On Thursday 21 June 2001 22:10, you wrote: As a former drake user I can tell ya I had a little learning curve, but I personally feel you'd get that anyways moving from drake. SuSE is (in my opinion) aa far better and more standard linux distro. The things I had to learn were the CORRECT way to do things. Instead of relying on linuxconf to do everything for me I'm learnign to manage the system using pico now. There IS a setup guide called YAST to help make the transisition. Out of the box drake did not configure server daemons. SuSE did. My SuSE migration on both my personal box and the PDC was smooth. KDE 2 is more stable, X runs faster and SuSE even got me laid (I finished setup more quickly and for that the wife was happy). All joking aside, I preffer SuSE so much I'm giving away my brand new drake cd's... I'd be happy to help with some migration issues as you move to a much better distro. Welcome to LSB! Ambrosius

Anyone with 7.2 up & running here that could send answers to Joshua here ? Send him at isd@as.uaf.edu

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Forwarded message from "Joshua J. Kugler"

I've heard quite a bit about the merits of SuSE and was wondering what kind of learning curve would be required for someone moving from Mandrake.

1. What is the layout for startup files (/etc/rc.d on Mdk) 2. What is the default layout for files that are installed? Do they prefer /opt, or /usr/local, etc? 3. How are the included GUI configuration utilities? I don't mind messing with text files, but on a new system, GUI config is nice. Mdk's control panel, HardDrake, etc., are REALLY nice. 4. What is the preferred package? How good is the package compatability with Mdk/Redhat, etc? i.e., could I install Redhat RPMs and be OK? 5. Where are config files usually stored? /etc? 6. How well goes the install? Mandrake's install has gotten PRETTY smooth. With a little hand holding, I was able to install Mdk 8.0 on an P133 Compaq Armada the other day. With 16MB of RAM. :)

Any other pertinant information you feel necessary.

Thanks!

j----- k----- A very happy Mandrake user. But open to change. :)

-- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Name: Harold aka "Ambrosius" Email: ambrosius@mailandnews.com (L)ICQ Number: 117212600 Distro: SuSE Linux 7.1 Pro Registered Linux User: 216397 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dee McKinney wrote:
> 
> Anyone with 7.2 up & running here that could send answers
> to Joshua here ? Send him at isd@as.uaf.edu
Please include the receipient into the CC: next time. Asking to send
mails to third parties on mailing-lists is not necessarily the
politically correct way (It could mean asking to spam somebody).

> >>>>> Forwarded message from "Joshua J. Kugler" 
> 
> I've heard quite a bit about the merits of SuSE and was wondering what kind
> of learning curve would be required for someone moving from Mandrake.
> 
> 1. What is the layout for startup files (/etc/rc.d on Mdk)
/etc/sbin.d, containing LSB-conforming startup-scripts.

RH or MDK startup-scripts typically do not conform to the LSB, i.e.
they will not run without further adapations.

> 2. What is the default layout for files that are installed? Do they prefer
> /opt, or /usr/local, etc?
SuSE claims to follow the LSB and FHS, which in an ideal world would
mean:
/usr for OS-Vendor supplied packages
/usr/local for local (non-Vendor supplied) packages
/opt for add-on packages

In reality, SuSE actually basically follows this installation
scheme, but there are exceptions.

Major difference to RH/MDK: SuSE considers KDE, GNOME etc. to be
add-on packages, i.e. they install them to /opt.

> 3. How are the included GUI configuration utilities? I don't mind messing
> with text files, but on a new system, GUI config is nice. Mdk's control
> panel, HardDrake, etc., are REALLY nice.

Well, I liked YaST1 and I like parts of YaST2, but ...
* YaST2 requires a lot of system resources. (Using YaST2 on low
memory systems is a pain.)
* YaST2's alternative ASCII-GUI is un-ergonomic and close to being
unusable, IMHO.
* YaST2 probably suites the demands of beginners and assists
"advanced users", but there are parts in YaST2 which I find leaving
many things to be desired (esp. package-management).
* Some internals of YaST2 are arguable (esp. its relation to rpm's
database)

I have no personal experience with MDK, but according to what I have
read and heard, MDK's GUI configuration utilities probably are
superior to YaST2.

> 4. What is the preferred package? How good is the package compatability with
> Mdk/Redhat, etc?  i.e., could I install Redhat RPMs and be OK?
It depends. 
* SuSE uses the RPM-3.0.6 format, while RH uses RPM-4. I.e. RH
(SRC-) RPMS exploiting RPM-4-features will not work under SuSE.
* SuSE's current libc is glibc2-2.2.2, ie. many binary RH-RPMS are
binary compatible to SuSE-7.2
* SuSE's claim to follow the LSB in some cases means imcompatibility
to RH/MDK.
* SuSE's own RPMs in most cases are imcompatile to other
distributions (Different package names, different paths).

> 5. Where are config files usually stored? /etc?
Yes, to a wide extend they are installed to /etc and directories
below, but there are exceptions.

