openSUSE 11 the perfect Ubuntu replacement (openSUSE vs Ubuntu)
With the release of openSUSE 11.0 right around the corner, you will see plenty of reviews, how-to’s and other various things about openSUSE, but how does it stack up against other distributions mainly Ubuntu/(K)Ubuntu?
I see openSUSE as being the perfect replacement for the users that have gotten their feet wet in linux with Ubuntu along side with those just looking to get their feet wet.
You may ask why, instead let me give you some comparisons that I think are important for the new user, or someone just looking at openSUSE 11.0 vs Ubuntu 8.04 (or openSUSE vs Ubuntu in general)
Installation:
Many people talk about the ease of installation with Ubuntu, but what you don’t hear is that “ease” of installation also removes to options of choice during installation. With the Ubuntu family your choice of Desktop Environments means the installation of a whole different distribuntion (ie. Kubuntu) or installing the wanted desktop environment AFTER you installed the default one. This reminds me much of the Windows Installers. A new user may never be exposed to KDE, may not even understand what a desktop environment is. Some may argue that “they don’t need to” but does that mean we should take away their choice of picking what is put on the system originally?
OpenSUSE gives you this choice during the installation, it also gives you the choice to use a seperate Live DVD installer much like the Ubuntu installer, bug again with choices. Not only do you get this choice from a single DVD, but you also get the choice to add / remove programs during the installation which is important to me, since I like to trim down my installation prior to it being installed. With that said, this does not mean the openSUSE 11.0 installer is complicated. Not only is it NOT complicated, but to me it is simpler the Ubuntu, Fedora, Mac OS and Windows installer. Again, not only is it easier, it looks a whole lot better then any other installer with its new QT4 Installer which is shown below.
Advantage:
New User: Ubuntu
User with experience (even minimal): openSUSE
(Note: Because openSUSE has the Choices, but Ubuntu has the precieved ease of installation)
The boot process:
When you start up your boxes you will immediatly see that openSUSE has more attention to detail when it comes to looks. The GRUB and Splash screens look much better. However, the major part of the boot process is the boot time. In openSUSE 10 – 10.2 I would have easily said this was a huge advantage for Ubuntu, but with openSUSE 11.0 the gap has been shrunk. However with the loading of apparmor and some other suse additions, Ubuntu is still just a hair faster (maybe this will change in openSUSE 11.1)
Advantage:
Speed: Ubuntu
Looks: openSUSE
Themes:
The first thing you see when you turn on your machine is the default theme shipped with your distributions desktop environment. Although Ubuntu has made their default nicer (not the very bland ugly brown) openSUSE is still more vibrant and eye catching. I also believe the openSUSE Menu’s are much better.
Advantage:
openSUSE
Installation of Restricted Formats:
Although openSUSE now has 1-Click Installation, it is not straight forward when you log into your package manager. This is something that Ubuntu has done very well. Ubuntu allows you to open it’s package manager and install the restricted formats package and will install everything that you need for playing your mp3’s, avi’s etc. (Note: openSUSE ships by default WITH MP3 support).
Advantage:
Ubuntu
System Management:
For those new to openSUSE you can find almost everything within one convenient location called YaST. YaST is short for Yet another Simple Tool and it is just that, a simple easy way to change your configuration for almost everything with your system. Here is a quick snippit of what YaST looks likes, and the possible options you have.
YaST in KDE 3.5:
YaST in GNOME:
Ubuntu has some great GUI based configuration tools under the system menu, but with YaST they are compiled in a single location, and some of the YaST modules are much better then their counterparts (ie. SaX for Video Card / Resolution configuration)
Advantage:
openSUSE
Package Management:
Previously Ubuntu beat the hell out of openSUSE in this regard, but with the progression of zypper this gap is closing fast, and Ubuntu may be passed up shortly. Zypper is faster, leaner and smarter then most other package management tools, but I do not yet see YaST Software Manager pulling ahead of the Ubuntu Package Management counterparts “YET”. This may very well change with openSUSE 11.1. Just to note, this is a VERY VERY slim win for Ubuntu, as both are great functionally sound, just some rough edges need to be straightened out within the Software Manager
Advantage:
Ubuntu
Security:
AppArmor. Enough said. (AppArmor is the openSUSE / Novell version of SELinux). Ubuntu has nothing on top of the Linux OS for further security.
