OpenSuSE to rival VISTA
While the eyes of the IT experts have spent plenty of time looking to see the new Microsoft's unfolding operating system named VISTA, the open sourced companies and individuals have been building the Linux operating systems for a better adoption from the Desktop users.
Two of the best and most wide spread to the Desktop Linux distributions - OpenSUSE and Ubuntu both of which offered the best of open source software.
UBUNTU is a DEBIAN based distributions and it is fairly young linux distro but offers its users a really wide (maybe the biggest) package lists. Its tools for package management are just great and it is fairly one of Microsoft's rival. It has a strong community which keeps the foundation of this distro solid and offers a lot of friendly support for new users.
The openSuSE or just the old SUSE linux is the other M$ rival. It is by far in my experience the GREAT Microsoft rival ever. It has always been towards Desktop and usability. A truly DESKTOP linux distribution which offers its new YaST tool. Well not that it is new but it is far better than the last YaST I have tried. It is by far faster and comfortable to work with. A tool that many distros does not offer for their Desktop users. The great thing about the new OpenSuSE is that it ships with all the enterprise considered packages such as XEN, AppArmor ... and even the more cool desktop oriented XGL/Compiz. Those things make OpenSuSE one of the most COMPLETE Desktop and Enterprise Linux distributions. With its YaST tool it offers one stop CONFIGURATION utility which serves a really good job for new and even a bit more experienced users. So this by far over takes what UBUNTU offered us.
Both UBUNTU and SUSE offered us comfort and usability when installing and when working with. UPGRADING from old UBUNTO and SUSE to the newest version is fairly easy. I personally find OpenSUSEs YaST upgrade tool for more intuitive but that might be cause I am a suse user since time ;) One cool thing about OpenSuSE is that behind it stays a Profit Organization like Novel which contributes to the development of this great distribution.
So UBUNTU might be a little behind MS new VISTA but OpenSuSE still keeps the fight.
What really goes beyond what other distros offer is the new start menu on both KDE and GNOME desktops. It is a VISTA like menu which offers us FAVORITES , MOST USED and other menus to ease and speed up our work... or just to make us feel comfortable. The new 10.2 also includes a new SuSEUpdater applet which serves a better use than the old ZMD was doing.
Also I found that OpenSuSE 10.2 comes with the newest of the power management daemons. But really the best thing I found recently while testing this with one of my colleagues was that actually VISTA is a lot more unfriendly to the hardware (ESPECIALLY NOTEBOOKS) and it consumes a lot more than SUSE. Yes MS released litter versions and so one and still I have to say that I have no problems running it on my ACER notebook with just 512MB of RAM... while VISTA is a bit of a pain on the same machine.
Well the new OpenSuSE 10.2 is by far more friendly and stable than the new VISTA Microsoft has offered us. It really comes with a great GUI to rival VISTAs AERO theme and also provides more compatibility with the hardware requirements than VISTA.
But the question still is: "Is this the year of the linux desktop?"
I bet for me it is... this and the previous one years too ;)
What about you?
Comments are highly appreciated!
For some screenshots check this link - screen shots
11 comments:
Keep dreamin' :D
Linux will dominate and eventually put Microsoft out of business. It may take a few months of the public rejecting Vista but it will happen in 2007.
Roy
This will only happen if OEM will start pushing Linux into new PCs. That is the ONLY way. Linux is already superior to Windows. It only needs OEM backing.
So if you really want to push for the Linux desktop cause, don't buy Dell, HP or others, but distributors that really support Linux.
it won't happen for at least one reason : the games...
as long as the high-end games are made to run under windows only, linux will remain an os for advanced users
As much as I hate to, I'd have to agree that Linux will not be displacing Vista anytime soon.
Linux may very well be a superior OS (it definitely beats the crap out of XP, and Vista is nothing more than a really badly-done Linux wannabe), but technical superiority has never been a guarantee of success.
What needs to happen is that we need to be more patient. It'll happen eventually. The Linux OS may be ready for prime time, but the Linux community is not. There's still too much of a fanboy aura surrounding Linux for it to make much headway.
Sadly, we're stuck waiting on the rest of the world to grow up and realize that Windows is NOT the way to go, even if we already know that. Like I said, it'll happen; it'll just take us much longer that it did for everyone else like Europe or China.
But I daresay that Vista will hasten that. I myself am trying to find Linux-compatible HDTV tuner cards because as soon as I do, XP will be gone. I'm already looking at removing it from my laptop.
At $150-$250, Vista is more than worth the cost of upgrading. Anyone who makes around $50/hour would agree. Windows works really, really well. Period. Linux (on the desktop) still creates FAR more problems than it solves. Linux is great for servers, but as a desktop OS, we can keep dreaming. I think Linux is realistically 5-10 years away from being a serious alternative, and even that's not a guarantee. As long as Windows works, why would anyone switch? For me, I'd rather pay the $200 and spend my free time fighting far more important battles.
You are something of right but ;)
really tell me!
still fighting viruses and trojans ?
or keeping reinstalling your windows OS in a year again an again ?
Well advanced users of Windows OS sure aren't so easy on troling away their system into the junk and reinstall it but really a lot of NORMAL DESKTOP users still fight a lot of problems with worms,viruses, trojans and performance issues after even 2 months of using their OS... that is not what it happens with LINUX on the desktop... so it is as usual very arguable ;)
thanks for the comment!
The driver support issue alone is enough to kill desktop Linux.
As for viruses and trojans, if Linux has 80% of the market share, you'll see most of the viruses targeting it.
As it is true that the Operating System with the most biggest market share is the most targeted for viruses and so on the other thing in the overall design of the two OS.
Linux is just made unfriendly for those things. And besides there are some viruses (vulnerabilities that are long ago closed) that existed in linux. And about the market share... there are plenty of people wanting to do a worm for linux cause taking control over 10 servers is much more useful than taking control over 10 desktop users machines... so there is interest in hacking/cracking linux but it is really made UNFRIENDLY for most of the "EVIL" developers.
Cheers!
I've used Windows XP for many, many years. I wasn't satisfied, but didn't know any alternatives.
Until I heard about UNIX and Linux during one of my IT lessons.
I installed openSUSE 10.2 on my parent's computer (I'm was only 17 back then) as a dualboot.
Then I bought a laptop, kicked XP of of it, installed openSUSE 10.2 and I must say, I completely used to it now and I love it.
Almost every day I hear my parents complaining about a slow computer (which is strange because they have 1gb memory and I only have 512mb), and viruses. And of course, they let me fix it.
And you have no idea how happy I am when I start my Linux laptop after hours of Windows problems..
Don't get me wrong, Windows is a fairly good OS too, but Linux is just better, there's no doubt about that.
And don't tell me anything about hardware or installing programs, because when you've finished installing openSUSE, everything just works.. no drivers for your sound card or anything else.
And with the 1-click-install that comes with openSUSE 10.3 (which by the by is the best OS ever made) even my parents can install programs in one click, easier than on Windows.
And why bother if Linux will replace Windows? Just let people use Windows if they like that..
Let us just use Linux :) Let it be that happy community it is now. Don't make it a giant company like Windows! Keep it special!
When I used linux I knew it's deferent so I have read a book about it then it became as easy as MSDOS
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