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82 Comments
- darkray77, on 10/12/2007, -5/+23Dependency hell, in my opinion, is the single greatest reason to avoid distributions with poor package management. I switched one of my servers from SUSE, back to Ubuntu for exactly that reason. YAST just didn't seem to work as well as the APT ... even for those with a good amount of linux experience. I must admit that YAST is a pretty slick interface however.
- greyspace, on 10/12/2007, -5/+19Hmm... Let's see...
iMac with decent specs - $1199.00
iLife - $79.00
iWork - $79.00
MS Office:mac - $399.00
etc., etc.,
- or -
Your existing hardware - free
Linux - free
OpenOffice.org - free
GIMP - free
Apps to do virtually anything
you will ever need - free
I'm impressed as hell by the Mac, but I'm not wealthy and have poor credit. - zixxer, on 10/12/2007, -6/+19i loathe rpm based distros....but with ubuntu or full on debian..they never go stale...just a few commands and your back up to date, unlike fedora which goes bad VERY fast....oh and there is that part about the dependencies.
deb packages are the way to go. - Phocion55, on 10/12/2007, -3/+15@2shae: Your argument is extremely compelling. You have won me over......buying a Mac right now.
See you at Starbucks. - geminitojanus, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11"Choose two GNU/Linux of BSD flavors"
You mean "or", not "of". Changes the whole sentence. - dnissley, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10Am I the only one hoping this doesn't turn into a flamewar? They are both linux and this is just a comparison, so take it easy fanboys. BTW, though I am a full time user of Ubuntu, I have used suse and it is a fine OS, just different.
- airencracken, on 10/12/2007, -7/+13YaST is a nightmare. I'm not a big fan of APT either though. That being said, even as much as I detest Ubuntu fanboys, I'd go with Ubuntu if only because of Novell's dubious deal with Microsoft. That being said, I use Gentoo.
- bmartin, on 10/12/2007, -5/+11If by "different" you mean "overpriced", then yes.
- Thuktun, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Before Novell bought them, SuSE was a company that offered a Linux distribution.
- nahteecirp, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6""Quite responsive system. Working with Ubuntu is fast and effective. Much better than default Debian installation." Wrong. At one point I switched from Ubuntu 6.06 to Debian Sid and found Debian to be much more responsive. Going from *BSD to Ubuntu, I found Ubuntu to be stupidly slow""
In your all-knowingness, you seem to have missed that GUI "responsiveness" (I assume that is what you are referring to) is much more related to the window manager used than the distribution. I can get a more responsive system by using Xubuntu, even though it's the same base. - bmartin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4yum is a help as far as RPM goes. After figuring out how to set up the repositories, I haven't had a problem installing anything. The problem was figuring out which repos to use. When looking for help, most forum users listed what they used, but didn't mention how to set up the repos or give links to helpful sites. The community support is a big deal w/ distros, and Ubuntu's support for helping out new users is phenomenal. While I respect Red Hat's philosophy, they make it a pain for people to get up and running, especially if you want to do things like play media or install non-RPM software. It'd be nice if they'd make instructions for installing proprietary drivers more readily available.
- bmartin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4The support is there in both distros. The only WiFi chipset I have seen fail is the infamous Broadcom w/ hardware switch built into my V5101US laptop.
Solution: After trying Linux on my PC for a few months, I decided that for me, it was worth grabbing a decent PCMCIA wireless adapter. After installing the new card, I had no problem. - SVPirate, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5The comparison is simple enough:
SuSE: In bed with Microsoft.
Ubuntu (or ANY OTHER distro): Not in bed with Microsoft.
For me that clearly spells out who's distro NOT to use.
FWIW, with MS aside, I've tried SuSE 10.1 and FC6 and I prefer FC6. Just seems a bit more polished and a bit less overweight. - aposter, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5@phocion
You forgot to say "toodles" so I know your not a real mac fan!
So, I'll see you at Starbucks, then? Toodles! - dbr_onix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3My biggest problem with SUSE over Ubuntu is the ammount of applications SUSE installs in a "fairly-default" installation. I *really* don't need 8 different text editors, and 3 different window-managers, and 4 web browsers, and [etc].. It comes on about 6 CD's where as Ubuntu is only on 1.
Sure, giving people the choice is nice, but really, most people don't care, and those that do will be the ones who know how to add them manually.