Advantage:
openSUSE (Long shot)
Stability:
They are both Linux OS’s, they are both sound mature products, they are both extremly stable. You can’t knock either in this category.
Advantage:
Tie
The community:
Ubuntu currently has the biggest following of users and has the best structured “free support” using forums and wiki. However many distributions including openSUSE have seen this format and are fixing their way of doing things. openSUSE has recently launched forums.opensuse.org, and they have a pretty comprehensive wiki and a very informational mailing list. I think it may be a while before the SUSE forums gets the content that the Ubuntu one has, but it’ll be a great day when it does.
Advantage:
Ubuntu
Conclusion:
Ubuntu and openSUSE are both very mature and solid Desktop Operating systems. However, I give the overall advantage to openSUSE because it’s continued attention to detail and rapid development. I believe the ONLY shortfall that openSUSE has against Ubuntu is the very small gap in the Package Management spot. Once this void is closed, the rest will follow feat. OpenSUSE is more polished, more refined and gives you the choices you deserve during installation.
Now you should head over to opensuse.org and download your copy of openSUSE 11.0. Install it and enjoy the openSUSE Bliss.
You can also check out some of my previous blogs that will help you learn not only how openSUSE works, but how you can make it work better and keep it updated. Here are some related blogs I would recommend:
Things to do after installing openSUSE 11.0
Useful openSUSE 11.0 repositories for the best SUSE experience
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Enjoyed reading this article. However regarding the forums, forums.suselinuxsupport.de was amongst the Best Linux forums out there. this has been merger with the new forums at forums.opensuse.org
Just a note. AppArmor came from Immunix. It was designed entirely separately from SE Linux as far as I know and is not based on it.
AppArmor is installed and loaded by default in Hardy (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AppArmor).
tried 11 live cd on my dell 3000 (nvidiafx5200). after third screen all went black. would not do vesa. mandrek 08 does the same. using greenie buntu. even dsl will boot into vesa on this machine. look like suse needs work before prime time.
Excellent read. As a former Ubuntu user, I feel that openSUSE offers the perfect balance of customization and speed. Ubuntu leaves you wanting more after a few days.
I agree strongly with two points you noticed. One that openSUSE is by long shot more secure than Ubuntu, or Fedora, or any other community driven distros, and that with latest release there is now small gap left for the openSUSE’s package management to be best. Yast is the super feature and with improved package management, it will be killer combo.
The only thing that openSuSE team shold develop in better package manager. Everything else is perferct. I started linux with 9.3 and contunued with 10, and then tried Ubuntu. But after a while (short while) a uninstalled the ubuntu and continued wiht openSuSE although the 10.3 release had some bugs.
“Ubuntu has nothing on top of the Linux OS for further security.”
Wrong. Ubuntu has AppArmor since version 7.10.
No advantage for Suse.
What’s more, Ubuntu has additional memory protection by default since 8.04 and has an option to easily install SELinux.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardyHeron/RC#head-7cab045da9504612484f2fb3b17699678db13249
I don’t know is Suse has these.
Also if you sum up your own points, then Ubuntu wins 4:2.
(Ubuntu: speed, restricted formats, package management, community; Suse: looks, yast – I’m not counting AppArmor since both distros have it)
well, if the first ones are questionable then the latest about community is a clear no-go.
Last two years, when I need to find some information about all-linux/GNU related stuff, I always add -ubuntu in google. ubuntuforums is the worst thing ever that could happen with a linux distribution.
Oh, and you lack another point, upgrades/updates.
