If Novell was half serious about Suse....
Yugo
>> Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>>>
>>> Yugo, I have always perceived you as the skeptic/critic in the newsgroup.
Really?
>>> What is the matter?
We shall try to examine the matter.
>>> You are complaining about something that you receive
>>> for free?
May I? You may not be aware of this, but the are some first quality distros
available out there for free. Why shouldn't people be told that, with Linux,
you don't have to settle for trash because you don't pay?
Yugo on Monday 24 July 2006 21:11, wrote:
>> Just a question, if I may. If the purpose is not making the adoption of
>> OpenSuse 10.1 unduly painful, why not a 10.1-a release?
> Roy Schestowitz answered:
>
> 10.1 is not unduly painful. Honestly.
I'm afraid you haven't been reading this group lately and all the reviews when
OpenSuse 10.1 was out. Even Houghi, who can, I suppose, qualify as a Suse
proponent, suggests that people install SLED instead of OpenSuse 10.1 if they
don't want to run into trouble. There are serious issue, mainly with the
updater. Let's see what a serious professional organisation does when a
problem is discovered. We'll take Debian as an exemple.
Soon as Sarge was released, it was found out that 3.1_r0 CD image had a problem.
In /etc/apt/sources.list , the line:
# http://security.debian.org/ testing/updates
had to be changed for
http://security.debian.org/ stable/updates
Otherwise, the security updates wouldn't be made.
Cf.: http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/3.1_r0a/
You see, it wasn't a matter of "Try this and that, it might very well work on
your system". It was "Change this line for that line and everything will be
OK". Of course, right after the release, security updates weren't much of a
concern. The Debian community is tightly woven and the word would have spread
around fast that a change needed to be made.
But while Novell's attitude is "Let's leave then deal with the trash and offer
SLED as a pay for no-headache solution", on the 8th of June 2005, two days
after the release of Debian 3.1_r0, Debian 3.1_r0a was uploaded to the
mirrors. AND YOU STILL COULD GET IT FOR FREE! No cost would be involved for
Novell to do exactly the same.
So, what I want to tell Suse users is that countrary to what Novell advocates
pretend here, you don't have to settle for less because you don't pay. If you
don't pay, you don't have service from a company. (Though service offered by
the Debian community on their newsgroups is first class.) Fair enough. But I
see no reason why the Suse community should be left dealing with a software
that is far from perfect. (See my posts since Suse's release.)
I'd rather not see anybody from the Linux community being fed the nonsense
that you propose. That's why I'm "skeptic/critic".
Important note: Sarge has been updated twice since 3.1_r0a. The current
release is 3.1_r2 .
Yugo
BearItAll
>
> May I? You may not be aware of this, but the are some first quality
> distros available out there for free. Why shouldn't people be told that,
> with Linux, you don't have to settle for trash because you don't pay?
>
Yes thats right, I personally keep pushing the likes of Linspire, because I
see it as a very nice easy way in for the types of users Linux is likely to
start attracting. Where everything, including dvd playing, is out of the
box so that they can get on with just using Linux without any other hassles
that might have put them off. Linspires tutorial videos are particularly
good too.
But having looked at the Linspire I put on the brother-in-law's PC, although
it was great for him as a person who you could say is fairly new to
computers, looking at it for myself there wasn't really a great deal you
could say is better than say Open Suse or Fedora. But still I'll push
Linspire or Xandros for the new type of user we are bound to get.
What did happen though was someone asked about this sort of thing and it so
happened the spec for SLED10 was published on Novell. It looked excellent,
far better than I was expecting. I thought it would simply be OpenSuse 10.0
with builtin updates, but Novell have obviously been hard at work. Then
when the price came up it is even cheaper than Linspire. It's hard to push
it to people when I haven't tried it myself so for now I have to stick to
pushing Linspire.
As for OpenSuse 10.1, I think in spec it looks brilliant. I haven't a
machine I want upgrading yet, but would be happy with that one on any of my
clients.
But all in all you are right, I for one am tending to push the commercial
rather than the free, I don't think it was ever anything to do with one
being better than the other, certainly not in day to day use. But having
sat in news groups for many years, each year we go through the same
pattern. New release, mass download, then the news groups immediately
filled with,
"I downloaded ... how you I burn an iso"
"Can I upgrade or should I do new install"
"How do I play my DVD"
ANGRY:"Linux isn't ready for the real world because Doom doesn't close
properly"
And all the other annuals we get.
Sometimes you look at the list and think, new users arn't necessarily
finding it easier each year to get started. In fact because many of those
coming in now will have grown up entirely on a windows we are likely to get
more and more who know less about the engine. So the questions are likely
to get more simplistic.
Can't help wondering if it isn't best to guide these people to the
commercial side. Get them using it as quickly as possible, then as they
learn they can choose their own best distro.
houghi
> What did happen though was someone asked about this sort of thing and it so
> happened the spec for SLED10 was published on Novell. It looked excellent,
> far better than I was expecting. I thought it would simply be OpenSuse 10.0
> with builtin updates, but Novell have obviously been hard at work. Then
> when the price came up it is even cheaper than Linspire. It's hard to push
> it to people when I haven't tried it myself so for now I have to stick to
> pushing Linspire.
Then why don't you try it?. I have downloaded the CD's and makeSUSEdvd
worked to turn them into a DVD. Installed fine, yet I have no use for it
so I deleted after I saw it running.
> And all the other annuals we get.
I supose the "nu" is a slip of the keyboard? ;-)
> Can't help wondering if it isn't best to guide these people to the
> commercial side. Get them using it as quickly as possible, then as they
> learn they can choose their own best distro.
As long as Linux is not pre-installed, nothing serious will happen. :-(
--
But I will accept the rules that you feel necessary to your freedom. I am
free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I
tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free
because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.