SUSE does have some nice features Ubuntu hasn't, how ever (as the article stated) - SUSE's YAST Control Panel, for example.
Personally, I tend to use the Ubuntu Server install, then apt-get ubuntu-desktop (Because the LiveCD installed doesn't like me, it never can get past the partitioning stage, and I only recently found out that the Alternative installer == similar to the original text-installer).
But, after trying Sabayon.. I installed it, and *everything* just worked like it should - Hardware support, everything was configured nicely, emerge'd ut2006, shoved in the DVD, it installed and worked perfectly first time, same with the Quake 4 demo, Shake 4 worked with no fiddling. It was scarily perfect..
- Ben - prammy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3What exactly do you loathe about rpm based distros ? RPM is just a package format. Just like deb. If you are talking about dependency hell, it is just as possible experiencing it on dpkg based distros as it is on rpm based ones.
There are a lot of distros which use rpm. Fedora, RHEL, SuSE, Mandriva, TurboLinux and in the past we had Caldera as well. Dependency hell ensued when people decided to rpm -ivh --nodeps --force every rpm package they came across. Debian based distros saw less dependency hell because they used the same package repos and thus using a .deb created without using a widely used version of Debian was hard to find. However if you use random debs which are not created properly, you can experience dependency hell on debian as well.
Yum does for Fedora and Centos what apt does for Debian or Yast does for SuSE. I run FC6 currently on my laptop and I have run many other distros as well. Gentoo, Ubuntu, Slackware and Foresight linux to name a few. I have never experienced dependency hell because I usually stick to the packages provided by the distributor. If I get a source archive, then I either make an RPM for it or see if someone has a source rpm available. Most proprietary packages have installers or are made generic enough to not cause dependency hell.
Dependency hell comes from forcing every package to install and thus not really paying attention to the dependency warnings. Not from the package format. - drewskyjones, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Nice comparison table in the article. I'm running OpenSUSE and Ubuntu and I must say I really like them both. But the new "start" menu in OpenSUSE 10.2 is fabulous. It is well organized, doesn't "grow" as you move through categories and has search built in. IF you are a user switching from windows or just getting your toes wet, OpenSUSE 10.2 will seem reasonably familiar. The one issue I had with OpenSUSE 10.2 was getting it to recognize my graphics card (nVidia MX 4000), but after a few tutorials and some command line fun, got it working.
- bowels, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4When trying to convert a winboy who is a linux virgin, I find they adapt much better to Suse. Then after several months of running Suse, they will be more receptive to Ubuntu.
- fleabag, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3i always love biased comparisons....
- nandasunu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3have you tried using your windows drivers with ndiswrapper? works fine for me.
- brundlefly76, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I've had it with linux packaging systems - at some point it just ***** up, doesnt matter which, and whenever I am looking for something new its never in the distro or my repositories I have to go hunt for it.
I used to love compiling everything by hand, then that got old and my time more valuable and I got into packaging - but at this point I have really had it and I would really much prefer to double-click an installation routine that is dependancy-less and that 'just works' like 99% of Windows and MacOS programs.
There I said it. - PRlME, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3i hate the fact that if one OS you have to type "install", your advanced and the other you have to click install, your a noob cause you did not type it in.
- michuk, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4You can edit the data of most systems included in the comparisons on http://wiki.polishlinux.org
Reports on inaccuracies are welcome. I just updated the Ubuntu description to cover the recent change in their approach to non-free programs. Any other remarks are welcome. - antdude, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Compare any distributions: http://polishlinux.org/choose/comparison/
- sembetu, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I apologize for being off topic, but it just occurred to me that all the mudslinging and mutual handjobbing around here about ANY distro of GNU/Linux/BSD, etc is pretty telling. Think about this, a few years ago, Linux wasn't mainstream enough to even mention in public, let alone command a huge audience on a site like digg. Think about it.
To me, more important than which is better is the fact that so many people are aware of an alternative to a proprietary system; regardless of whether or not they choose to embrace it.
Now back to the battle... - Shadowman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@bmartin
If you are referring to Fedora this is a good place to start...
http://www.fedorafaq.org/
Not updated for Fedora Core 6 yet though. - nahteecirp, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3@sanguinemoon
The reason you are getting dugg down is because you sound like an arrogant jerk. You don't provide any background, you just slam the article for "inaccuracies" that aren't really inaccurate, just different from your point of view. Just because you didn't get a more responsive system doesn't mean that they didn't, and that doesn't mean it is in anyway wrong. If you put things more politely, you may have gotten a different response. - skatingrox, on 10/12/2007, -0/+22 hours? holy crap. Suse 10.2 installed on my system in about 25 minutes.