> 6. How well goes the install?  Mandrake's install has gotten PRETTY smooth.
Let me put it this way: If it works, it in most cases works smooth.
If not, things are going to become pretty nasty.

SuSE's installation procedure is demanding to HW resources (From my
experience: >64MB RAM + Swap), is not very fail-safe (If something
fails, it often starts from the beginning) and time consuming
(Installing the files while upgrading SuSE-7.1->7.2 on my notebook
(PI/166MMX, 64MBRAM, 4xCDROM, 2GB HD) took > 8 hours).

> With a little hand holding, I was able to install Mdk 8.0 on an P133 Compaq
> Armada the other day.  With 16MB of RAM. :)
This probably would be pretty tough with SuSE-7.2 :)

> Any other pertinant information you feel necessary.
SuSE is completely fixated on KDE, integration of all other GUIs
need to be called "immature" (Their GNOME integration sucks, IMO).
I.e. if you want KDE, SuSE is the right choice, if you want or need
to use another desktop, you might consider using another
distribution.
 
SuSE's ISupport (I don't know if they sell it outside of Germany)
is, .. 
..., last time I called them, it took them 18 days to respond with
"No clue,  never heared of this before..".

Though SuSE's persuit to conform to the LSB might pay-off in longer
terms, it nowadays actually means incompatibility to all other
distributions. So, whether LSB-compliance actually is an advantage,
still has to be proven.

SuSE officially only provides essential bug-fixes to a release of
their distribution. They do not officially provide feature-updates
for a release. SuSE also does not provide beta-packages in a
comparable way RH does provide on rawhide.


Don't get me wrong, I would not be using SuSE since SuSE's earily
days, if I was deeply dissatisfied with SuSE - The SuSE distro also
is far from being perfect. For me personally, YaST2 and SuSE's way
of focusing on KDE (neglecting other desktops) are close to being
inacceptable, while most other parts of the SuSE distro are in
pretty good shape.

Ralf

-- 
Ralf Corsepius 

Registered Linux User #26	http://counter.li.org

On Friday 22 June 2001 11:37 pm, Curtis Rey wrote:

I moved form Man 7.1 to SuSe. I learned alot on Mandrake, but I kept running into issues that revolve around the *.mdk extensions that were used. I had some compatibility problems. Though I found that Mandrake to user friendly it IMHO doesn't compare to SuSE. SuSE is very very stable. I have not run into any compatibility issues to date. I'm a newbie of about a year. I honestly think that, as a Mandrake user, you'll find SuSE to be a notch or two above. And the users are great. If you have questions, come to the list. If a post doesn't get answered right away repost and/or change the header a bit and you'll get a response. IMHO this is the best users group I've been able to find. They polite, knowledgable, and friendly. I have gone from curious with mandrake to enthusiastic with SuSE and I can safely say I'm a fanatic and SuSE advocate. Try it - I think you'll be very satisfied, and 7.2 should absolutely rock.

Cheers, Curtis Rey

On Thursday 21 June 2001 10:10 pm, Dee McKinney wrote:

...

Anyone with 7.2 up & running here that could send answers to Joshua here ? Send him at isd@as.uaf.edu

...

...

...

...

> Forwarded message from "Joshua J. Kugler"

I've heard quite a bit about the merits of SuSE and was wondering what kind of learning curve would be required for someone moving from Mandrake.

1. What is the layout for startup files (/etc/rc.d on Mdk) 2. What is the default layout for files that are installed? Do they prefer /opt, or /usr/local, etc? 3. How are the included GUI configuration utilities? I don't mind messing with text files, but on a new system, GUI config is nice. Mdk's control panel, HardDrake, etc., are REALLY nice. 4. What is the preferred package? How good is the package compatability with Mdk/Redhat, etc? i.e., could I install Redhat RPMs and be OK? 5. Where are config files usually stored? /etc? 6. How well goes the install? Mandrake's install has gotten PRETTY smooth. With a little hand holding, I was able to install Mdk 8.0 on an P133 Compaq Armada the other day. With 16MB of RAM. :)

Any other pertinant information you feel necessary.

Thanks!

j----- k----- A very happy Mandrake user. But open to change. :)

For me (I was RedHat, then Mandrake, and finally SuSE) it came down to a few things. First, RedHat and Mandrake have taken a walk down a short path known as the "alpha compiler path". This isn't a path I wanted to walk down, as it made my life as a C programmer hell. The compiler was broken, plain and simple, and they were using it! Then there was the KDE reason. The reason I moved from RedHat to Mandrake was because Mandrake better supported KDE (and contributed to the project). Then when 7.2 came around, it was pretty nice... but all of their future packages were compiled with GCC 2.96, rather than the standard 2.95.. really screwed up any upgrades to new packages. The system soon became very unstable. So I thought to myself.. if RedHat and Mandrake are walking down this path to ruin, who's on the other path? SuSE. A KDE supporter and contributor. User of all things stable and sane. Incredible setup/configuration utilities. Icons that don't look like 8 year olds made them. Now I'm walking down the right path, and life is gooood! -Steven

...