I’ve upgraded from 10.3 using new zypper rpm and going zypper dup. All works as before but better.
If you don’t know what nightmares ubuntu brings with just a minor deb install … then check their community ( see above).
I was exited to try out OpenSUSE 11 on my main computer. Initial install went fine. after install, to my surprise my touchpad on my loptop did not want to work properly. I have Dell Latitude D 820 loptop (Business grade). Then I was installing flash player. After reboot the xorg refuse to load.
Now I am back on Ubuntu. My touchpad works properly and xorg is fine too. Till OpenSUSE fixes xorg I will stick with Ubuntu
ec_lug, very strange you have those issues. I am also running a Dell D820 w/ Nvidia M110 driver and have no issues with my touchpad or laptop. How did you do the installation? Did you try running sax2 and setting up your video resolution? (I am guessing you are running the intel chip).
Flash Player should have been installed with the default installation (if done via dvd)
and you give no specifcs of what DE you were trying to install.
Ben,
So you are saying I should try it again. I have Dell Latitude D820 with nVidia 250 MB. I was installing openSUSE 11 Live CD Gnome addition. I do not have too much experience with Suse and I run Ubuntu for 2 years starting with 6.06.
OpenSUSE looks like very nice distro but I could never maintain it. The reason I wanted to give it a good try was Open Movie Editor package (from Packman) is up to date and it works pretty good.
My touchpad is “AlpsPS/2 ALPS GlidePoint”
and I have found some workarounds in xorg.cong http://thedaneshproject.com/posts/improve-alps-touchpad-response-speed/ No I was not editing it when my x.org crashed.
X.org crashed with no reason. After fresh install I got notice from package manager that there are some updates to be done. One of them was x.org. I said yes. after that I installed flash and rebooted my computer. and that is the end of the story. I had three official suse repos and nVidia repo enabled ad that time.
I run local Eau Claire LUG web site. If you would like to contact me I provided the web site as well as email address.
Thank you
EC_LUG
I have the same problem with my touchpad on a Dell Vostro 1400. Problem occurs on 32 and 64 bit OpenSUSE 11 installs. Wireless didn’t work as well until I installed b43-fwcutter (but many installs have that problem). I will compare the xorg.conf between Ubuntu and SuSE to see what differs. My mouse works fine with SuSE. I have tried gsynaptics and SaX2 — that did not fix the problem.
If you are using dell crap do not be surprised! Use IBM / Lenovo or ASUS with AMD chips!
Haha Gallagher,
It’s standard for my work. I was lucky to get an 820 and not a 620.
Mark, can you send me your xorg.conf (both) I’d also like to check it out.
Ubuntu was my first Linux distribution and it worked fine for the most part, but GNOME was a disappointment to me. I could not understand why the desktop felt so “flat.” I also could not get desktop effects to work whatsoever. It wasn’t until I installed PCLinuxOS on another machine that I got to play with KDE, which I prefer. Problem is, when I went to add the KDE desktop to my Ubuntu distro, it installed KDE4, which is darn buggy. The GNOME legacy settings don’t help. Well, had I started with openSUSE I could have had more of a choice to begin with and not this sloppy method of trying desktops out. I have downloaded the openSUSE DVD and I’m considering whether to dual boot it on my desktop (with XP).
I am running Ubuntu 8.04 and openSUSE 11 on the same machine and here are my observations:
- Try to run a program from the CLI that hasn’t been installed yet. Ubuntu tells you what package contains that program and how to install it. OpenSUSE just tells you it doesn’t have that program installed.
- Similar thing with video. I tried to view some FLV videos, Ubuntu offers me to install the necessary plugin(s). openSUSE just says “sorry” and closes the application (totem in this case).
- Ubuntu fonts look much better
- Many packages on openSUSE have to be searched through web instead of package manager. Ubuntu wins there, to.
