SUSE 10.0 OSS Released

O0o0Oblubb!O0o0O writes "Today, Novell released SuSE 10.0 OSS for download. Product highlights include kernel 2.6.13, gcc 4.0.2, glibc 2.3.5, improved boot times and Xen 3. Torrents are available for the i386, ppc and x86_64 versions. The downloadable OSS edition lacks some packages for licensing reasons of which some, like Java, can be installed via package repository."

Stability

[michaelzhao (801080)]

With SUSE releasing one suite after another. I sometimes wonder about stability. When was 9.3 released? Wasn't it only a few months ago? I wish SUSE should find a way to follow Slackware's model of stable releases without sacrificing too much market share.

Also, the software is getting way to bloated. Why all the software packages SUSE?

Re:Stability

[cduffy (652)]

SuSE has always included lots of packages -- it's a feature, not a bug!

No, really. You aren't required to install all of them, after all.

Re:Stability

[by Anonymous Coward]

software is getting bloated because customers are asking for features. It happens to almost all software.

Re:Stability

[sloanster (213766)]

With SUSE releasing one suite after another. I sometimes wonder about stability. When was 9.3 released? Wasn't it only a few months ago? I wish SUSE should find a way to follow Slackware's model of stable releases without sacrificing too much market share.

Also, the software is getting way to bloated. Why all the software packages SUSE?

As has been the case for years, suse releases an upgrade about every 6 months, so I'm not sure I understand what your objection is. Nobody is forcing you to upgrade - and if you prefer Slackware, run slackware.

As to the software getting "too bloated", nobody is forcing you to install anything - you can easily install a bare bones system, without X-windows if that makes you happy. It's all in the install menu, these are all very basic concepts.

Re:bloatedness - good point

[taylork (91100)]

Suse usually has a "network install" which is pretty much like this.

Re:bloatedness - good point

[bytor4232 (304582)]

Well, with Debian you can download an iso image thats right around 50 megs, and everything else is installed via the web. Similar concept, no?

Re:bloatedness - good point

[cortana (588495)]

It makes more sense to create a program, we could call it Jigdo [debian.org], that downloads the debs you want and constructs the iso on the client machine. ;)

Re:Stability

[sloanster (213766)]

If you want stsble long time, corporate quality distrib you buy Novell Linux Desktop or SLES/OES. Suse 10 is for hobbyists, and like the Suse Pro 9.x releases is a quarterly release cycle roughly.

I'm not sure what you mean by "hobbyists" but it sounds vaguely insulting.

IMHO it would be more accurate to say that SuSE 10 is a full-featured distro for linux power users, while the more verticalized sles/nld are meant for the corporate market, managers who don't mind things being a little stale, and who want to have an 800-number to call, any time, should they ever have any questions.

OpenSuSE is in some ways analagous to fedora, except that you can't get a boxed set of fedora linux, nor fedora manuals, nor any fedora support from the vendor, while with SuSE, you have the option of downloading and freely using OpenSuSE, or purchasing SuSE 10.0 retail, which comes with all the extras -

BTW I know of several small businesses running their networks and services on suse linux professional servers, and are quite happy with it. No "hobbyists" they!

PPC?

[Anubis350 (772791)]

I had been under the impression that SuSE had not had a ppc release in a while (since~7.2?). Glad to see they're back with it, it might just tempt me to migrate my apple-debian servers to SuSE ppc (I love SuSE's config tools).

Can never keep up...

[TypoNAM (695420)]

Damnit. I just received my SuSE 9.3 Professional DVD from Novell last week and it's already outdated. I can never seem to keep up to date on software these days. :(

very pretty

[by Anonymous Coward]

http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/slideshow.php?re lease=421&slide=29&title=suse+linux+10.0+oss+beta+ 3+screenshots [osdir.com]

I hope XeN on x86_64 works better than on the RC

[cduffy (652)]

Per subject. I've done testing at my place at work using the release candidate (we're interested in Xen3 on x86_64... once SLES10 comes out and it's fully supported, of course), and it wasn't exactly successful. It did give me a chance to file some bugs, and Novell reported one of them fixed in their bugtracker -- but I still was unable to start up a DomU.

Hopefully the release will be more effective. As for me, I'm playing with the 10.1 alpha, which I hear is what will eventually become SLES10.

10.0 is about when you rethink your naming scheme

[by Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, is there any software out there that is like version 18? Well, I guess emacs is at 21....

Evolutionary or revolutionary?

[claes (25551)]

Is there anything in particular that motivates the jump in major version, or is it just a marketing thing? I purchased 9.3 - will 10.0 bring me anything that is new and interesting, or just more recent packages of the same software? For example, exactly how is the faster boot process accomplished? Are there new configuration modules in Yast? New features in package managment? New freedesktop standards implemented, new LSB standards implemented.. what is really interesting about this release, what should make me jump to upgrade?

Re:Evolutionary or revolutionary?

[photon317 (208409)]

gcc-4.x is a big, big step. If I were a distro, I'd make a major version bump just for gcc's major version bump if for no other reason. You want your clients to be very aware of all the potential fallout from the gcc upgrade, especially this early.

_THE_ DISTRIBUTION

[cies (318343)]

okay, okay... we all still have to test it. but this has good potential to become _the_ distribution. It performs we on both the server side with (with standards, service, licencing, training, certifying, oracle, etc. etc.), and on the desktop side (with loads of UI improvements, YaST, quicker booting, suspend to disk, automatic network configuring).

