SUSE Studio — Linux Customization For the Masses

apokryphos writes "Novell just released the first alpha of SUSE Studio (screencast), which provides an easy way to customize your own Linux distribution with the software and configuration you want. Among other things, you can spin a Live CD, a USB image, or create a VMware image. It builds upon the already established openSUSE Build Service and KIWI imaging system."

Re:IE not supported...

[Anonymous Coward]

Saved them some time. If IE was compliant, there wouldn't be a problem.

OpenID

[phantomcircuit]

Finally someone actually using OpenID as a consumer.

Re:An Excellent Idea

[apokryphos]

Indeed, it is actually designed to be friendly for other distributions as well. Both the build service and KIWI (both GPL) intentionally have generic designs so that you can both build packages for other distributions, and build customisable versions of other distributions, too. It's a really nice thing: when a distribution goes out of their way to ensure that others can benefit from the tools as well.

Re:IE not supported...

[lysergic.acid]

as a web developer, i definitely agree that not having to support IE saves a lot of development time. on most projects i've worked on, about 20% of the development time is spent going back and forth with the client to come up with a layout design that they're happy with. only 5% of the time is used to cut up the graphics and actually implement the layout for standards-compliant browsers like Firefox/Safari/Opera/etc., which is pretty straight forward; just follow the W3C specs, and if it works in one browser, it'll pretty much work in all of them.

but the most painful part of any project is trying to get your site, which validates and renders properly in all other browsers, to render correctly in IE--which takes up the remaining 75% of the development time. not only is it a huge PITA for web developers (who are forced to mangle their previously elegant & well-formed code with a patchwork of unwieldy CSS hacks and clumsy JavaScript), but it also costs website owners a ton of money (if your designer/developer charges by the hour--which most smart freelance web developers do) as well. sure, the percentage may be less if it's a relatively simple site, or the designer creates the layout with tables, or if they simply design the site just for IE, standards be damned. but on the whole, supporting IE takes more time, effort, and money than is required for all other browsers added together.

however, in this case i think SUSE is a large enough company that they can afford to spend the money on IE support. so if their site doesn't work in IE, it's probably done on purpose to, either, a.) support web standards (and send a message to IE users), b.) support Firefox (and send a message to IE users), or c.) filter out clueless IE users that don't belong on their site. i mean, this service isn't exactly aimed at the typical computer novice who accidentally wandered out of their AOL/MSN playpen. anyone who's expected to use this site would know better than to use IE.

Re:Fedora Spins?

[erikina]

It's not even in the same league. A fedora spin is very difficult, cumbersome and far more trouble than its worth. (Unless you're doing an official spin). Revisor [fedoraunity.org] makes it a little more palpable, but it's buggy as hell (I've not been able to get it to work, not even once.)

From the screencast this looks easy as pie, but I'll reserve my final judgment for when I try it.

Similar to Fedora's revisor?

[perrin]

Judging from the screencast, this looks just like what Fedora is trying to do with the revisor application. I wonder how fast it is, though. In the screencast, it looked like the image was created almost instantly, while revisor can take hours to complete, and it is so full of bugs and so hard to make working images with that it is IMHO nearly unusable. I have spent days trying to make revisor and then pungi create working images with a custom kickstart file, but eventually had to go over to doing everything by hand instead. I really hope SuSe deliver on their promises on this, it will make life so much simpler for people working with embedded systems and kiosk systems.

Re:"Mass customization"

[mgblst]

6. Any Color As Long As It's Black - The myth that the Model T only came in black probably comes from the reality that almost 12 million of the 15 million total Model Ts were black. But, in the early and late years of Model T production, the car was produced in many different colors, including blue, red, green and grey. Oddly, many these hues were so dark they were hardly discernable from black, another reason the myth lives on.

http://www.seriouswheels.com/cars/def/top-Ford-Model-T-Centennial.htm [seriouswheels.com]