- One thing has improved in openSUSE with respect to previous version. For example, if you want to install gvim, there is one metapackage, something Ubuntu had for a long time. In the past, I had to chase several packages untill I got gvim working. Gvim is not the only example, I just can’t remember the other ones right now.
Ivo,
That capability is there in opensuse, but did not make the cut off for opensuse 11.0. It can be installed from buildservice. I expect it to be installed on opensuse 11.1.
I disagree with the fonts. I think they are cleaner on openSUSE 11.0. But again, everyones eyes are different. why do you think they are better? I feel the openSUSE ones are softer and show better on LCD’s.
Not sure what you mean by “Many packages on openSUSE have to be searched through web instead of package manager” care to elaborate? there is a option for “Provides” which will give you what you want.
Ben,
These are just my first impressions. I will try to explain, but I do not want to fight a war over which distro is better. I like both, and that’s why I have them.
1. Fonts: it could be that it is my eyes, even though my wife noticed the same thing independently. I am talking about web pages. Could be that it is because I installed msttcorefonts on Ubuntu. I added some tt fonts from some German page to SUSE, but it did not help. Maybe you can give me an advice here?
2. Missing packages: This is not a big deal, and using webpin might be a better approach anyway. But to answer your question, I tried to install scipy, numpy, matplotlib, etc (scientific python packages). With Ubuntu I can easily get them either with aptitude install python-scipy or through synaptic. On openSUSE, they are on science repository, so I had to go through webpin. Not a big deal, really.
A couple more differences:
Kernel updates: I don’t know if that is the case with 11.0, but I know that in 10.3 I had to prepare sources for the updated kernel modules if I wanted to use GPIB drivers or VMware -everytime there is a kernel update (make cloneconfig, make modules_prepare). I heard that at least with VMware that will not be the case any more. I will try this later.
Autocompletion: it is not the same, even though it is the same shell. I tried javac prog_name.java and java prog_name in the directory where there are several files with the same ‘prog_name’ name but different extension (e.g., prog_name.c, prog_name.f95, prog_name.java). On Ubuntu, once I type few first few characters it knows exactly which file to select, and when to stop (in case of java command, it doesn’t include ‘.’). On openSUSE it doesn’t do any of this.
On the other hand, if there is a directory and filename that start with the same string, openSUSE knows how to auto-complete the name if you started with ‘cd’, while Ubuntu doesn’t. So, it’s 1:1 there.
I just saw your page:
http://www.benkevan.com/blog/things-to-do-after-installing-opensuse-110/
Maybe that will help with the fonts.
nice blog you have there, i’ve been interested in linux since then but never had the chance in using one of the distributions because “NO Internet”.
Now that I had one just a share actually, I tried Ubuntu 8.04 and it was a fun distro for a newbie like me heck I’ve even stayed up till morning just to get around on this “Linux World” as a Windows user here on Philippines. Well, Linux here in our country is not that famous. 
As with the blog, I liked the Gnome desktop. Simple, yet customizable also..Didn’t like KDE because it’s just like I’m with Windows again..hehe..I had downloaded OpenSuse today and I’m going to try it after school..And if for some, OpenSuse will win today still a new Ubuntu version will be arriving this October..There the tides will be rising again with this two.. ;}
Just a few comments:
- I agree that Suse 11 is better looking.
- It’s obviously and measurably NOT easier to install than Mac OS X.
- It is easier than other distros.
- The fact that most things work out of the box is very cool.
- There are warts, namely the updates which have this sort of popup dimensia – why not just a simple list of downloads like every other updater on every other OS?
- My mouse needed recharging so to by surprise my space mouse was not recognized when I plugged it in.
- Same goes for CDs.
As for Ubuntu:
- Hardy Heron is not very stable. Using Eclipse 3 with the BEA plugin to deploy to WLS crashes every time.
- The Java time is off by an hour.
- My ruby has stopped working after some update.
- Flash has stopped working.
- All in all I have 4 Ubuntu boxes and several friends who have the same issues.
- There have been something like 10 kernels since Hardy was released and it seems like 300 packages.
