On Friday 09 February 2001 14:41, Timothy R. Butler wrote:
"Well put"???? Hardly....
I disagree.
Then we both agree to disagree. That's what makes the world go around....
If all you are getting was the kernel and the GNU tools to make a simple OS then perhaps your comments would be accurate. But, I do believe you are 'forgetting" to consider most of the features that make SuSE the finely engineered product that it is. Perhaps if you were to go play
To be honest, 7.0 didn't sound like a well engineered product. It sounded down right buggy on this list.
You are making assumptions. There are basically two kinds of folks on this list: those with problems seeking solutions and those who donate their time offering solutions. The member ship of this list isn't mapped to the total number of SuSE users. Many, if not most SuSE users, have no problems installing and using SuSE, nor do they want to spend time helping those who do have problems. (That is obvious because the number of boxes of SuSE sold far exceed the number of folks who visit this list with problems.) Nor will they simple sign on to praise the product. It stands to reason that because this list exists to help those with problems it doesn't represent or make any statement about SuSE quality, one way or the other. Unlike M$drones, Penquins are generally not in the habit of using successive releases of a poor quality distro, and you will notice that many folks, like myself, have been with SuSE since the 5.x days.
BTW, I'm not implying that SuSE should cut the price on every version, simply that the current upgrade price isn't an adequate solution. Here is my idea of a good upgrade:
- 7 CD's + DVD - NO Manuals. - No Support - In a jewel case, no box. - $30-$35
Now, that is perfect.
That would draw the Linux users who never need help, or those like me who just write into a Linux list (like SLE) rather than contact support. Additionally, I have no need to pay for a bunch of manuals, my 6.4 manuals are sitting in the box, and haven't been glanced at since the day I bought it (and only briefly then, out of curiousity to see what was new in the manual).
So, now you have a business model. Execute it. See if your theories match reality. Before you go off trying to convince others of the value of your distro, perhaps you should stop using M$ tools and start using Linux and GNU tools to do email and the rest. i.e., practice with what you intend to sell. You'll be more convincing.
with RH for a while you might appreciate YaST, the excellent manuals,
I have used RH, I don't like it. Although, funny you should mention YaST here, at least RH's installer is open source.
So what? When you cut your M$ umbilical then you can start preaching the strict gospel of GPL...
and the fine collection of software present on the 6 CDs, most of which have been tailored to be automatically installed (or uninstalled) in/on
That's what I like about SuSE. I'm not sure that I like it $70 worth, but I do like it say $40-$50 worth.
Then buy some distro that gives everything SuSE gives but does sells it for $40. Just stop bitching about SuSE.
I don't have an endless cash supply - that is why I suggest the idea above. According to Michael Hasenstein, IIRC, much of the price hike was due to extra tech support. Well if that's true, and I never used the 30-days from 6.1 and 6.4, I'd really like to avoid paying for 90-days and 6 manuals I'll never use.
all appropriate config files, menus, man pages, etc...
Granted.
If putting together a high quality distro is so cheap and easy then by all means stop bothering folks on this list and go to http://linuxfromscratch.com and build your own. Think of all the money you will save.... and all the time you will lose.
I'm not suggesting that. I _am_ suggesting there are better ways to reduce costs.
Now, I'm not sure if this is a rumor or not, but I heard on this list last night that SuSE ships all the US packages here from Germany. If that is true, right there they could save loads. Ship the master copy over to the States (or save even more and do the work in Mexico), and print 'em here.
Really? And how many businesses are you running right now, or have run in the past? Are you self-employed? Have you every developed a business plan or other exercises in Operational Analysis. Do you suggest that the SuSE folks are so stupid they can't figure out the most economical way to make and distribute boxes of their product? Have you access to their productions and distribution cost data? Do you know what it costs to bulk ship pallets of SuSE by air or by ship? Doesn't sound like it to me. JLK