Newbie query: Ubuntu vs openSUSE

[Rameshwar Kr. Sharma]

On Fri, Dec 23, 2011 at 9:37 PM, Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com> wrote:

> SUSE is an old distro, dating back 15y or so. It predates home
> broadband. Its original unique selling point was that it came with all
> the software you would ever need, on multiple CDs, then later on many
> CDs + a DVD, then on multiple DVDs.

> It also has good, rich, complete system admin tools, notably YAST.
> YAST stands for Yet Another Setup Tool and was originally the
> installer. Now, YAST2 is also the main point of control for your
> system - adding and removing users, configuring hardware, adding and
> removing software, updating, etc.

> It is much more than just a package management system.

> SUSE was for a long time based on KDE. Later it adopted GNOME too and
> the company bought Ximian, one of the main GNOME software development
> houses. It also supports lots of other distros.

> SUSE is now owned by Novell, which in turn is owned by Attachmate, 2
> big American companies. It has a strong corporate focus with expensive
> corporate versions with support contracts.

> SUSE has signed a pact with  Microsoft which means it can use the
> Windows-like KDE desktop without fear of being sued for patent
> infringement, so since the announcement of GNOME 3, SUSE announced it
> was returning to its KDE-centric roots.

> SUSE is based on RPM, the Red Hat Package Manager. It is easy to use
> but does not feature automatic dependency resolution - when you
> install a piece of software, it is up to you to install all the
> extras, the libraries and things, that it depends on. YAST tries to
> automate this for you but in my experience it is patchy and often
> fails.

> It's good, but it's big, complex and relatively slow, in my personal
> experience. It hearkens back to the days of the 1990s when you had
> thousands of choices and decisions to make.

> Ubuntu is much newer. It is about 7y old. It's based on Debian, which
> is the hacker's distro of choice, but polished and made much easier.
> Debian is even older than SUSE but it is notoriously complicated and
> unfriendly, although it is much better these days. Ubuntu is Debian
> simplified for non-techies.

> Ubuntu is small and simple. It comes with 1 best choice of app for all
> the main tasks - 1 office suite, 1 media player, 1 web browser, etc.
> SUSE offers dozens of alternatives. Ubuntu has the alternatives too
> but it doesn't ask you - the default install comes on just 1 CD and
> contains 1 example of each app. SUSE asks you to choose, which is
> harder if you don't know enough to decide.

> Ubuntu uses the Debian packaging system, DEB and APT-GET. This is
> unarguably the best and most sophisticated system for any Unix and is
> widely copied but never bettered. It pioneered automatic recursive
> depenency resolution, meaning that APT figures out all the libraries
> and things all your programs need and installs *and updates* them for
> you automatically. SUSE tries to replicate this with YAST but it's not
> as good. Red Hat tries with YUM, Mandriva with URPMI, but none are
> even close, IMHO. Apt-get wins, hands down. The theory is that once
> you install you need never reinstall as Apt will update your whole OS
> for you - indefinitely.

> Ubuntu offers few choices of desktop or tools, but everything is there
> in its online repositories if you want to experiment as you learn
> more.

> Ubuntu is based on GNOME and now the in-house developed Unity shell on
> top of GNOME. Some people don't like GNOME. Some favour KDE, or other
> alternatives such as Xfce or LXDE. Canonical, Ubuntu's backers,
> actively encourage these communities to create their own "remixes" of
> Ubuntu with different desktops and sets of apps. For instance,
> Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu and so on. Some - the ones with "-buntu" in
> their name - are officially sanctioned, but the main "real" Ubuntu is
> the one with nothing else on its name. Some of the remixes are pretty
> good but the most polished and complete, and the best-supported, is
> real Ubuntu. Some 3rd party tools and apps may not work on the
> remixes. For the best experience, stay with the "real thing".

> In summary:

> Ubuntu: relatively small, modern, simple, streamlined. Very easy and polished.

> SUSE: big, very capable, quite complex, many many options. Good admin
> tools but software management inferior, as is that of all the
> RPM-based distros.

Thanks Liam for making things clear. Then I must go with Ubuntu only
since it would give the learning environment of Linux. This thing that
Ubuntu automatically solves the problem of packages and libraries is
something giving me pleasure since it really become tough for a home
user who has to use the software and has less knowledge. So really
great thing which is missing in openSUSE. Home users are really not
able to perfectly know always which libraries they need and which not,
so how can users (home users) decide that they should install only the
said and not that, this is really typical in openSUSE, if it is the
case. Further, I came to know that, Ubuntu is really more novice
friendly then any other distribution. Some say that while Ubuntu
downloads the whole of the packages again when updating while suse
only the updates (this point I didn't understand) but for me then,
Ubuntu would really be fine.

Another thing I am having doubt is that suse that some contract with
microsoft that it can do work for MS? So people are annoyed at it, I
guess, a bad news for open source people, I only heard that suse lost
its some the popularity due to this.

Further one of the things I have notices is that I also asked for
suggestions in the Fedora list where some people were too arrogant,
saying anything, I feel that Ubuntu mailing lists are far better and
great for a novice, at least for me. Thanks.