Well, I've chosen a new distro ...

[Matthew Carpenter]

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<not a flame>
I can understand those things.  I'm relatively fed up with most
RPM-based dependency issues.  I am quite familiar with SuSE, having
taken the plunge once UL was decided to go that route.
The second thing that made me stand up and take note was a
graphic-artist friend of mine who I piled all my distros on, coming back
raving about the huge software selection of SuSE and how easy it was to
use.  Coming from Caldera, I wasn't used to a distro which included the
kitchen sink, plumbing, and people to use it.  I shied from it at first.
~ What I *really* wanted was a distro which would be easy and clean,
allow me to manage it through the config files (not overwriting my
configs) and be simple to compile the rest of the software I needed from
source.  When I tried SuSE 6.0 it didn't install a GUI at all and was
difficult to get around in.  SuSE 7.1 lived on a server of mine for a
while but was still kludgey, and I couldn't use YaST for it's
"rule-the-world" attitude.  So when I tried 8.0 I wasn't expecting much
but was surprised at how easy it was to install and use so much more
software than I ever expected to be able to learn and use.  He promptly
bought 8.1 which I used a little of and was surprised to find only
getting better.  I bought 8.2 (which is what I based my Linux-Appliances
off) and was very happy.  I had figured out FS-differences from RH/COL,
and YaST started playing nice with the other children (at least the
parts I've used).  Furthermore, I found YaST had developed into a usable
GUI config tool, allowing many of the complex Linux tasks to be handled
simply.  What was once the biggest detractor of SuSE has actually come
to differentiate it from RH in a *good* way.  SuSE is (IMHO) the
Graphical King of Linux.
What's more, they focused on my favorite desktop: KDE.

They've made dumb choices, don't get me wrong, but they have many things
going for them over RH's distros, IMHO.  We'll see if they can overcome
both MindShare and Novell's reverse-Midas touch.  I'm still interested
in learning a debian-based distro so I too can justify opinions about
RPM/DEB/APT/etc...  I'm not saying I'm giving up SuSE though.  They have
been very responsive to my feedback (not through email, but through
changes in the distro), they've continued to improve, and provide solid
solutions to the problems I'm trying to solve (including my audio/video
editing needs :)

So, not a flame, not even a "my distro's the best" (as of course I'm
trying Ubuntu soon and Mepis too).  But a testimonial from one
former-SuSE-detester.

More power to choices indeed :)
Great to know all of you guys and hear the points which make up
different parts of the Linux world!

Michael Hipp wrote:
| DogWalker wrote:
|
|> "Michael Hipp" <Michael at Hipp.com> said:
|
|
|>> I gave strong consideration to:
|>> - Fedora Core
|>> - Debian
|>> - Mepis
|>> - Xandros
|>> - Gentoo
|>> - Libranet
|>> - Ubuntu
|>
|>
|> And why didn't SuSE may the cut?
|
|
| Probably the most truthful explanation is because the list is a direct
| reflection of my own particular preferences, biases and experiences.
|
| The longer answer is several things:
|
| a) I have largely soured to RPM distros - too many long nights spent in
| dependency you-know-where. I've become convinced that the package
| dependency method (deb) is better than the file dependency method (rpm).
| Fedora probably wouldn't have been on that list except it is such
| familiar territory I had to give it strong consideration.
|
| b) I tried SUSE a couple of years ago and just didn't care for it.
| Perhaps it was that pastel lime green motif that wouldn't seem to go
| away no matter what I did. And it just seemed sluggish.
|
| c) I don't see a lot to differentiate SUSE (per my criteria) from RH so
| I'd just likely have stayed with Fedora.
|
| d) SUSE isn't free (as in "free lunch") - for the latest version anyway.
|
| e) It's not my impression that SUSE has much of a repository behind it
| (Gentoo and Debian are the gold standard there).
|
| No flames please. I won't pretend to have the last word on any of these
| things.
|
| Michael
| _______________________________________________
| Linux-users mailing list
| Linux-users at linux-sxs.org
| http://mail.linux-sxs.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/linux-users
|
| Need to chat further on this subject? Check out #linux-users on
| irc.linux-sxs.org !
|
|
|

- --
Matthew Carpenter
matt at eisgr.com                          http://www.eisgr.com/

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