- There is -nothing- stable about Ubuntu.
After trying Zenwalk, Ubuntu, Mandriva, Mint in their latest releases in my laptop, I stay on OpenSuse11. Surprisingly EVERYTHING works out of the box, even the suspend action when lid is closed. And gnome runs faster than Hardy. I can believe it!
Unfortunately linux is like flavours of icecream. Everyone has opinions. This article is entirely based on opinion and you may have picked Suse as your favourite distro.
Personally I used Suse 11 at work as we have a Novell infrastructure and at home I use ubuntu, Mint and PCLinuxOS. Try everything – you will learn a lot more in the process about package managers, graphic/CLI and linux in general.
My biggest fear about linux is setting up dual monitors. At work I have Ati and it is retardedly hard to do, yet my nvidia with ENVY at home works a treat.
I tried OpenSuse this weekend. Every single application in Yast crashed. Doing simple things like updating the system took forever as the packages kept on not being able to load (so I had to download the package again). It was a nightmare. Yes, it looks better than Ubuntu, but it’s unstable and slow.
Hi there Ive tried Open Suse 11 3 times, but yesterday for the list time. Maybe looking better then Ubuntu – I have Kubuntu – but thats all. Terrible package manager, hard to update and configure. Fedora 9 is a bit better, but NOTHING can compare to Ubuntu. See the last KDE 4 based Kubuntu 8.10 alpha. This is looking for the future. Sorry but – for me – Opensuse is on the loose.
I couldn’t agree more!!!
OpenSuse Package Manager is Terrible… They do need to get that right!!!
That and an improvement to the 1-click install tech.
I’ve set an wesite at http://opensuse.awardspace.com talking about this… but i guess no-one listen… also there is a bug open for vote at:
https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=425890
lets wait and see…
I’ve tried Ubuntu Ultimate 1.9 bases on Ubuntu 8.04. I like the look and feel and the comfort, but something is wrong. firefox doesn’t allow pressing buttons in a webpage. if i run with sudo, it works. the system also crashes periodically and my wireless lan doesnt work correctly (tries linux driver and via ndis). now i’m downloading openSuse 11. if nobody stop me, i must install openSuse
OpenSuse11 is better. That’s for my personal opinion. And it’s because I never used any other distros but OpenSuse11. And I’m a newbie with Linux. I’m in Philippines also, and I want to be unique, because most of users here uses Windows (crap). Now, all I need is to know how to play my DVDs, AVIs, MP4s or any movie as I have no problem with MP3s or such. Anyway, OpenSuse rocks.
lanzce,
add the packman repository and install libxine1 and MPlyaer.
You should set
I used Ubuntu for 5 months now, and they love to screw thing sup with their updates. It takes me a while to set-up everything to run ‘perfectly’, but once the major update comes – i have to re-do everything from the scratch. wth! I”m switching to opensuse!
“I want to be unique, because most of users here uses Windows (crap). Now, all I need is to know how to play my DVDs, AVIs, MP4s or any movie as I have no problem with MP3s or such. Anyway, OpenSuse rocks.”
Fantastic! Windows can do all those things – yet you type (crap). Actually, it’s very good for some things.
Already, before you even switch you’re ranting ‘it rocks’.
Clearly this is what scares people away from linux – people who know nothing and talk as if they know something.
In my most humble of opinions – everyone is right. There are many things about ubuntu which are better, but some things in Suse are nice too – SuSe has a contract with Microsoft to make the blend smoother. I’m not sure if I want to blend myself with MS – Fedora10 looks nice, but mostly because of the nasty YUM updater it’s not good for me.
I found 8.10 to be extremely stable (after putting up with hiccups from 7.10 through 8.04). Incidentally, Puppy keeps me compatible on the move – booting from a 200MB USB partition to get open office up and running impresses people a great deal.
Just talk about differences rather than slagging everyone else down – otherwise you’ll just end up alienating everyone!