And it seems that also the doing well on both the corporate (Novell Desktop, SuSE entreprise) and the freesoftware side with this glorious new release.

i really whish OpenSuse the best, yet im not installing right now since 9.3 still does all i need and i have a lack of spare time already. but i will be soon!

if you are installing make shure to check out:
http://www.suseforums.net/ [suseforums.net] -- all things suse inlcuding community support, and
http://packman.links2linux.org/ [links2linux.org] -- the missing (some times not fully legal) mulitmedia packages.

g'luck,
Cies Breijs.

Xen 3.0

[samj (115984)]

This is the best news I've heard all day - I can't even get Xen 3.0 from Xen [cam.ac.uk], so I guess they've thrown in TimeTravel 1.0 as well.

Re:Xen 3.0

[jonastullus (530101)]

yeah, and when having a closer look at their feature list:

http://www.opensuse.org/Xen3_Status_and_Updates [opensuse.org]

we can see that they have package a far from ready "xen 3.0" with their supposedly stable release of their distribution. maybe it really IS a more-or-less stable branch of the "still in development" xen cvs tree, but the xen developers don't see it fit yet to be released, so why should novell/suse?

i mean, maybe some of these "limitations" are really non-features/problems in the final xen3 (when it comes out), but this seriously doesn't sound all that great:

• Graphics (AGP, DRM, 3D) don't work or even crash the machine
  
• Hardware support is still limited (e.g. no PCMCIA)
  
• ACPI support in Domain-0 is limited (e.g. no cpufreq)
  
• 32 Bit kernel is not PAE enabled
  
• Full virtualization on VT not well tested
  
• Other Operating System support on top of Xen and VT not tested
  

A bit off-topic, but...

[TooMuchEspressoGuy (763203)]

"O0o0Oblubb!O0o0O writes..."

...frankly, with a name like that, I wouldn't be able to write much of anything.

No disrespect to O0o0Oblubb!O0o0O...

[Darune (716587)]

No disrespect to O0o0Oblubb!O0o0O, but when I first glimpsed the article I thought CowboyNeal was having a heart attack. ;p

I love my Suse

[nrgy (835451)]

I was a on and off suse user from 7.0 to 8."something". Then I left windows and stuck with suse from 9.0 to the present. I love suse for a noob distro. I like the fact that if you want to not worry about the core workings you dont have to, or if you want to not worry but still be able to learn you can. I've gradualy learned to work in the terminal more, do alot of things in the command line, compiling my applications and even started programing my own little tools in c and c++.

I'm a whatever tool works use it kinda guy and the same applys for distros. It's good to see all linux distros being updated and offering newer and better linux experiences. It's a shame Microsoft already took the slogin "Where do you want to go today?" because thats what each new version of Suse makes me think.

OSS version?

[AstroDrabb (534369)]

From this page [novell.com] at Novell titled "Packages on the retail version and not the OSS version of SUSE Linux 10.0". It lists packages that you would get if you bought the retail version because those packages are not OSS? I have not looked at the whole list yet, however, a few big ticket-items (to me) stood out:

eclipse-gtk2-3.1-4.i586.rpm
eclipse-jdt-3.1-4.i586.rpm
eclipse-platform-3.1-4.i586.rpm
eclipse-scripts-3.1-4.i586.rpm

Since when did Eclipse become non-OSS? According to www.eclipse.org [eclipse.org]

Eclipse is an open source community whose projects are focused on providing an extensible development platform and application frameworks for building software. Eclipse provides extensible tools and frameworks that span the software development lifecycle, including support for modeling, language development environments for Java, C/C++ and others, testing and performance, business intelligence, rich client applications and embedded development. A large, vibrant ecosystem of major technology vendors, innovative start-ups, universities and research institutions and individuals extend, complement and support the Eclipse Platform.

There is another one I noticed:

bitstream-vera-1.10-169.noarch.rpm

I thought the Bitstream Vera fonts were release under an OSS license? I know I have enjoyed those excellent fonts under Fedora for a while now. Why doesn't SuSE OSS offer them in the OSS version?

Did anyone else notice other OSS software in the list that SuSE left out of the OSS version claiming that it is NOT OSS when in fact it is?

And OpenXChange

[Dr.Dubious DDQ (11968)]

Many of them, I think, are missing because of their dependency on (non-open-source) Java, which is not included. (In other words, Eclipse itself is OSS, but since it relies of non-OSS Java, they leave it out too.)

I have no idea about the bitstream vera fonts, though - that makes no sense to me at all, since I was sure they were distributed as open source...

Torrent mirror

[zeth (452280)]

I tried downloading the torrents from the ftp a while back and it was bogged. I have a copy of them, if their servers get bogged down again at http://johnny.chadda.se/2005/10/06/suse-100-finall y-released/ [chadda.se]

By the way, I have tried the 10.0 RC1 and it was really great. The only thing not working is my P910i sync, but I'll work on that. :)

Re:This is a quality distro

[Daemonik (171801)]

Really admire SUSE and have used it for several years now. I only wish Novell admired the tremendous care and hard work put in by the SUSE engineers, but if you go to the front page of http://www.novell.com/ [novell.com] you'd be pushed to know Novell even have SUSE. This new version and the new OpenSUSE initiative are things to shout about, one might think. Sigh. Novell are their own worst enemies.

SuSE Linux and SuSE Enterprise Server are listed under Products directly on that page. They receive no special attention but then they aren't hidden either. There's also a rather prominent Flash add detailing 10 reasons to choose Novel Linux solutions.

As for Novell 'shouting out' about OpenSuSE, please keep in mind that Novell is a corporate entity doing business with other corporate entities and is much more likely to tout the products that it sells, thus generating revenue which can then support community projects like OpenSuSE. OpenSuSE is not a make or break for Novel, it is more a gesture towards the community and a thumb in the eye of RedHat/Fedora. I am more impressed with Novel's decision to continue offering a supported consumer version of SuSE rather than abandoning the consumer market like RedHat.