But I've learned RH/Fedora since I started using linux.
I've yet to find one major reason not to use it.
Yes, I may need to download a couple of files to get mp3s working and get all my video... but easy enough with yum or apt.
Anyway, I'm happy to hear that they are going to open it up. That was one of the main reasons I DIDN'T use it. Every other distro out there has the ISOs for DL. I don't mind waiting a day to download them. No biggie. I don't need the docs and I don't need the sticker. ;)
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Hey Hey,
I'm not sure I like this movement... One of the reasons I liked SuSE was that it wasn't a community release...... Community releases are great for several reasons, but they don't hold up for office desktop use, that's what SuSE Professional was, designed to compete with Windows XP and it did a great job of it.
Sure, you couldn't just go to their site and download the ISOs... but there were plenty of ways to obtain the OS.... FTP Install, Purchase of ebay (if you wanted to forgot the $90 purchase, ebay had copies of the CDs for 20 bucks), or download the ISOs when they were released on P2P or BT.
That was the nice thing about the fine print of the SuSE license, you didn't have to buy it... Purchasing the box at the store was buying support and documentation. When our CPA (Computer Programmer Analyst) program decided to finally make the switch from RH9 (I finally convinced them to move to something better... RH just hasn't had a decent release since RH7) they went with SuSE (at my prompting)... I spent hours the phone with one of the Sales Managers from Novell's Head Office here in Canada. I had arranged for an agreement that got us OpenExchange, SuSE Server, RedCarpet (this was before it's public release) and a few other pieces of software, however all I wanted was SuSE Professional. He said that they'd throw it in free of charge (in the end all the software worked out to $0.79CDN/student). Then he asked why we were going to all this work and this really impressed me. He asked why I didn't just download their ISOs.... The license allowed for it.. or his other suggestion was to buy a single copy... We'd have the documentation then, but we'd still only have to fork out a minimal amount of money. We did just that... bought one copy, to show some support and then distributed it freely..
Sure it's free now also, but it's not going to be the same as when they did in-house testing... Open Community releases always tend to destroy the OS....
Peace,
HT
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Agreed on all points that HT makes, however, I'm personally looking forward to it. That is, from a lab test perspective. I can install as many copies as I like and do whatever I want with them.
Without the support structure that RH has, we couldn't deploy their distros in our environment. If Novell does away with the paid support model/professional distro, then we will be forced to remove the installs we have and the future planned installations. The thought being that if we run into an issue we can't fix, we're at the mercy of essentially volunteers.
:)
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I have mixed feelings. I agree with HT completely, but I've been told so far that they aren't going to do the RedHat thing, and really they just want to get the community more involved. Horsey, Novell has paid support for Open SUSE.....
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Quote:
Originally posted here by thehorse13
The thought being that if we run into an issue we can't fix, we're at the mercy of essentially volunteers.
:)
With ME on the team you're worried something would happen you couldn't get fixed?
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Quote:
Originally posted here by thehorse13
Without the support structure that RH has, we couldn't deploy their distros in our environment. If Novell does away with the paid support model/professional distro, then we will be forced to remove the installs we have and the future planned installations. The thought being that if we run into an issue we can't fix, we're at the mercy of essentially volunteers.
-emphasis added-
This is the quintessential argument against using open source software/solutions in private industry. I don't agree with it, but I wanted to point out that this is what you have to deal with when proposing Linux.
As for "there is no longer a reason to not use SUSE" all I have to say is, I like Debian/Ubuntu. That is a big reason. ;)
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apt-get update
apt-get upgrade
Copy and paste and save yourself some time today, God knows there is a security flaw being released for Debian as we speak. ;)
Anyway, just heard from Andreas from the SUSE team. He got me less worried now. Here are some facts:
You can have suport even for the free SUSE version.
SUSE 9.4 is not going to be released. It's called SUSE 10 ;)
Open SUSE is NOT fedora. It won't be a beta release turning into the Enterprise version after the users who made ReDHat what they are now test for free. Open SUSE is going to be Professional, but free. The stability is going to stay the same, and the two years of free updates stay there too.
The only real difference is going to be, if you want it for free, you don't need to do an FTP installation anymore heh.
