Clayton wrote:
¿Why Ubuntu is more popular tha SUSE despite thier young life?
Maybe the response of that question can help the grow and improving of our community.
One HUGE factor with EVERYONE I know that uses Ubuntu or Kubuntu is...
That it will install on almost any laptop.
_package_management_.
Package management - this is bull - typical developer thinking which has nothing to do with users.
Ubuntu uses apt with the Synaptic front end. It's simple and easy to use. Several potential new users I've coached in Linux have tried out a few distributions including SUSE, and settled on Ubuntu (or Kubuntu), and when I ask why... they say that SUSE was great, easy to install and use right up until they tried to use the package management tools.
YaST was/is a brilliant installer, but once you want to manage 3rd party apps... SUSE falls to pieces for a new user. Ubuntu/Kubuntu comes with Synaptic preconfigured and ready to go. A new user simply has to start it up, click a few things as explained in easy to read instructions and they are up and running with literally thousands of applications avaiilable to be installed. They can even easily upgrade to the next major release with Synaptic.
Compare that to SUSE... you get YaST with is OK for managing apps on the DVD/CDs. If you want to add in 3rd party applications, the instructions for how to do this are spotty and almost impossible to follow (if you've never done it before). You can try out SMART, but again... horrible documentation, and loads of places where things go completely wrong (for an inexperienced user).
Thanks goes out to "Guru" for providing a repack of SMART/SMART-GUI with the 3rd perty repositories already preconfigured. I can provide my friends a simple step by step how-to to download the Smart stuff from the Guru site and get up and running with being able to install apps... and still, even with the repack, Smart - for a new user unfamiliar with Linux - is unweildy and confusing.
Otherwise - based on feedback I've received from new users - SUSE and Ubuntu stack up fairly well against each other.
So... I'll say it again... package management... it's very badly implemented in SUSE from the standpoint of a new user (who wants to add something not included on the DVD). Most of use here probably don't even realise it since we're used to rpm -ivh at the CLI, or can adapt to the rather odd eccentricities of Zen and/or Smart. We (as a group) have lost touch with the users who are unfamiliar with SUSE and/or Linux in general.
One thing that is working well... if a new user clicks on an rpm link on a webpage, the Zen package manager does a nice neat job of installing the RPM for them. But.. this doesn't solve the issue of the 3rd party software repositories... the place where Ubuntu really thrashes SUSE.
Of course this is all a combination of my opinion, and observations of new users struggling to move away from Windows... YMMV and all that.
C.
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