How has Linux suse done over the past 4 years ?

[-RockMan-]

Last time I tried it was back in 2006, it was the very first linuz os I liked and I could get along with.
The only 2 reasons why I left is mainly netgear isn't supported enough by the linux community, and 2 I don't code things so I don't know how to make my drivers...

I checked suse website today and they have come along way from version 9.2, I would install it tomorrow, but like I said lack of driver support is keeping me from doing so.

 

[kmote]

It's good, there have been a lot of changes since 2006. Linux is pretty fast moving.

 

[Jayce]

It's good, there have been a lot of changes since 2006. Linux is pretty fast moving.

This is a statement not to be taken likely. In my opinion Linux is easily the fastest moving OS platform. So much has been accomplished in 4 years that it really floors me to look back to my beginning Linux days and see just how things progressed.

 

[-RockMan-]

Thanks for the opinions then, I am rebuilding my computer on thursday night, so once I put in my new hdd I will install suse on it.
In the meanwhile would you say suse would be best suited to help navigate me to certain parts and advanced parts of OS ?
To be perfectly honest I don't like ubuntu and I have a good reason to not want to use it, suse I prefer though....
I would highly like to build up some strong skills in it before I consider offering my help in here to the other people and eventually decide to take that exam in late spring in 2011.

 

[Jayce]

Thanks for the opinions then, I am rebuilding my computer on thursday night, so once I put in my new hdd I will install suse on it.
In the meanwhile would you say suse would be best suited to help navigate me to certain parts and advanced parts of OS ?
To be perfectly honest I don't like ubuntu and I have a good reason to not want to use it, suse I prefer though....
I would highly like to build up some strong skills in it before I consider offering my help in here to the other people and eventually decide to take that exam in late spring in 2011.

Well, I'll say this... I respect Suse's existence, but a lot of people really slam them... and for good reason... such as the licensing and deal making Novell made regarding certain software and legal freedom that would be exclusively open to Suse's benefit but no other Linux distros. It ****ed off enough open source organizations to the point even the Samba organization refused to do any testing with their protocols on the Suse platform to ensure bugs were fixed, etc. And now we hear Novell might actually be selling Suse, painting a pretty darn negative picture on the corporation itself, if you ask me. Sure, they brought a lot to the table that benefitted all Linux distros, but I don't like the way Novell handled a lot of the decisions they made. Is it okay for me to set up an organization to benefit cancer research, generate 100,000 dollars, and pocket 80,000? After all, I'm still benefitting cancer research by 20k. So it's all good... right?

That being said, I'm curious to know exactly why you don't want to use Ubuntu.

Ultimately, I really see nothing exclusive to Suse that makes me want to go for it over another distro. Like all distros, they've made significant improvements. An obvious one for Suse was YaST, and now, YaST2, which isn't all that bad. It's kind of handy. But to be blunt, I'm quite simply a Debian guy, so I stick to Ubuntu and Debian depending upon what my intentions are with the system I'm setting up.

Every distro has pros and cons. There are a ton of options out there. Point is, don't ignore Ubuntu because of xyz reasons unless it specifically won't do the job you need, and don't ignore Fedora/Debian/CentOS/etc/etc/etc/etc/etc either. There are a ton of great distros out there, and you may find one that suits you perfectly.

 

[lyecdevf]

Indeed Yast and Yast2 are one of the great features of Suse. For instance port forwarding is so simple with the nice GUI firewall.

That said I have used OpenSuse 10.3,11.0, 11.1,...Since 11.1 it has become really stable and I used it for a server for a while. 11.4 is coming out soon and I am going probably use it again.