On Wed, 8 Mar 2006 11:22:21 +0100 Stephan Binner wrote:

On Tuesday, 7. March 2006 02:51, Osho GG wrote:

...

Does anyone know whether KDE 3.5.1 is available for SuSE 9.1?

At least not from SUSE and will not as supplementary/ for 9.1 is discontinued.

Maybe a bit off-topic... The last KDE 3.5.0 packages for SUSE 9.1 still have this javascript security issue IIRC. It's fixed in KDE 3.5.1 AFAIK but in principle one could use the latest SUSE 9.1 KDE Source RPMs and apply the patch manually, right? But I can't seem to find SRPMs for KDE 3.5.0/SUSE 9.1 either... Any ideas? Ingo -- Ingo Strauch ---- Registered Linux User #227900 (http://counter.li.org/) GPG Key Fingerprint = DEC8 1B12 9573 6BE7 7A99 C33F 809C 8C2C 772E 66A1 http://www.the-one-brack.org/linux/

On 3/8/06, Stephan Binner wrote:

On Tuesday, 7. March 2006 02:51, Osho GG wrote:

...

Does anyone know whether KDE 3.5.1 is available for SuSE 9.1?

At least not from SUSE and will not as supplementary/ for 9.1 is discontinued.

What's SuSE's policy about supporting supplementary for a release? Is it 12 months, 18 months or there is no such official policy? For a serious business user, it is not possible to upgrade the entire distro every year or so. I like to keep my distro and keep it for at least 2-3 years. thanks, Osho

On Wednesday, 8. March 2006 16:19, Alvin Beach wrote:

I believe the policy is to support for 2 years after the product's release

Right, but the supplementary tree is not part of the released product. Bye, Steve

Hi! Am Mittwoch, 8. März 2006 16:34 schrieb Stephan Binner:

"These updates are provided as a free service to our customers. Novell offers no guarantee whatsoever for these updates and will therefore not provide support of any kind. Use the updates listed here at your own risk."

This is all true, yet those packages are offered because Novell/SuSE know that they are in fact part of the "psychological contract" and add value to and make SuSE Linux more attractive for customers. "Novell is offering further, genuine added value, at no cost, on its web pages: the SUSE Linux KDE service, in short, called LinuKS." Further, they are the only way to get bugfixed versions of e.g. KDE. So even if people do not want to get KDE 3.5 but only the bugfixes for 3.4, they are forced to use "risky" software. Although I can fully understand that there is no official support for the packages in supp, I think it is a bit contradictory to advertise risky packages as "genuine added value". If it is risky, it would rather be genuine added risk. As I said, I can fully understand that they are not supported, but they are part of SuSE linux and e.g. allow people to find and report bugs, which is a benefit that SuSE gets for the next version. New packages in supp for a distri that was released more than two years is really a bit too much to ask! Yet at least the packages for recent versions should be updated regularly to the status of BRANCH. Since they are not officially supported anyway, there should not be a reason to not incorporate latest fixes from BRANCH. Sven

Hi! Am Mittwoch, 8. März 2006 17:15 schrieb Stephan Binner:

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Yet at least the packages for recent versions should be updated regularly to the status of BRANCH.

The KDE packages and the other applications do get regularly updated for SUSE Linux 10.0, SUSE Linux 9.3 and SUSE Linux 9.2 despite the unofficial state.

I guess it all depends on the definition of "regularly" then. :) I use the 10.0 and was desperate for a new kdewebdev-package, which is almost one month old. After two weeks without an updated package in supp, I compiled current SVN, because quanta crashes every two minutes without the fix. I reported the bug(fix) to Novell's bugzilla and it got incorporated for 10.1, but not yet for the supp, which is what I use and enabled me to report the bug in the first place. So that's kind of unfair., since beta-users get more stable package than supp-users. ;) Sven

On Wednesday, 8. March 2006 16:45, Sven Burmeister wrote:

On the other hand, via YOU you only get security fixes, so even, if one

That's not true, critical other bug fixes are also offered via online update.

which is what Windows supplies too with its Service-Packs.

The "serious business user" has to buy a Novell product designated for busi- ness (SLES/NLD) which offer security and bugfixes/service packs for their whole seven year lifecycle.

