SUSE Studio 1.0 Released 121
apokryphos writes "Novell has just announced the release of SUSE Studio 1.0 — a user-friendly Web service that allows you to create your customized Linux distribution as a live CD, USB, Xen, or VMware image. Users have control over adding any repositories, packages, and files to the distribution. A new user can do the full creation and customization of the software appliance in roughly ten minutes. It also includes a Flash-based 'test drive' service, which allows you to try out your appliance in a Web browser before downloading it."
there we go (Score:2, Insightful)
Why has it taken so long for this to exist?
And this is why Linux will eventually win (Score:5, Insightful)
One day. Sheer flexibility in licensing and usage. Loading up Windows 7, it doesn't even want to pretend that you might want to dualboot. No repartitioning of existing partitions or anything.
Linux is the equivalent of a contortionist acrobat and Windows is a quadriplegic that makes everyone's life hell if you don't accomodate it's needs just right. Which would you rather marry and hang around all day?
Re:Easily in the Top 5 innovations (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Neat. (Score:5, Insightful)
No, that isn't true. I wouldn't hand a LiveCD to a complete novice, and expect him to install successfully. But, an intermediate user can certainly do so. A novice could get through it, if he were willing to learn as he goes. Of course, learning is a benefit, in and of itself. Once that novice has managed to get his Linux set up, he is no longer a novice, and no longer dependent on the local computer shop that charges a hundred bucks to clean up a virus, or reconfigure the internet connection when it's been buggered up.
I'm afraid that you are either behind the times, or you are helping to spread FUD.
Of course, Linux is NOT for people whose IQ's are smaller than their shoe (or bra) size. I don't think it ever will be. Of course, to be fair, neither is Windows.
Re:Some questions (Score:4, Insightful)
"1) does it force the use of RPM? Some prefer DEB, or even ebuilds."
It doesn't force anything. No one with a shotgun tells you that you must visit the website, or that you must create your own custom distro, or that you must use RPM. It's all voluntary. If there is any small part of the thing that you do not like, you can leave any time. That is one of the wonderful things about OSS, after all. There is no warning, "By entering this site, you agree to forfeit your soul, along with your first born child, subject to interpretations of law by myriad demans living below Redmond."
Take it for a test drive, and see how you like it. If you walk all the way through it, download the disk image, and burn it, THEN decide that you still don't like it, well, no big deal. Just flip the CD/DVD image into the trash, and go back to Debian.
Re:Neat. (Score:4, Insightful)
No, you're right. So instead you spend half a freaking hour looking through tabs trying to find the option that you're sure you saw a while back, hoping that it is actually going to fix the problem you're having. Oh, and the forums to get help? They're full of people having the same damn problem and no one has the answer yet. I have yet to have as much problem with a Linux box. Give me a config file that I can search any day of the week.
Re:Neat. (Score:0, Insightful)
Better then the forums with lunix zealots telling you to patch the million lines of source code. Searching is useless if you don't know the string to look for.
charge for it (Score:3, Insightful)
This seems like the ideal application for monetizing FOSS. They could easily charge a small fee for this, as you would be paying for CPU/bandwidth costs, and a custom product. It would be difficult for someone to do it for free without a big bankroll, and people distributing the product would not devalue the service (as the service is custom and the redistributions would be simple ISOs).