Compare that to Ubuntu Breezy Badger. I gave up on installing it after 3 failed installs (the first two never made it to the actual installation sequence, and the third crashed and corrupted the partition table on my hard drive). - cawpin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I have done basically the same. I was running Suse 10.2 on my laptop because it was the easiest to get wireless working with. I just can't stand YAST. I switched it over to Ubuntu a few days ago because of Edgy's improved wireless support. It works flawlessly. The only problem I had was with getting Grub to install correctly. I think this was related to Suse though. Each time I've installed Suse and then tried a different distro, I've had problems with the MBR being funky. Suse must write it in a nonstandard manner. It took a nook from Windows XP and "fixboot" and "fixmbr" then Ubuntu installed no problem.
- Invid, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I tried SuSe and really liked the slick and professional presentation, and the installer is near godlike. That said, I returned to Ubuntu for it's excellent package management and stability. I had multiple crashes using Yast and just couldn't be bothered fighting the distro_and_my own ignorance.
I may return and give it another try with 10.2 however if Yast is improved over the pretty but buggy mess in 10.1. - ptn4egl, on 10/12/2007, -0/+210.1's package management was so bad, I didn't turn the box on. 10.0 was nice and a much improved step up from 9.2, that's what I'm still running on my laptop.
10.2 is really nice. Once you add the Packman and Guru repositories, life is good.
Suse user since 7.1 :-D - bonesaw, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I agree. I've used both Suse and Mepis. Both had good things and bad things. I prefer Suse because I liked Yast, and had no problems with it as some of the posters above had. Suse also looked more polished to me. I do prefer RPM distros. RPMs are easier to me than debs or even apt. Some dudes above will probably blast me for that, but that's my experience, and as long as I don't have to start bending over because of the Microsoft partnership, I'll stick with it.
- BlackAdderIII, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1As it happens, I use SuSE after years of being a Debian purist.
I don't use YaST for package management much - the last couple of versions I've ripped out a lot of that mono stuff that's going on (beagle, broken package management etc.) and, as mentioned elsewhere, used apt and synaptic *alongside* the other choices - as all of the tools work on the RPM database, it's easy to run it without breaking it, and 10x faster/nicer than YPM.
I still use Debian for work, have worked with unix/linux professionally for a long time, and am exclusively a linux/BSD user at home - and what I want for my personal machine includes media playback, fast easy gaming, wonderful hardware support, bleeding edge repositories that aren't particularly unstable, and quick and easy kernel recompiles, and generally everything working VERY quickly and easily when I'm tired, and SuSE does that stuff better than any other distro around. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Suse = Novell = bedpals with Bill Gates = bad
Therefore, Ubuntu, which is != Novell, is good.
End of story. No need to read the lengthy article. - BlackAdderIII, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1What you're talking about is APT, and well-maintained repositories - not the packaging format used.
Debs really aren't functionally different enough to RPMs to make that sort of difference.
As a matter of interest, if you just tick "apt" and "synaptic" when installing SuSE, you will get just what you're talking about, but apt will use RPMs instead of Debs... - BlackAdderIII, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Boy, can you tell *you* haven't used SuSE in a while. :)
- netferret, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1From what I can see they are not even half finished, I tried Ubuntu it looked ok until it started playing up. I mean wtf is "can't access tty; job control turned off"". No one seems to have a decent solution for the error either apart from fiddle around with all your drive settings for master/slave and pray, this just seems stupid considering Linux is meant to be so great.
- BlackAdderIII, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1So hang on, we should pay Apple lots of money to run a closed-source fork of Open Source Software because...
?
I'd have to install Linux on it anyway, so I'd have paid a ***** of money to run the same OS, on the same sort of hardware, just shinier. - greyspace, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1An excellent point. I'm also an Ubuntu user, but SuSE is certainly a worthy distribution. Used it briefly about a year ago, and though I liked it a lot it didn't play nice with my laptop (likely a hardware problem rather than SuSE's). I went with Ubuntu on the desktop mainly because of the wide package availability, broad user base, and top-notch community. SuSE's certainly coming along in all three areas.