A very happy Mandrake user. But open to change. :)

Dear Dee, if you're happy, then why would you want to change? -- *º¤., ¸¸,.¤º*¨¨¨*¤ =Oliver@home= *º¤., ¸¸,.¤º*¨¨*¤ Also, wie war das denn nochmal? Da wir jetzt durch eine untaktisch kluge Fuegung eingesehen haben, dass das mit der Zusammendehnung ein echter Griff ins Klo war, sehen wir keinen weiteren Grund zur Veranlassung.

On Friday 22 June 2001 06:59 pm, Jonathan Drews wrote:

Hi Joshua:

On Thursday 21 June 2001 22:10, you wrote:

...

Anyone with 7.2 up & running here that could send answers to Joshua here ? Send him at isd@as.uaf.edu

...

...

...

...

> Forwarded message from "Joshua J. Kugler"

Any other pertinent information you feel necessary.

One of the curious things I have found is that SuSE runs scientific software like Octave and Scilab significantly faster than does Mandrake 8.0. For instance, I had Octave do a calculation that involved 32,000,000 floating point numbers and it was completed in about 12 minutes with SuSE 7.1. With Mandrake 8.0, I finally killed Octave when the run time exceeded an hour, for an almost identical computation. I would love to know why, in particular, Octave runs quite fast on SuSe but is excessively slow when run on Mandrake 8.0? Is there a special priority given to desktop apps in SuSE?

This might be a compiler issue. SuSE 7.x uses the GCC2.95.2 compiler, and Mandrake uses the GCC2.96 compiler, which is not ready for prime time, imho. I had a number of problems with my C programs on this compiler, so I ditched RH7 (which uses the same compiler as MDK8) and went with SuSE. I haven't had a problem since. -Steven

As a newbie and non-programmer, Life is very good with SuSE and tie that in with your statements - well then both tech and non tech find this distro to be solid, stable, and versitile - gotta be the right path for both. You can use and I can learn from it, and that's why it rocks. Curtis On Friday 22 June 2001 09:43 am, Steven Hatfield wrote:

On Friday 22 June 2001 11:37 pm, Curtis Rey wrote:

...

I moved form Man 7.1 to SuSe. I learned alot on Mandrake, but I kept running into issues that revolve around the *.mdk extensions that were used. I had some compatibility problems. Though I found that Mandrake to user friendly it IMHO doesn't compare to SuSE. SuSE is very very stable. I have not run into any compatibility issues to date. I'm a newbie of about a year. I honestly think that, as a Mandrake user, you'll find SuSE to be a notch or two above. And the users are great. If you have questions, come to the list. If a post doesn't get answered right away repost and/or change the header a bit and you'll get a response. IMHO this is the best users group I've been able to find. They polite, knowledgable, and friendly. I have gone from curious with mandrake to enthusiastic with SuSE and I can safely say I'm a fanatic and SuSE advocate. Try it - I think you'll be very satisfied, and 7.2 should absolutely rock.

Cheers, Curtis Rey

On Thursday 21 June 2001 10:10 pm, Dee McKinney wrote:

...

Anyone with 7.2 up & running here that could send answers to Joshua here ? Send him at isd@as.uaf.edu

...

...

...

>> Forwarded message from "Joshua J. Kugler"

I've heard quite a bit about the merits of SuSE and was wondering what kind of learning curve would be required for someone moving from Mandrake.

1. What is the layout for startup files (/etc/rc.d on Mdk) 2. What is the default layout for files that are installed? Do they prefer /opt, or /usr/local, etc? 3. How are the included GUI configuration utilities? I don't mind messing with text files, but on a new system, GUI config is nice. Mdk's control panel, HardDrake, etc., are REALLY nice. 4. What is the preferred package? How good is the package compatability with Mdk/Redhat, etc? i.e., could I install Redhat RPMs and be OK? 5. Where are config files usually stored? /etc? 6. How well goes the install? Mandrake's install has gotten PRETTY smooth. With a little hand holding, I was able to install Mdk 8.0 on an P133 Compaq Armada the other day. With 16MB of RAM. :)

Any other pertinant information you feel necessary.

Thanks!

j----- k----- A very happy Mandrake user. But open to change. :)

For me (I was RedHat, then Mandrake, and finally SuSE) it came down to a few things. First, RedHat and Mandrake have taken a walk down a short path known as the "alpha compiler path". This isn't a path I wanted to walk down, as it made my life as a C programmer hell. The compiler was broken, plain and simple, and they were using it! Then there was the KDE reason. The reason I moved from RedHat to Mandrake was because Mandrake better supported KDE (and contributed to the project). Then when 7.2 came around, it was pretty nice... but all of their future packages were compiled with GCC 2.96, rather than the standard 2.95.. really screwed up any upgrades to new packages. The system soon became very unstable. So I thought to myself.. if RedHat and Mandrake are walking down this path to ruin, who's on the other path?

SuSE. A KDE supporter and contributor. User of all things stable and sane. Incredible setup/configuration utilities. Icons that don't look like 8 year olds made them.

Now I'm walking down the right path, and life is gooood!

-Steven