Why is there no forum for SuSE?????
 

Why is there no forum for SuSE? Isn't it "major"enough? I would have thought that it was bigger (more users) than Mandrake and Debian....

I think it's pretty safe to say that Debian has way more users than SuSE. Debian is known for superior package management, stabillity, being one of the oldest distros still around, and being the largest non-commercial distro. SuSE is best known for the fact that they don't provide free iso downloads of their installation CDs. Now there are lots of nice things about SuSE, but those factors will obviously have an impact on it's popularity.

That's not really the issue though. SuSE will only get it's own forum is there is enough traffic (posts) to justify it. In comparison to RH, MDK, Debian, etc... SuSE doesn't get a lot of chatter here.

That's just my guess.

I am working with SuSE now to try and get a forum here at LQ.

--jeremy

We try to make our specific distro forums with a representative of the actual distribution here.

If you search the distro forum or Website Questions and Suggestions, there are many threads explaining our process of adding certain specific distro's to the forums here.

And the last time I checked, SuSE is the most common or used distro after Redhat, as its the most popular among Europe users.

While I can't find any claims to contradict SuSE as Europe's most popular Linux distro, I can't find anything to support it either, on SuSE's website, or anywhere else. I've only seen statements that they are the number two (or three, after RH and MDK) commercial distro.

I have yet to see SuSE beat Debian in any kind of poll or other measure used on the net to deturmine Linux distro popularity.

For example at the Linux Counter SuSE ranks #5, after RH, Debian, MDK, and Slackware.

While I can't call these measures proof, it does indicate to me that at the very least, the Debian online community is larger and more active than that of SuSE, if not the the actual user base.

If I'm wrong that's fine, I just can't find anything that indicates that level of popularity for SuSE.

I am looking forward to there being a SuSE forum though, it's probably my favorite rpm based distro.

Oh. Well that makes more sense than my guess, and that's very cool too. I didn't realize you guys did that.

Well, you have to consider that Debian is not like any other distro, its not commercialized. So probably counting their total number of userbase or anything isn't going to be as accurate as someone like SuSe as they can go off sales, etc. That's what makes them bigger, they are an actual company with everything else that makes a company. But I'll search around, cause I know I've seen statistics that they are the number one distro in Europe. I even think TurboLinux was the number one in the Asian market.. its getting more rare in regards to hearing anything about them over here really. At one point I thought they were gone, extinct, but they still coming along, just mainly over in Asia.

There are other distros besides Debian that are not commercialized.

And SuSE sales can't account for everything because not everyone who bought it, kept it. And not everyone who uses it bought it (ftp install, etc).

I wouldn't be surprised if indeed SuSE is the biggest distro in Europe, but that is not the only point to be considerd. As companies venture more willingly into the Linux world, they are not necesarilly jumping into the debian-like distributions, for simple (corporate) reasons such as official technical support for example, something that the biggies do offer. The products SuSE, and RedHat must I say, are rolling out have their "regular"users' share but more importantly a healthy growth in the corporate sector. More and more people will also end up using SuSE and RedHat because just like it was in the 80's, that's what they found installed in their desktops at work. More "hard core" distros will always be popular, but not necesarilly with the BIG PIE SLICE of the market.

Let's get that SuSE forum started!


PS: Jerry, why do you need to get in contact with SuSE to get a forum started?

To make it officially recognized and visited by SuSE. If you notice all the threads with announcements of new Distro forums, they include names of people who, from the distro, will be officially representing that distro and stopping in.

For Example, the RedHat announcement:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...threadid=86416

The Mandrake announcement:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...threadid=84177

As you can see, the distro forums are officially recognized by the distro's themselves. Jeremy works that out behind the scenes to bring it to us officially from the distro's themselves.

Cool

Cool! We'll be eagerly awaiting.... There's really a lot of SuSE specific stuff that gets diluted away in general forums.

i us suse 8.2, it,s one of my favorites. the online update works great along the yast. some corporations are making a move to it, that is what i read somewere.

I dont think you are going top see one!
 

*EDIT* I satnd corrected the link is not an Official one. some one told me it was. Oops :eek:

I wondered the same thing as this is the distro I bought 8.2 pro. I bought it because I read many forum post and reviews that SuSE was a perfect fit for the NEWBIE Linux user.

