Novell acquires SUSE [LWN.net]

Novell acquires SUSE

Posted Nov 4, 2003 14:29 UTC (Tue) by minichaz (subscriber, #630)
In reply to: Novell acquires SUSE by davidl
Parent article: Novell acquires SUSE

I keep hearing about these vacancies. There is the one created by redhat moving out of the consumer desktop space and now the European one too. So... Who fancies making some money by creating a comercial distro based on Fedora but swung towards KDE instead of Gnome? Its got to be worth a thought...

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RedHat KDE

Posted Nov 4, 2003 14:43 UTC (Tue) by vblum (guest, #1151) [Link]

Happily recommending Mandrake boxes ... it used to be their business model (when they still made money)

RedHat KDE

Posted Nov 4, 2003 15:00 UTC (Tue) by davidl (guest, #12156) [Link]

Well Mandrake don't have as much money and resources as the 'other two' but they do reasonably well. Their config tools are very good. Mandrake, step up to the plate! Oh damn, that's an American saying!

RedHat KDE

Posted Nov 4, 2003 15:03 UTC (Tue) by minichaz (subscriber, #630) [Link]

Yeah... Mandrake. Been there. Unstable and full of gimmicks as I recall. I also think the birth of Fedora could damage Mandrakes Cooker community as some people jump ship. We'll see though.

Mandrake

Posted Nov 4, 2003 16:22 UTC (Tue) by virtex (subscriber, #3019) [Link]

Funny, I've been running Mandrake for years without any stability problems. My main box at work, where I do everything from email to web browsing to running multiple OSes under VMWare to developing code to running databases and web servers is running Mandrake 9.1 and has not seen a reboot since I installed it 6 months ago. And it's running as smooth and problem free as it was when I first installed it.

As for the gimmicks, would you care to elaborate? Is having a central control center app a gimmick? Maybe you're talking about things like detecting when a network cable is plugged in and automatically configuring it? I actually find these things useful. Or maybe you don't like the graphical system boot? You can disable it by selecting the "no framebuffer" at the boot prompt. What exactly is it you find gimmicky about Mandrake?

Mandrake

Posted Nov 4, 2003 17:24 UTC (Tue) by minichaz (subscriber, #630) [Link]

You know what? I'm going to hold my hand up to this one. I've not used Mandrake since... err... 6.2. I know! I've been a bad boy and tarred and feathered more recent versions without trying them. I do know others who have had problems with versions as recent as 9 but I'm willing to admit that perhaps it was them.

Tonight or tomorrow I'll get the isos and give it another go. I'll let you know how I get on. Thanks for the constructive feedback though. :o)

Is anyone else REALLY sad to see the Redhat distro in its current incarnation die?

RedHat KDE

Posted Nov 4, 2003 17:09 UTC (Tue) by lovelace (subscriber, #278) [Link]

Unstable and gimmicks? I've been running my main web/mail/shell server on Mandrake for
four years without any problems at all. There's a lot to be said for having security tools
integrated into the distribution rather than being an afterthought.

Novell acquires SUSE

Posted Nov 4, 2003 14:47 UTC (Tue) by haraldt (guest, #961) [Link]

SUSE will stay where it is for a long time yet.
These corporations are rather international by nature, and as long as a distinct area of effort isn't spread out too much, it's just a bother to try to move things.

Perhaps marketing and administration would move with some speed, but getting experienced, well-educated europeans to move, even to another continent, is easier said than done.
Most would just find something else to do.

Novell acquires SUSE

Posted Nov 4, 2003 14:53 UTC (Tue) by cdamian (subscriber, #1271) [Link]

I keep hearing about these vacancies too, but somehow I believe that RedHat wouldn't give this market up if they wouldn't have a good reason to do so.

Maybe there really is no market for a cheap desktop distribution, because you can always find a free alternative.

And RedHat are not giving up the European or KDE market, they are just going for the slightly higher priced market, which is still cheaper than the Microsoft or Sun option.

christof