Why I’m sticking with Novell’s Linux desktop and Turning SLED into Practical User Desktop

Why I’m sticking with Novell’s Linux desktop

Someone just asked me whether, now that Novell’s become buddies with Microsoft, I’ll be turning away from Novell/SUSE as one of my favorite Linux distributions. My answer is no. I’m sticking with SUSE Linux on both my desktops and servers. Here’s why.

First, like many of you, I do think that Novell’s deal with Microsoft is a mistake. While in the short run, I think the deal will be good for Novell. It will, after all, get its Linuxes into shops that would otherwise turn up their noses at anything without Windows in the title. In the long run, I can’t think of a single software company that has ever done well in an alliance with Microsoft. Can you?

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Turning SLED into Practical User Desktop

The so-called “Vista Killer” may not be ready for prime time — but your customers may want it anyway. Here’s how to be prepared.

SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop version 10 (SLED10 for short) is sufficiently well known that any system builder who sells Linux boxes can be expected to know about it. In fact, SLED10 is so well known, clients who specifically want Linux computers are likely to ask for it by name. In my recent tests, I found SLED10 to be more reliable, stable and secure than I expected. But buying into the hype of SLED10 being a “Vista killer”—at least in its current stage of development—is wishing thinking. Why? Well, for starters, the distro has several usability issues. Also, availability outside of the usual office productivity software and programmer-oriented applications is problematic. For these reasons, SLED10, in my opinion, is not worth even its $50 price tag.

1109figure1qx5 Why Im sticking with Novells Linux desktop and Turning SLED into Practical User Desktop

But what if your clients demand it all the same? In this recipe, I’ll show you how to turn SLED10 into a usable desktop.

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Comment by MC-RPG on November 08, 2006

That article don’t say anything new about SUSE, neither a reason to be “stick” in Novell’s distro, that’s only an article with an “yellow title” for a “own review” of the writer.

Comment by Meneer R on November 08, 2006

Crappy review of an idiot that doesn’t know what he is doing.

He complained a total of two times of not being able to take a screenshot of an open menu.
Dude, try pressing the print-screen button on your keyboard. It will take a screenshot of an open menu or whatever.

Then he tries to explain how to get some multimedia working. But its inaccurate, not to mention he makes some awfully wrong assumptions. For example: he tries to install xine, and then he needs w32codecs. He then thinks its w32codecs that make his mpeg’s play. Dude, xine uses ffmpeg, which plays mpeg, avi, wmv. FFMpeg can fall back to w32codecs for formats it does not support natively (ffmpeg are opensource codecs). W32Codecs actually contain binary codecs and will only work on the 386-family.

Then he complains that eventhough xine plays his videos, totem does not. No totem uses gstreamer. You will need the following gstreamer-plugins: gstreamer-ffmpeg (yes, the same engine xine uses, so you dont even have to install xine), gstreamer-pitfaldll (fall back to w32codecs)

The only thing I could agree with, is that it should just work out of the box if you pay the 50 bucks. Make it 51 bucks, pay for the patents: problem solved. That is the kind of edge they need to compete with free distro’s like Ubuntu.

He also complains about the lack of arial font. Arial==Helvetica. Microsoft changed two pixels from the Helvetica font, so they didn’t have to pay for it. They had to give it a new name, Arial. The rest of the world (printers, typesetters, designers, newspapers) still refer to Helvetica. Which is now free, and installed with Linux. If you know as much computers and operating systems as my cat does, don’t go posting articles and pretend to be all professional with that.

He also keeps praising the brilliant zen-installer that installs a package with its dependencies. Hold the presses. Who knew it was possible? That’s a miracle. Ehm, ever played with debian based distro’s. They have solved all this dependency and package issues years ago. (where were you?) Debian, Ubuntu, Linspire, Freespire, Knoppix, etc. they all do exactly this. If there is a conflict it will try to replace packages which have alternatives if that solves the problem, unless you explicitly installed that package. And for debian based distro’s its not just the front-end that takes care of it (like with the zen-installer). If I go to a website and click on a .deb file (a debian package) it will open up an installation dialog. If I need any extra packages that are available in the repositories, it will download and install them.

Please, if you clients demand linux. Go find a new career, because I do hope you are not the one responsible for installing this.

I would have commented on your site, if only it didn’t force me fill in a questionnaire. You need my street-address before you going to allow me to comment. If you have any dutch person in your database, you are probably breaking our laws. You have to register with our goverment how and where you store that information if it contains things like our address or phone-number. But seriously, its 2006. The mailinglists days are over. And for a site that hosts a linux-article, go check your website with firefox, konqueor or opera. The title (i think) at the top-right is all messed up.

TO SUM IT ALL UP: PLEASE DO NOW POST ARTICLES FROM THIS IDIOT AS IF IT IS REAL JOURNALISM.

Comment by joanna "the Baker" smyth on December 21, 2006

Just want to thank you for keeping at this and say how much I appreciate your clear and comprehensive comments. I missed the Richmond connection in the original Nation article. Really do hope and expect that someday soon we’ll be reading your work, or something comperable, in the RTD. In the meantime, I’m glad we can read it here.