On April 14, 2004 06:34 pm, Phil Mocek wrote:
On Wed, Apr 14, 2004 at 09:53:06PM +0100, Mark wrote:
In the longer term a company may also have to account for the loss of revenue from those who bought another distribution instead because the competitor's support seemed more attractive, for whatever reason.
Or, leaving support out of it, they need to consider loss of revenue from those who decided to use a different distribution because a competitor's documentation or simply the quality of their packaging, seemed more attractive.
Discussion on this thread seems to repeatedly confuse support with the publication of documentation. With thorough, quality, documentation, you don't need support unless you haven't the time to read documentation or are lacking the skills to understand it.
Well from this end the docs have never been an issue as IMHO SuSE has always shipped with the best manuals and collection of docs/man pages etc etc in comparison to everyone else. Where my complain (if you call it that) is with the online stuff, which could be improved.
That loss could end up severe even if it can never be fully quantified.
Definitely. In my case, I recommended SuSE for use by a client who was rebuilding a previously-Windows-NT box and purchasing a new one, mainly because of the fact that on their short list of Linux distributions (Debian, Mandrake, and SuSE) only SuSE is officially supported by the bulk of third-party software publishers. This client only has a couple of machines now, but that number is likely to grow. The closest they come to the need for support right now is when they have questions about broken software that is not documented, or questions about ``the SuSE way'' of doing something that is not documented. They were happy to buy the SuSE Professional 9.0 retail box, rather than just installing from the 'net, to throw some cash at the people behind the product.
This list, though, has made it pretty clear that SuSE Linux Professional, unfortunately, is really not intended for professional use. This is not to say it isn't a great distribution for some purposes, but even the simple fact that there is no changelog for SuSE packages makes it unsuitable for many business purposes. It would be irresponsible for me to go installing an upgraded package without knowing what has changed, since the last release, or install a package knowing that the author may be aware of problems but is unwilling to share that knowledge.
Given the fact that the closest SuSE comes to publishing known issues for their software (and ``their software'' consists primarily of their installer, a custom-compiled Linux kernel, YaST/SuSEconfig, and their SuSE-fied repackaging of software written/maintained by GNU and others) is the SDB, a big list of symptoms and suggested remedies without any direct link to the individual packages that comprise SuSE Linux, I just can't imagine using SuSE for anything besides, say, a home machine on which I want to just install the whole ball o' wax and leave it alone until the next major distro version is released.
see the security lists available from SuSE. I think this will alleviate your concerns.
That policy doesn't work well when you want to tighten security by installing the minimum set of software that meets your needs, and then install additional packages as needed in the future.
You can override everything in yast, even the minimal install set. At one time this was approx 60-80 megs of software. This basic distro is not available any more as a preset, however can easily be accomplished in yast by being selective and knowing what you are doing. Also remember, that SuSE has a complete produce range with standard and pro being based on SuSE gpl (inhouse) code and server products being based on former United Linux core. Hence you will see a lot or product differentiation.
Remember, a Linux distribution like SuSE, Mandrake, Red Hat, or Debian, is a bunch of individual packages that are individually maintained and can be individually installed or removed. This idea is foreign to many people because Windows isn't done that way. It's good, though, because it allows you a great deal of freedom in just how lean or full-featured your installation will be. With a good package management system, package installation, upgrade, and removal are no-brainers.
Yes while true, a distro is not simply a collection of tools and utilities. Its much much more. Not going to explain that either as it would take to long. Lets just say that if it were that simple, then everyone's product would be more or less equal and or there would be a multitude of distro's out there. Since this is not the case, it safe to say that your initial presupposition is not quite correct. All for now..:) /ch