I am interested to use Suse, but to now, I did not success a good file of suse, I downloaded more than 20 CDs or DVDs of Suse, from http://www.opensuse.org, in the last year, but I did not successful to install it. but I can receive 10 CDs of Ubuntu, through air mail, that I an d more of my friends use those correctly. I have a question, what is my mistake in downloading open suse? Please help me how I can get it without any mistake?
At the other hand, I will be so thankful if you introduce me to buy “opensuse 11.1″ released version, that I pay its price from swift? Could you help me please? I love to install a new stable version of opensuse.
alia83@linuxmail.org
Take care,
Although I’m satisfied with Ubuntu, I like to try out different distros, and openSUSE 11.1 looked promising. I have a bunch of partitions on my main drive and planned to put 11.1 on one of them. The installer decided which ones I should use (dangerous), but I changed things to the ones I wanted. Then the fatal glitch: I got a message that I was requesting install in a partition without formatting it. This was not true; I had selected the format option. Since a partitioner that could make that mistake could also make worse ones, I decided I could do without openSUSE for now. (A glance at the openSUSE forums didn’t suggest a solution.)
Every one feels that the distro they been using is the best ,IMHO try it urself instead of listening to others . if u like it thats the best one for u…For me Ubuntu is the best…
I use Ubuntu 8.04,Kubuntu 8.04,Fedora 9 and Gentoo 2008. We in the GNU/Linux community need to learn from one another and stop this silly fight of my distro is better then your distro. I am programmer who has family and friends that use GNU/Linux. I try to create programs for the whole GNU/Linux community but in the blogs and on websites like this I get the same old tired fights of Gnome vs KDE, Debian vs RPM, Synaptic vs Emerge VIM vs Emacs. Be happy that you have choice in the open source world and the tools necessary to create the desktop, server, or handheld OS that you need, want or desire. We need a better GNU/Linux at its roots. When people who use Mac OS X or Windows see posts like these above. They say if the community can’t agree on what is GNU/Linux. How can I ever stand a change to get it up and running. Please help the community to make a better Linux at its core by
1.Producing compelling applications to bring in more users and bring the world of open source software to more people.
2. Complete documentation for the end user on their distro of choice.
3. Reports of hardware that works in one distro but not another.
4. Supporting and encouraging users with a wide range of abilities and skills to give back to the opensource community.
Families fight but at the end of the day they still love one another.
Well put Terry.
Choice is a great thing, although it is one of the things that holds Linux back as a user friendly home OS. Standardization to a degree isn’t all bad.
Great post Terry thanks. I think a few things need to happen. More stabilization and different cycles for bleeding edge and stable releases. Pushing KDE 4 out in the masses had made me think that may be a good idea.
Standards is what is killing linux in overall market share.
Obviously the OPENSUSE 11 is a quite BETTER choice! We just can’t compare a 2 yr old technology (Ubuntu) with the last developments of Novell technology. I saw postings that the support of OpenSuse sux, but that’s just not the truth, support doesn’t mean milions of people asking stupid questions over the internet forums, it really means the official OpenSuse support from Novell. Also, half of the support is on german language, but I don’t think it’s an actual problem. OpenSuse 11 definitely rulez!!!
Your article is nice, however one correction: YaST means Yet Another ‘Setup’ Tool.
A definite advantage for openSUSE (that will make me switch soon): Mono. with openSUSE, you’re not stuck with a nearly 1-year old version (ie: one or two major versions behind), and can easily grab the latest versions. Most people may not care, but as a Mono developer, this is a big plus for me.
