Gargamel,
Speaking of Novell, I ran OpenLinux from Caldera Systems for a few years. Didn't Novell buy Caldera and do you know what they did with OpenLinux (and/or why it disappeared)?
Many Thanks.

Oh, no, no, no!

Caldera was a subsidiary of SCO --- and that explains what happened with it, too.

Both Novell and SCO are based in Utah, but that's about all they have in common, to my knowledge. Almost. One other thing is, that they have both a highly developed skill of hiring incompetent management staff.

gargamel

Now, this is a Slackware forum, and therefore I just want to stop after this posting with things only regarding SuSE. But I would not like to miss to draw your attention onto a few sites, that are quite helpful:

Download and Help
Support Database

Especially the latter is an excellent resource. You find articles on all kinds of stuff. Many of them are not SuSE specific. In fact, I occasionally consult this database when I want to know how something works. For example, I haven't found better articles on LVM than here anywhere on the net.

A few other things I like about SuSE:

With the exception of the things that fall into the scope of the Novell-Microsoft deal, they still invest a lot in the development of Linux to the benefit of all of us. Slackware wouldn't be what it is without companies like SuSE (and Red Hat and Canonical and many others). For example, SuSE once helped SAP to make their software running smoothly on Linux. This, in turn, has greatly improved the acceptance of Linux in large enterprise. And they have invested a lot in their support of KDE and (not quite as much) Gnome. Novell/SuSE still are very actively contributing to the kernel development.

The community is down-to-earth, just like the Slackware community. In the SuSE community the distro is an operating system, albeit a damn good one, not a religion.

One thing where SuSE is still good at, is internationlisation/localisation. Few other distros have such a complete support for languages of Eastern Europe, for example, out of the box. This was their major selling point in the past, BTW: They were the first to provide proper support for the Euro.

There's more, but I think, these are the most important aspects. I guess, someone who likes Slackware better than Ubuntu or Debian or Red Hat, still may like OpenSuSE.

If OpenSuSE is such a brilliant distro, why did I switch, then?

Because I found that the quality of releases of Slackware is even more consistent. On the one hand, Slackware is kind of a parasite distro, as it consumes what others, like the SuSE developers, have contributed to KDE and the kernel, and so on (and yes, I know, that some Slackware developers are contributing, too, but compared by numbers, the share is, to my knowledge, very, very slow). On the other hand, Slackware is maintained and quality assured much better than any other distro. In OpenSuSE you may find a couple of snags or little inconsistencies, that would never make into a Slackware release. These things are usually fixed quickly with patches, however, so it's not a big deal, and they don't affect the stability of SuSE as a server system (at least, I never had problems with system crashes, but occasionally an application looked strange because some Gtk+ thing was missing or misconfigured by default, etc.

But as I said before, what I hear so far is, that 11.2 is apparently a killer distro. It's only disadvantage is the existence of Slackware64 on my system. I am just not overly motivated to replace one killer distro with another one...

gargamel

Thanks. I looked it up and Caldera bought SCO, but later the name was changed to SCO Group.
Once upon a time, SCO stood for "Santa Cruz Operation," based in, of course, the seaside town of Santa Cruz, California.
Now, as you said, it is in Utah, what is left of it. Didn't they pretty much shoot themselves in the foot with all those lawsuits?

openSUSE has the slowest package handler of all the major distros. Every time you search for some package, it goes through an agonizing set of checks before opening a dialog box to enter the pattern. The back end of the package handler is zypper, a slow clone of yum.

They also tend to use older software. The current kernel is 2.6.27.x. More important, their current gcc is 4.3.2. I have codes that won't compile with this version.

You can upgrade to "factory", but at your own risk. This is equivalent to Slackware "current".

Slackware seems more laptop friendly. Suspend/hibernate work out of the box. Still having problems with this on openSUSE.

On the good side, there is a large repository of scientific packages.

Package building and customization are done using rpmbuild. There is a control file called a "spec" file where you enter the compilation flags. The syntax is unique but fairly easy to learn.

They definitely did, and they are not willing to stop, not even now!

And yes, I somehow mixed it up. You are right: Caldera acquired SCO, not the other way round. Caldera also took over a small German distribution, called DLD, if I recall it correctly. Interestingly, this distro was developed and maintained in Erlangen, while SuSE has its roots in Nürnberg/Fürth. These cities are less 20 km from Erlangen.

BTW, in the old days SCO Unix had an excellent reputation. It is really a pity, what has happened to them and to their product.

gargamel

Yes, they were once a very highly regarded company.
It would appear that whoever is now in the executive suite is a very misguided individual. Must be a lawyer by training.

