Well we haven't had a SuSE vs. Red Hat thread in a while, so in keeping
with SuSE list tradition and against my better judgement....here goes.
On Wed, 7 Apr 1999, Jon Trygve Utne wrote:
> Well, about RH vs SuSE, I think it has a lot to do with personal taste.
I tend to agree. It's a matter of personal choice--- but also personal
need. All distributions _aren't_ alike, so you should research or try each
one and then make an informed decision. Needless to say ( though maybe not
so needless to say ) choosing one dist over another doesn't imply
superiority of a particular dist. It just means this dist was the one best
seemed able to satisfy what that user wanted in a dist at that time. I
also think if we qualify it with "Red Hat is strong in this area..." or
"S.u.S.E. is strong in this area.." as opposed to inflammatory crap
comparisons it's much more rational and less inflammatory than
oversimplifying things with lump statements of who's dist is the best.
With all due respect it can be sort of a pissing contest which
accomplishes nothing in the end except get people into arguments and
flamewars sometimes.
> All the bundled applications means a lot to me, since there are so many
> people that will use these boxes for different purposes.
Yes, for me as well, size was a factor. I simply can't and won't go online
to download all these different programs except if I want to or have to.
The size of S.u.S.E. in and of itself makes it more 'application
comprehensive' out of the box than any of the others I've seen. I read on
RH one day some guy saying that 'S.u.S.E. is for users who are too lazy
or dumb to just go to the ftp site and download the files'--- well, it's
not laziness or stupidity, I just don't really like having to do all that
when I have a dist here that saves me the time so I can spend time doing
other things like coding, working on other projects, or just having fun
with my system. Also when you think that some people outside of NA are on
hourly charges in respect to their connections and that they 'pay as they
go' in terms of internet time, I imagine that not having to download all
these different program from some online 'archive' winds up saving many
S.u.S.E. users in other places where the internet is not so cheap a lot of
dough. Since S.u.S.E. originated in Europe I imagine they are aware of
this and that might be part of the reason they have so much software on
their CDS. It saves their users time, money, and aggravation. Star Office
for instance is huge. Can you imagine being on some slow modem connection
paying by the hour or whatever downloading that thing?
> other systems where they had to configure things manually. They like to be
> in control, and they're not really sure about what the SuSE scripts
> actually do.
If people want to configure things on their own they can turn off the
'extras' of YaST. YaST really pared down won't even touch your
configuration files. I still do sendmail and everything else by hand on
most machines I install S.u.S.E. on with no interference from YaST. People
should look at some of the settings and just turn off the features they
don't like. Being a long familiar of that dist Slakware I rather enjoy not
having my files touched by alot of setup tools be it YaST, linuxconf, or
anything else, but that is due to personal preference and not due to the
issues of YaST. Also many of us have several machines and YaST makes it
easier to get a working configuration up quickly so that you can come back
later as time allows and tweak, turn off, reset, etc. In this sense I see
the pros and cons of YaST and like it. Especially the option to turn off
most of its features when it suits me. :-)
> Hmm. I'll try to find something that _really_ annoys me about SuSE
> tomorrow. :-)
Well I won't say I'm annoyed but a few things:
I don't like the way the American website isn't given the attention I feel
befits one of the best software products available. I think it needs to be
more detailed and more informative and up-to-date. Many accounts say the
German site is much better but I don't speak German.
Most of the time the packages are current. Every now and then there are
those that are older than I'd like, but this is understandable when you
look at the number of packages S.u.S.E. ships with. I would prefer for
instance that S.u.S.E. shipped with more recent sendmail ( 8.9.3 is what I
am using at this time, but I built it from sources ) than the 8.8* it
ships with now. There is also occasionally an odd dependency here and
there that I don't think is appropriate.
<digression insert>
I really think the best way to find out what the 'annoyances' are is to
focus on the needs of those with no Unix, Linux, or computing
experience-- for the rest of us, we can solve our own problems as that
is one of the first things you learn to do. Ultimately this is probably
not a S.u.S.E. thing alone, though, but a Linux thing. Reality: Linux
needs to be more user friendly if it really wants to hit the main stream.
What seems user friendly to most of the people on this list will seem like
something from Mars to a total newbie. Isapnp for instance to many Mac
users or Windows users might seem like a very foreign or tedious concept
for setting up PnP devices. To a new user just learning these things can
turn the hair white. I think there needs to be a lot more automation of
those things where people tend to have problems where they can set things
up first so that you have a realistic working system without them needing
to go through a ton of 'linux lessons' on the internet. I should add that
I'm not complaining and have no problems with Linux, but I could see how a
new user might go 'wtf?!?!' when they look at some of the things they
might have to go through depending on their experience in something so
simple as setting up a PnP modem or a ppp connection. I can't emphasize
this point enough, because we need to see 'how the other half lives' on
this issue. Too often there is this Linux tendency ( inherited from Unix )
to just dismiss people as idiots because they don't know or have a hard
time getting their system to work and in the long run this is bad for
Linux and counterproductive. I have been guilty of this on more times than
I like to count. When I hear people saying "It took me 6 monts to set up
my ppp connection." my first thought used to be "What a f---king moron
this guy must be!!". Recently I have matured abit and learned to put off
the pleasurable enjoyment of feeling intellectually superior to those I
used to view as 'idiots' and 'hopeless lamers' in light of seeing the big
picture-- which is the promotion of Linux and other operating genres
of this kind. I think the next 2 years or so of development will tell us
a lot about where this thing is going-- or whether we'll still be stuck
with the 'eccentric hacker's toy' image that has, for me anyway, gotten
'a bit old'. The doorway is 'user friendliness'.
</end digression insert>
> Bottom line is, people will never agree on these things, so the only way
> for you to find out what your favourite is, is to try them all (!) and
> decide for yourself.
In the end once you get used to Linux-- you can customize ANY dists you
use. Most of the main issues affect new users more than those who've been
using Linux for a while or that came to Linux from some Unix or Unix like
environment. The question seems to be to me, not a question of which
dist is the best but a question of which dist gives you the most bang for
your buck RIGHT OUT OF THE BOX. For me that distribution clearly happens
to be S.u.S.E. Linux for its efficiency, wealth of applications, excellent
user manual, contributions to the Linux community ( the other dists make
good contribs as well ) , and outstanding overall quality and
professionalism. Until I see a dist that can clearly outshine S.u.S.E. in
the areas that I, Joe Linux User, care about I won't even consider another
Linux suite.
> Just my 2 cents etc-etc...
More like 10 cents.
P.S. S.u.S.E. Linux should be SuSE Linux now, I guess, but 'you know what
I mean'.
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