- mlw4428, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I think we know who we're gonna feed to the fire...
- bebopredux, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3I've used both and agree with this for the most part. I've decided Ubuntu works best for me. SUSE was indeed "less snappy" and they ruined YAST IMO. Too often I see people argue about which Linux distro is best. This misses the point and the more correct question is "Which distro works best on YOUR machine?" For me, Ubuntu meshed with my setup a little better than SUSE. Having said that, I ordered Sun's free Solaris DVD package and can't wait to give that a whirl but, I suspect I'll go back to Ubuntu after having some of the usual and expected pull-your-hair-out fun installing Solaris 10!
Whatever distro works best for you personally is the best one. Really. Have fun people! - Buelldozer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I have the Broadcom AirForce One Rev 02 and I didn't need NDISWrappers to get it working in Ubuntu 6.10. Aside from a single MINOR modification it worked out of the box. The only additional step you have to take is to edit your network file and comment out everything underneath the interface LO. With that done either the gnome-network-manager or kde-network-manager will easily get your WiFi online...even with WPA.
- BlackAdderIII, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Hardened SuSE users use apt4rpm with suse.
You install it, pop base and extra repos(packman et al) in your sources.list and it integrates with yast/rpm/smart so you can use any of them if you know what you're doing.
Et voila, you get the bleeding-edge features of suse, with apt-get, apt-cache, synaptic, etc.
It really is the only way to run SuSE once you've tried it.
PS: I really don't want to ubuntu down, as I love its debian roots, but once you have apt going on, you have packages ubuntu users can't dream of, it being SuSE. - moduc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I runs Suse 10.2 and I like it a lot. There's small hiccups here and there. I don't like the startup or shutdown time. Overall, it's the best Linux distro I had after Red Hat, Mandriva, Fedora, and older Suse.
I also tried Ubuntu, but the installation failed in the middle (the disk could be bad), but I didn't bother download again.
Here are some cons. Please excuse me for not listing pros because there would be too many.
Some of the problems I have with (could be KDE), is when I minimize all (show desktop), then open a folder, other windows show up again, and some even cover my newly opened folder.
The task bar still does not allow me to resize using the mouse. It also does not arrange icons in the order of creation time.
The software updater is great, however, it's very slow and a little buggy.
The task bar menu looks cool, but really cumbersome to use, and I was happy to switch back to KDE menu style.
I can't manage to change the resolution of the login screen (I somehow changed it, and can't change it back).
Listen to MP3 still a problem without further installation. - gravityboy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Eh?
% cat /etc/apt/sources.list
deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ sid main contrib non-free
deb-src http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ sid main contrib non-free
deb http://www.debian-multimedia.org sid main
That's one extra source. Maybe it's because I'm running Debian unstable, but I've got everything I need and more. - Shadowman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Although RHEL and Fedora are my distros of choice I used SLED 10 for a couple months and found it to be very impressive. My first thought was "this could really challenge Microsoft on the desktop" - and then they went and joined forces with them instead! But I still think it is better than Ubuntu - more polished and much easier on the eyes. I just recently installed openSUSE 10.2 with Gnome and so far I would say it is as good as or better than SLED.
- kiwiboyus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1If you have had WiFi issues with Ubuntu try mintLinux. I switched and it had my Acer up and running wit full WPA2 support "out of the box" plus DVD playback and now full NTFS read/write support.
- fatdog789, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Actually, his point was that unless he could use wireless without a hack like ndiswrapper, *nix just isn't ready for large-scale adoption or deployment.
Wifi support in Windows is native. In *nix, it's hacked, buggy, and generally not complete, especially for Broadcom chips.
Don't tell people not to buy Broadcom chips. That does nothing. Most people don't know that there is a difference between the brand on the box and the actual chips used by their Wifi gear.
To reiterate: linux is not ready for prime time until wifi support is native. - oobuntu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1lets see if this is biased:
suse : cute "random screenshot" of dog
ubuntu: boring out-of-the-box photo, not customisation.
ubuntu: first line "debian for n00bs"
i can see where this is leading.... - Buelldozer, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2My laptop has the 'infamous' Broadcom Airforce One B/G Rev 02 wireless controller built in. It worked under Ubuntu 6.06 and it works even better in Ubuntu 6.10.
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