For Better Or For Worse

Sean — Mon, 22 Aug 2005 00:56:00 +0200

If you hadn’t heard by now, Novell is releasing ‘public betas’ of the SUSE linux distribution (openSUSE). This is a similar to Red Hat’s Fedora program.

How is this different from Fedora? From the FAQ:

The openSUSE project explicitly looks beyond the technical community to the broader non-technical community of computer users interested in Linux. The openSUSE project creates—through an open and transparent development process—a stabilized, polished Linux distribution (SUSE Linux) that delivers everything a user needs to get started with Linux. (SUSE Linux is consistently cited as the best-engineered Linux and the most usable Linux.) To fulfill its mission of bringing Linux to everyone, the openSUSE project makes SUSE Linux widely available to potential Linux users through a variety of channels, including a complete retail edition with end-user documentation. Only the openSUSE project refines its Linux distribution to the point where non-technical users can have a successful Linux experience.

I haven’t tried out this new version of SuSE (I used to use 9.2), but from looking at the package list and reading some commentary, I am somewhat leary. Some of the packages seem to be bleeding edge builds (including Samba, Xen, Openoffice, GCC) and it looks like they are going to use openSUSE as a testbed for items to include in their corporate distribution. Just like Red Hat. Granted, Ubuntu has become successful being based off of Debian Unstable, but….....

Regardless, I plan to give it a spin as soon as 10.0B3 comes out (which, if it comes out as soon as Beta 2 did, should be shortly after I get back from New Jersey) and see how that goes. My past experience with SUSE was not bad by a long shot. Here’s hoping that SUSE doesn’t drop the ball.

Crazy Or Genius?: Tag SUSE

For Better Or For Worse