I used redhat back when they first came out... and what a hell of time it was that is why I gave up. Now I am very impresssed to see that linux works the way it does. Now I dont know if SuSE is good or bad But I can say that I installed it and it works well. One thing I just found out is that you cannnot use WebMin with Apache in SuSE as they modified (SuSEfied it), and webmin wont work with it.

This is one negative I found so far. Now I dont know if others do the same but, I can always uninstall the default Apache and install a download of the webserver... then maybe it will work. I dont know as I did not try it.

Also I cant get my Sandisk Cruser USB drive to work! Where in RH a user just popped it in and it worked.

I tend to beleave the "popular items" online and in forums are the things that are "free," and this is why other items (things that cost money) dont get the attention as much. Just my thought. But to answer your question I dont think we will see one here.cause they setup their own boardhere I found it the other day.

I been using linux for about a week now and glad that this board is here, as well as their board. Since Its the distro Im using.

After going back and forth a bit with SuSE I am sorry to report that they declined to participate at this time due to a lack of resources. If you'd like to see a SuSE forum here please contact SuSE and let them know that you feel it would be time well spent. I do request that if you contact them you be both respectful and polite. Thanks.

http://www.suse.com/us/company/suse/contact/index.html

--jeremy

I'm going to sticky this so that people will be able to see it easier, and be more enticed to contact their distro.

Cool

Sorry to here that. what is it with SuSE? I thought I did my research well... Now I dunno. although it works well, im wondering if I should have picked another Distro to start with. Sucks I just paid for this!

SuSE is really good and popular.
A forum for SuSE is nessesary.

Well they don't seem to agree with adding one here. You should contact them yourself and get anyone you know to let SuSe know how you feel and how it would benefit you for them to participate on our site in adding a SuSe forum, etc.

I will surely contact them...

I still cannot see the NECESSITY of SuSE participating in this forum. I can surely see the postive side of it, but the fact that it cannot go through without them...it kind of kills the idealism of Linux and Open Source. The idea of the forum is for us the users, isn' it? Is it a problem were SuSE won't let US do it without them? What is this SuSE resource thing? Is it a SuSE guy that will monitor the forum every now and then? We'll survive without him!!! Is it software? What is the BIG issue? Sorry, but I still don't see it.

By the way, and not to be patronizing in any way: What resources have Debian extended to this forum?

As in all the other distro forums here, members from the distro participate in the forums.

--jeremy

OK, if they (I'm assuming "they" means the guys from Debian itself, not just users) didn't participate, or if they would stop participating...would the forum simply stop because they aren't participating anymore? What is the REAL added value to the forum that THEY bring that normal users couldn't provide???

What about the other questions?

We could have a Suse forum without representatives from Suse, but this is not how Jeremy prefers. Before he creates a specific forum, he wants the approval or a representative to make it somewhat official in a small kind of way, or big if they prefer.

I think Redhat has over 6 members signed up from the distribution as of now.
We have Patrick Volkerding as a member and we are Slackware's official forum now.
We also have Gerard Beekman from LFS, he's the creator who visits quite often and helps other members out.
Mandrake, well, the creator and some others from Mandrake are signed up to help out.

I think you can see where I'm going with this... but just cause the reps don't visit as often or stop visiting, doesn't mean the forum will be closed. But this is just the way LQ.org prefers to setup these specific Distribution forums.

Wow... I don't know that. This makes LQ jump a few hundred notches in the coolness category. :cool:

SuSE
 

SuSE may not allow download of their install ISOs but you can download a LIVE EVAL of 8.2 that runs from cd. A truly impressive product. It made an instant beltever out of me. I'd been running RH fror years but SuSE whips RH in ease of use and that IS important. I'm used to RH's way of doing things and am quite comfortable at the command line but I've found SuSE has more polished GUI tools than RH for configuring nearly everything. RH has it with time syncing via ntp and DHCP server setup but that's not enough to keep me considering how faultlessly SuSE supports my hardware. If more folks tried SuSE LIVE EVAL, the fact that the OS isn't free really wouldn't matter much. Debian may be stable but waiting for new releases that may or may not include the hardware support or other desired nicities is positively painful. New releases don't come along very often. SuSE is the Mandrake of Europe as far as I can tell. Designed for the desktop user every bit as much as for the corporate market.