Or simply someone with a very childish attitude.

gargamel

This seems like FUD. How much of Gnome is based on Mono, and even if some components are, why is this necessarily a bad thing?

There are definitely no legal issues, and openSuSE is no different to any other distro in this regard.

1. Not FUD, just a little irony.
2. Icaza criticised KDE due to its dependency of Qt, which was not (L)GPL'ed at that time. Now he is developing Mono, which is a clone of Microsoft .NET, and it is unclear, how many Microsoft patents are touched or violated here.
3. Wrong. While Novell/SuSE and their users have a deal, users of other distros may violate Microsoft patents and take a risk of being sued someday.
4. Icaza says, he wants to see Gnome use more Mono technology in the future.
5. So it was just a little irony, but based on facts.

gargamel

I think you may be misinformed.

1st of all, much of .NET/C# is an ECMA standard. Which means MS can't do anything if they decided to change thier minds. At least, the parts of Gnome and GTK based on mono only use the ECMA standard parts.

I think there is a big difference between criticizing the QT license for not being open, and then creating an open, GPL'd version of a .net implementation. That action is in no way hypocritical, as you seem to suggest.

The Microsoft/Novel deal extends to the parts of .NET that are not an ECMA standard. This has no impact on anyone using the opensource version of mono.

Spreading such propaganda is not good for the Linux community. I think it is irrational to distrust Microsoft to an extent that resembles paranoia, at the expensive of having good, quality, Open Source software to use.

My 2c.

Is Silverlight already included with the ECMA standard, then?
Are you really going to tell us, that there will not be any very attractive gimmicks added to .NET without being standardised?
What chance does Mono really have to keep the pace with the original vendor in the long run?
And what guarantee is there, that the implementation doesn't violate Microsoft patents?

At least, it is not consistent, and it doesn't make a lot of sense to me, anyway. But yes, there is a big difference: In the case of Qt it was the original vendor who decided to release his product under the terms of the GPL. In the case of Mono, it is the clone that chose GPL. Despite Mono being an ECMA standard (whatever the value of such a standard may be; ECMA hasn't helped to improve and standardise JavaScript as much as one could hope for...), there is no guarantee that no patents or intellectual property issues may arise.

I sincerely hope, you are right, and Microsoft and Novell know this, too!
And what does it mean, and who does it help, that there are parts of .NET, that are not included with the ECMA standard? Not having handed all of .NET over to ECMA raises the question, what chance alternative implementation like Mono actually have, to be compatible with the original version, and how much know-how about the proprietary parts is required in order to make Mono useful.
Sorry, but tells me, that we must carefully watch out, if Icaza and Microsoft are not fooling us sooner or later.

We do have good, quality, Open Source software, even without Mono. And I believe, there would be less gaps, if skilled guys like Icaza would really add some new applications, instead of cloning what is already there. We don't need text editor number 226, only to have one that runs on Mono, but we need software to synch our mobile phones with our calendars (Outlook, Evolution, Kontact).
And, as a matter of fact, KDE was initiated a little earlier than Gnome. Icaza should have contributed instead of trying to compete.

Om the other hand, the best thing about Linux is freedom of choice. And the whole discussion above is academic to a large extent, as long as Microsoft doesn't take any action against someone. And once they do, it is a question of hours to replace one desktop with another one (Gnome with KDE or something else).

So for the moment I won't discourage anyone from using Gnome or XFCE (in fact, I like especiall the latter one, myself). Should things get worth, there are always alternatives readily available that offer equivalent capabilities.

gargamel

Silverlight has nothing to do with the ECMA standard at all.

It is something built using the .NET language.

I could make a proprietary application with the ECMA standard language that would have no place in Linux, but that would have nothing to do with the standard.


What ever additional gimmicks may be added, really don't matter. The standard is a standard, and this won't ever change.

Besides, at the moment, the "extra gimmicks" are only relevant to the Windows platform, so it does not have an effect on Linux or OSS anyway.

They don't have to keep pace with the vendor, they have to keep pace with the standard.

Because, it is an ECMA standard.

How is what I said not consistent?

Qt was not GPL, they were criticized for this, and then became GPL.

That has nothing to do with Mono being GPL...it is a completely different issue.

It would help to stop thinking of Mono as a clone, and more as a different implementation of a standard.


Actually, they have. It is now known as ECMAScript,, and has undergone quite a few revisions. And, you have probably been using the features of the newer versions of the language without realizing it.

There is a guarentee, because it is an ECMA standard. As in, not under the control of one company.

