On Mon, 2008-02-04 at 09:13 +0100, Andreas Jaeger wrote:
Doug McGarrett
writes: [...] I disagree with your rant. I would like to see the return of SuSE Pro, and I don't mind paying $60 or so for it, but I do mind paying $200 or so for SLES or SLED (I don't understand the difference) and I want the manuals.
SUSE Pro is still available, it's called openSUSE now and available e.g. from shop.novell.com
You admit that SuSE Pro paid for itself, it came with the manuals, and you could buy it at a decent bookstore. And it came with some non-open-source things that were useful. What was wrong with that system? Why must we
And today all of that is available from day 1 - unless previously - to download from the internet (ok, you cannot download printed books, just pdfs).
bow down to Microsoft? It seems that they now own SuSE, and are determined to make it less and less attractive. If I didn't have a whole batch of stored files on this stable, older SuSE distro, I would try something else in a minute. And I may, anyway.
There's no significant between SUSE Pro and e.g. openSUSE 10.3,
Andreas
I agree with your point Andreas, as I have a boxed edition of 10.3 in my
hands right now. (alright, I'm going to put it down so I can type with
two hands ;-)) This entire discussion has been bringing me closer to a
discussion I had been thinking about bringing up but had been unable to
articulate well until now, and so I wanted to bring this up.
Basically, I, like many others on this list, remember well the days of,
for me at least it was 8.2 and 9.0, when I could walk into a local
computer store (I'm in the US, so that was stores like Best Buy and
CompUSA) go to the operating system area, and pick up a copy of what was
then SuSE LINUX. They had two versions, one a Personal with 3 CDs for
$40 and one a Professional with an additional Administration manual or
something and 5 CDs for $80.
The point was, not only did having the boxed editions in stores raise
the visibility of SUSE, even though it cost money it was worth it. Many
of you may wonder how the boxed editions are worth it now, when anyone
can go onto openSUSE.org and download the full thing for free. Well, I
do feel that openSUSE boxed has lost some worth. Primarily because the
old boxed editions came with a good manual. I mean no disrespect to the
team who produces the absolutely great documentation at openSUSE, but
the printed Start-Up guide, in just from 10.0 -> 10.3 has lost a
description of the desktop environments. The actual two desktops are no
longer discussed in the printed manual! This is actually useful.
especially in openSUSE since we make the user choose between
environments at the install. The users could read through the book's
description of KDE and GNOME and make their decision that way.
I also remember the old SUSE decal. I had a decal that came with I think
9.0 with the then-SUSE logo (the newer lizard and the SUSE logo they got
right after Novell came in). It was pretty cool, and good free marketing
for openSUSE ;-).
What I would like to see is a return to the good boxed sets. Here's what
I would like to see: a good design for the boxed edition, I like the
lizard and all but I've got four boxes that all look exactly alike, with
a giant lizard on a white background. I would be hoping for something
closer to the look of 9.x or even 8.x boxed editions. I know Novell
would probable want to use their own designers, but maybe they could
open up to the community for some ideas. Then I'd like to see the
openSUSE 11.0 system, it can be in a jeweled case with 2 DVDs like 10.3,
but on the system, perhaps openSUSE could make a deal with the guys at
Fluendo and include some legal codecs in the system, and DVD playback?
That way, there is value added for the consumer, since they would be
getting good extra software. Then a strong Start-Up guide, with info on
installing, using the system, including incorporating the KDE and GNOME
user guides into the book. And then some sort of "shameless plug"
openSUSE branded stuff. Perhaps a window decal or a system badge? Just
something cheap thrown into the box to give the user a feeling of
openSUSE's brand.
And no need to return to the Personal and Professional 2-tiered boxed
system. Just sell one edition, preferably for below $100, and sell it at
stores where normal users will find it, and I believe many more people
will take openSUSE seriously as a product to be messed with ;-)
Just my idea, and I hope someone would agree.
--
Kevin "Yo" Dupuy | Public Mail