The problem with most people is that they have a perception of Microsoft as being an unforgiving dictator. They don’t realize that it is one of the most successful companies that has never seen losses in all the years that it has existed, except probably until recently, and that’s a great feat. People should think about it, if they want to start a company, would they want to see losses? And as Vista has shown, Microsoft can’t expect customers to take crap, and a lot of people downgraded to XP. I personally think that Ubuntu has done it’s job. It’s levelled the playing field. If Microsoft and Novell decide on a partnership, it’s because the customers want more than either of the two companies can provide them, and because Microsoft is learning to evolve. It makes business sense. Novell has a lot of stake in SuSE. I don’t think they will do anything without thinking about whether it’s going to come back and bite them. People talk about software freedom, but they fail to see that most of the contribution to the free software in use has actually come from big companies. Red Hat is a major contributor to linux kernel. Novell has been sponsoring KDE for quite a while. Gnome has it’s sponsors too. Oh, and all the repositories are made possible by major companies as well. Ofcourse we have Debian that sails in its own boat. I think people should learn to look at the bigger picture, and not argue on things like Synaptic works and YaST doesn’t work.
Another brilliant article. But for me Ubuntu is just another distro for entry users, while OpenSUSE gives the real spirit of linux. I had nothing against Ubuntu since this distro offers a wide range of support from community to gurus and updates as well. But for me Ubuntu is lacking of something that I found on OpenSUSE(11.1). You better to try it by your self to see the difference.
@lanzce
You think windows is crap yet you can’t even play DVD’s on linux? You’re a lame ass poser.
@kalista
little knowledge is dangerous man…………. have u ever tried vlc, MPlayer on linux. Let me tell u, u r acting like a asshole……
I just finished trying to make my home with the new SuSe 11.1 – and I have to say it’s a real pig after using Ubuntu. Sure it has lots of menu’s, but then – who needs menu’s?
KDE DOES GO SLOW, and the boot time is slow. Ubuntu 9.04, if you install with ext4, boots almost silently to desktop in about 25 seconds – SuSe 11.1 freshly installed took almost double that – probably because of the graphics and splash screens. I’d rather have a faster boot.
YAST2 totally dominates your system. When I tried to get my nVidia driver, my internet cut during a storm – you’re not allowed to log out (Yast2 says NO!) so you either power off – or click like crazy. ABORT, ‘yast2 curl can’t access the domain, quit?’ You have to do this for every single item on your list… but the option to abort or skip doesn’t come up for at least half a minute, your system is frozen.
With synaptic, and apt-get – Ubuntu is so easy for getting software and customising. The next thing I added with YAST was a one-click solution – took me an hour before I could make it work – and when Gwibber was installed, SuSe told me happily that I couldn’t run it on a KDE desktop.
With Ubuntu, if I install Gnome OR KDE applications, it gets all of the libraries (For Amarok, I think the bigger part of the downloads are the KDE libraries that don’t come with a Gnome desktop – but with SuSe it doesn’t bother, just says it won’t work!!)
After installing nVidia, it said ‘edit your Xorg file and reboot’
It did NOT tell me the location of the file, or what to edit!!!
Ubuntu sometimes tells you to do something in terminal, and it’s so easy ‘edit your etc/bash.rc file’ and it also tells you exactly what to edit.
It takes an hour to download and install 30 themes from gnome-desktop sites, and after doing that, your desktop looks better than ANY freshly installed distro.
Compiz runs more smoothly on Ubuntu than any distro I tried also.
No competition, apt-get has super powers.
cowsay moo
(If you have Ubuntu, stick that in your terminal
if you don’t have cowsay, it will tell you what to do.. just try it!)
_____
—–
\ ^__^
\ (oo)\_______
(__)\ )\/\
||—-w |
|| ||
Not sure it will look right after posting, the font will be changed… but you can cut and paste it into terminal to get the right effect. Sooo cool!
I strongly recommend that you turn the No Follow off in your comment section. I’ll watch Google Webmaster Tools, and if the links don’t show up after a couple of weeks — I won’t go back to that blog again. Another suggestion: you should have a Top Commentator widget installed. Do Follow and Top Commentator will ensure that you have a successful blog with lots of readers!
I have always liked both distros but you really need to look at what you are going to do. As for me I am a .Net developer and with the advent of Mono I found openSuse to be much better.