At the moment a SuSE user has to buy a new version every two years, if one

You don't have to buy SUSE Linux box, you can use SUSE Linux for free/cheaper. Bye, Steve

On Thursday 09 March 2006 03:50, Sven Burmeister wrote:

Ok, but I was comparing SuSE Linux and Windows XP. So what's the price of a NLD 9 for 7 years compared to Windows XP Professional? Also, most desktop-users have Windows XP home, so what desktop with the same security fixes lifecycle including service-packs would they get from Novell/SuSE for the same price?

You are trying to compare apples and oranges. Does Mickysoft provide patches for all the applications you are running on Windows XP, I mean things like Adobe Photoshop? The answer is plainly no. MS only supports the OS. It doesn't really support MS Office but expects users to upgrade to fix a potential problems. Compare that with the SuSE Linux distribution which contains over 3,000 applications. They support all security related problems with these packages for a period of two years. If you really compared Windows XP and all the support contracts you would have to enter into with Microsoft and all the other suppliers with the Novell Business contracts I think I know which one would come out the cheaper by a mile. The problem is when you try to compare a Microsoft OS with a Linux distribution you forget about all the applications you get basically for free on Linux. Also remember that you can install SuSE on all your computers for the price of one copy of the distribution. With Windows you have to buy a copy of Windows for each machine. Now taking this information into account who do you think is ripping you off? -- Regards, Graham Smith

On Thursday 09 March 2006 05:24, Sven Burmeister wrote:

Hi!

Am Mittwoch, 8. März 2006 18:30 schrieb Graham Smith:

...

You are trying to compare apples and oranges. Does Mickysoft provide patches for all the applications you are running on Windows XP, I mean things like Adobe Photoshop? The answer is plainly no. MS only supports the OS. It doesn't really support MS Office but expects users to upgrade to fix a potential problems.

You are right to a point, yet comparing apples and oranges yourself, because MS cannot provide any updates to software they do not own, i.e. Photoshop, since you mentioned it. Further, Firefox, Winamp and some other apps have their own update mechanisms, which they do not in Linux, but that is another topic. If an app uses a library supplied with Windows, i.e. the core, then those get fixed too. Sooner or later. ;) In the end, the user get security fixes for the core(-apps) from MS and other apps have found their way around. The only thing the user has to care about is to install only apps that do have an update-mechanism. I am not sure about Photoshop, but Acrobat-Reader does have one.

What apps are there that do not have their own update mechanism in windows, that are used by a normal desktop-user?

And MS does support security-updates for MS-Office, at least they did for 2000 and security updates is all I am talking about, except for the GUI, which they even supply service-packs, i.e. bugfix-versions for.

...

Compare that with the SuSE Linux distribution which contains over 3,000 applications. They support all security related problems with these packages for a period of two years.

Ok, so exclude everything that is not core, i.e. office, amarok and alike, not KDE though, since Windows does supply a GUI, even if it's only one and they do supply bugfixes for it and not only security-bugfixes.

So there you have MS offering support for the core plus GUI, including one media-player, one E-Mail app, one Paint-app and so on at a price of ~100 € for x years.

And as I said, the argument that SuSE gives you more software on the CDs does not really count, since it is free software, so no added money value but just saved time because not having to download and install it separately.

The point I was trying to make was SuSE does provide security updates for all those apps. That does cost SuSE a lot of man hours to package and provide those updates.

...

Also remember that you can install SuSE on all your computers for the price of one copy of the distribution. With Windows you have to buy a copy of Windows for each machine. Now taking this information into account who do you think is ripping you off?

Nobody was talking about ripping off! I was just comparing security-fix lifecycles anf bugfix-updates for things that come with XP home.

Since I am using Linux only, you can be sure that I am not trying to bash Linux or anything like that, it is just comparing what a desktop user gets for the money and of course needs. You could easily double the number of packages on the SuSE CDs and not add any value for a normal desktop-user.

Sven

Also you missed my point regarding you have to purchase a copy of Windows for each computer. Whereas you can download the SuSE Distribution for free and use it in as many computers you have. So I can't see how you can complain about the cost regarding the SuSE distribution and their support when comparing with Mickysoft. -- Regards, Graham Smith