Re: SuSE
 

I know this is somehow off-topic but isn't Mandrake actually from Europe? France to be exact :D

So if SuSE is the Mandrake of Europe, then Mandrake must be the SuSE of Europe ;) :p

OK. So MDK is from France and SuSE is from Germany. If the US didn't help out in WW2 France would be Germany. Anyway thanks for the correction.

LOL! Hope you didn't take it wrongly in any way... I was just messing with ya :)

Anyway, enough off-topic posts from me in this thread.

thats cool and all... But since the answer is no from SuSE, will there be a SuSE forum? []Yes []No

I completely understand the deal, dont get me wrong, but if you have "your forum users" who would like to see one why not?

Just like vous stated:

Just a thought.

I'd have to say, in response to that, get your distro to realize how much it's users would enjoy having an OFFICIAL, and/or SUPPORTED forum from them. If their paying customers want something, I'd have to think it'd be in their best interest to take it seriously. Contact them, encourage others to contact them, let them know you are a loyal customer and would like to see an official support forum here on LQ from them. If the need is there..

;)

Cool

Still no answer
 

[]Yes or []No its simple.

What your saying is: Since SuSE wont join in They will be NO forum for this distro!

I have a tech forum and its odd to see this :confused: . I like LQ,org. So dont get me wrong. what your asking is for users to go a beg SusE to become a member here, otherwise you will simply not add a separate forum. If thats the way the board is run... Hey its your board. But at least come out and say it.

"Hey sorry guys since SusE will not play... we wont have a forum for you."

I only chiimed in cause I use this distro. Still think the board is cool and come here when I can. Good Luck though.

I am pretty sure that one of the reasons Suse doesn't want to participate in this is that they prefer to sell service contracts instead of having Suse people helping out for free.
I bought Suse a while back because it comes with support for setup just to find out that there is none.

Most likely the answer is no, as long as SuSe keeps telling us they are not going to participate, any specific SuSe question can just go in the general Distribution forum.

Yes, the members here might want a specific forum dedicated to SuSe but what LQ.org is trying to accomplish is to have it so each forum is Official.

I'm not sure why members keep asking why as we have stated this over and over, there is no reason why anyone should ask, is it "yes" or "no" in creating a certain forum. IF the distributor tells us no, well then, that's the answer for the time being.

Were not asking for members here to beg, but when we can't convince a distributor to join to create a forum, well then if many members here ask them, it might just help them realize how it can be beneficial to them.

Thank you
 

Thats all Maybe this was asked in the past but I may have missed it. Now I know.

Just to clarify the official stance. All current distro forums here at LQ are officially recognized by the distro. From the first distro forum I created that has been what has been required. The level of participation varies. For some distro we are *the* official forum, for others we are just officially recognized. At this time I see no reason to make an exception (whether that will remain the case remains to be seen) for one distro. As you can see many distros have seen the value of participating. I hope to see a SuSE forum here one day.

--jeremy

Being a new comer to Linux, I find it disheartening that the distribution I bought for $40 (SuSE) won't help out in a forum like this, yet another that I spent less than a buck on will. I had thought that buying a distro as I did helped both the company and me (I'd at least get a book to jump start my transition). Hmmph...

I was quite pleased to be coming out from under windows and into the light of freedom :) Interesting comment made earlier about SuSE's support system that responds that they can't help you. I got that answer on the one email I sent. I enjoyed SuSE but found it difficult to get answers. I found it easier to just go to another distro....

Oh well, maybe one day SuSE will figure it out...

Eh?

If you BOUGHT SuSE, you have a code-key and you should have setup-support.

Just how exactly did you "find out" that there is no setup support? Did you login into SuSE, gave your code (it was in the package) and they refused to give setup-support to you? What did they say? Did you call and get refused? I had no problem getting my initial setup up and running with the SuSE guys on the line with me. I have later used the free setup support extensively via email with no probs...I'm sure you must have missed a detail or gave the wrong code key.

I did have it already running but didn't know things like how to get the advertised multimedia capabilities (like playing videos).Sound didn't work,too if I remember right.
All I got out of Suse about this and any other problem (like 3d with SIS) was a offer to use their professional whatever services - the guys from connectiva send at least an email with a bunch of links about the same problems.
No problem - I can fix my crap myself but Suse is extremely fast wanting to sell you services.