The extra stuff in Novels Linux is, but that is the result of a deal between MS and Novel, and does not effect the rest of mono, which is only based on the standard.


The ECMA standard is completely separate from Microsoft, and is a good thing.

The fact that MS developed it...only means that they developed it. Now that it is an ECMA standard, they don't have any control over it, and can only recommend how it should proceed from now on.

The fact that MS has some extra stuff in their implementation..., it is no different to a proprietary company having some proprietary libraries and charging to use them. That's it.

You don't have to use the extra MS stuff or their version of .NET(which is mainly windows specific anyway), you can stick to the standard and Mono and have perfectly functioning software.

This kind of distrust has no basis, and only hurts the community, IMO.

Well, sure, but why reject more good quality software?

Just because the underlying technology was originally developed by Microsoft? Really, that is senseless.

You may not know this, but everytime you use an AJAX website, you are using technology originally developed by Microsoft, that became a standard.

It is almost exactly the same thing with .NET

Cloning what is already there?

Where was the .NET implementation for Linux..OSS before?

And yes, it really is a good thing that we have a .NET implementation. The .NET paradigm has so many technical advantages in its design, that we would be quite behind if we did not have an implementation.

The only other managed framework/language that is available for Linux, and an industry standard is Java, which lacks a great many features that .NET supports, such as support for multiple languages.

Well, your example is of a redundant application, and sure, we don't need more of them.

But having Mono in the firstplace is important, and allows for a lot more that would be possible otherwise.

I am happy to go into the specifics of what is possible with the technology if you like.

Hmm. I actually much prefer Gnome, and consider KDE to be...I don't know the right word...not bloated, but including far too much. Choice is a good thing, and extends to being able to run .NET applications.

Microsoft can't take any action against people using Mono.

It is an ECMA standard, and nothing to do with MS, unless you are using a Novel product which includes non ECMA stuff, in which case you are indemnified.

Interesting discussion though

Ok, to a degree I am feeling a little calmer, now.

Still I am not a fan of Mono. It is based on a standard with only few implementations, that are not fully compatible with each other. E. g., Silverlight needed some modifications before it could be run on Mono.

I agree with you, that .NET is good from a technological point of view, and that we need to have something like it on *nix. But actually, Qt is just that. Now, you might argue, that it is only C++, and that you want to code in your preferred programming language. But as I prefer the look and feel of Qt/KDE apps: Is it possible to code in C++ and use Qt widgets in Mono?

EDIT: Hmm, something like this must be possible, because Nokia's Maemo uses Qt widgets for GUI, but based on a Gnome-mobile infrastructure... Complex architecture, if you ask me.

Regarding duplicate development: Examples are text and programming editors, file managers, development tools, grahics programs (GIMP and Krita, but I admit, that GIMP was first, here...), word processors, spreadsheet applications, etc. This seems to be a huge waste of resources...

As you mention Java: This is not actually a framework, but a specification, and a damn good one. It is truly possible to replace a component from one vendor with another one from another vendor, as long as they implement the specification, and as long as you don't use proprietary features. For instance, in most real-life scenarios you can replace Tomcat with Jetty, if you like, without having to modify a single character in your code. Java is the only spec that lives up to this promise, I have seen, so far.

From what I know, I would guess, that .NET has had other goals and priorities.

But as you said: Freedom of choice includes the option to use .NET and Gnome, of course. Or not, which is my choice.

Finally: Yes, I'd be interested to learn more about what can be done with Mono, that cannot be done with other frameworks or platforms, like Qt. (BTW, I am a Java guy...).

gargamel

I'm trying OpenSUSE 11.2/KDE4.3.3 at the moment and I have to admit it's pretty good. With the Darkgreen SUSE wallpaper and the cream coloured 'Norway' KDE theme, things look very classy indeed. One of the really nice things they've managed to do is to get the same look and feel across all the different applications. Both Firefox and Open Office don't look too out of place along side the KDE apps.

Out of the box, font rendering was ugly as sin, but I found that by changing everything to Deja Vu Sans/Serif and playing with the subpixel rendering settings I managed to get something that looks acceptable.

Multimedia playback is very limited out of the box. I've read some stuff on adding support for the common codecs from 3rd party repositories but I'm yet to figure out which are trustworthy, so I'll leave that for a while.

KDE 4.3.3 still has a few glitches, but it's a big improvement over 4.2. It gives me hope for 4.4 and upwards.

Though the "hands-off the config files!" nature of OpenSUSE is providing some degree of culture-shock to this long time Slacker, I have to admit Novell have come up with something rather nice here. I simply don't dislike it the way I do Ubuntu.

I think I'll run this a bit longer and see how it goes.