OK, getting back to the main issue, the SuSE forum...

I was wondering if SuSE knows that their rivals and competitors are indeed colaborating with this forum? Just for us to know, is that something that was mentioned to SuSE when contacted by LQ.org? If so, how did they react to that?

They were made aware. I will see what I can do. If you are a SuSE customer and would like to see a SuSE forum here then as noted you should contact SuSE and let your desire be known.

--jeremy

I have contacted SuSE again and will let everyone know what the outcome is.

--jeremy

me too
 

Man! I thought the same thing. Did a bunch of checking into the specifics of the various distros of Linux and decided on SuSe also. Would've been (would be) awesome. I contacted them. Politely, of course.

I'm going to (for now) drop this off into circulation (unsticky), feel free to add any responses necessary, and I hope the best of luck to those who are contacting SuSE to request them to form a Forum here.

COol

I love SuSE, it is more user friendly than RedHat 9
and less buggy than Mandrake 9.1+

I just contact SuSE in hope that we can get something on here.

I just loaded several distros and overall suse works the best.I beleive that is why you do not see as many Questions. Each distro had it's on problams redhat was the worst. I will not ever load it again. mandrake was good but my machine is useless to me without a cdrom and I never got it to work with mandrake.So far I like slackware the best but never got a full install of it so did not have xwindows. I would also like to see a spot here for suse but need to know if I have misunderstood something first. Every since I first heard about linux It was my understanding that what was so great about it was that when you learned about it you could then costumize it to better suite your own needs or likes. My whole point of trying all the distro's I can is to pick out the good and bad from each and build the os that I actaully need and want. I am going with suse 8.2 because as a newbie on this machine it works best for me. But If I have to pick one distro or another I 'm going back to windows because I know I can do everything I need to do on windows and as for as setup? I have an 8 year old daughter who can setup win 98 and work out all her own hardware problams on this machine. Face it it will be a long time before any linux user can say that. But the bad point of microsoft is your stuck with what bill gates thinks your os should be. MY understanding is linux gives you the options. Will there ever be a section dealing with the costomizing of linux here. I beleive there is a real need for that.

I too bought suse 8.2 with "support"
have phoned them a few times for advice and have had the following replies
"that's not covered under our free support"
"that's a hardware problem"
"look for x and phone us back" and then they have gone home.

The book is v pretty and well written, but assumes everything works first time.

Their support forums are pretty good, but under used. And some good tips from their moderators
Maybe if linux questions.org won't provide their own forum, a permanent link could be put on the forums website??

Support from this website has been much better than anything I have got from suse despite there being no specific forum here

However, I have kept going with SUSE 8.2 and am pretty impressed with it.

SuSE has a very comprehensive support forum. Why do they need to pitch in at another forum also? Why not contribute to their site? And as for paying $40 for SuSE, I've payed more than that for a computer game, never mind an OS. I think SuSE provide a good product and are entitled to charge for it. I know this is a little off topic, but people and organisations (even ones offering free software) naturally have vested interests. This is an excellent site (I plan on getting a T-Shirt), but I don't understand why some of you are looking for something which already exists? Just check out http://www.suseforums.com/support/

suse has a forum, and would probably like users of suse go their. that,s why they don,t want to support this site, quess you can,t blame them.

What about Suse 9... enough help without a forum ?
 

And what about Suse 9 ? Do some people here know what new feature will be included ? Maybe with this new version, Suse will generate more interest and more people will talk about it (and a new forum will be created ?). I am wondering which distro to use: do you think there are enough people here that can help if I go along with Suse 9 ?

Just wanted to say that the SuSE forum is excellent: that is the mailing list.
It's still nice to throw a question out here though as I've seen some very creative responsis.
The SuSE mailing list is better than anything I've seen for Mandrake or redhat also.

Re: Still no answer
 

Just because there is no SuSE forum in the Distribitions section does not mean that questions regarding SuSE won't be answered. This is, after all a Linux forum and it's supported by the talents of the membership. A forum which focuses on a particular distro needs a little more TLC and that requires some input from the people directly involved in the project.

Thanks for the link man.