Slashdot Mirror

Press releases detailing SuSE's work on Linux for the Hammer can be found here (20th March 2002), here (28th February 2002) and here (31st January 2001).

Roger Whittaker (SuSE Linux Ltd)

Press releases detailing SuSE's work on Linux for the Hammer can be found here (20th March 2002), here (28th February 2002) and here (31st January 2001).

Roger Whittaker (SuSE Linux Ltd)

Press releases detailing SuSE's work on Linux for the Hammer can be found here (20th March 2002), here (28th February 2002) and here (31st January 2001).

Roger Whittaker (SuSE Linux Ltd)

Quite the same things are said about SuSE in Germany (it's the main Linux distribution there). Their distribution is blamed to be more and more like WinXP, and the company is accused of violating the "spirit of free software".

Call me ignorant but I don't see how this is any different from SuSE's Live Eval CD's... they've been around for years...

If you have it, can you post the patch too? (If the lame filter allows it, of course...)

I do have it, but I left it off because of the amount of mangling that I had to do to the message to get it to accept that I thought it was unwise to do the same to a patch...

Doh! received it on suse-security, so here is a link to their archive of the mail (including patch). Enjoy...

Well you can certainly run Linux on Apple hardware. There are several PPC-specific distros; LinuxPPC running the 2.4.9 kernel, Debian, Yellow Dog, running a RedHat distro, and my personal favorite, the SuSE port running the SuSE 7.3 distro.

Darwin will compile and run on x86 hardware. It is basically the core OS of Mac OS X without the Aqua interface and the Quartz 2D rendering system. One uses X11 instead. As the OpenOffice article states, they have succeeded in producing a stable build (albeit without printer support, etc.) for Darwin.

Personally, I find OS X to be a "pretty darn good" Unix implementation. Notice I don't say great. From a pure performance standpoint the hardware still lags behind Linux running on a high-end x86 box. Aqua/Quartz is quite a CPU/Memory hog, which is a problem on the hardware architecture Apple is stuck with. But, I find the combination of *nix and commercial software availability, e.g. Photoshop, Illustrator and MS Office compelling. And hey, if you ever really need pure processing power, you can always boot into CLI only.

Basically, they are shutting down their US dependance to reduce cost. The US market is overcrowded with Redhat, SuSE, Mandrake and Caldera who all try to sell support and services, too. So Turbolinux is going back to their home market where the competition is not that stiff.

We've already seen this with SuSE back in August last year when they layed off 30 of their US staff.

However, all the linux installers that I have ever seen have had terrible interface designs.

I have a recient iBook that dual boots Debain and OS X. There are a bunch of distros that I can think of off the top of my head that work on it: LinuxPPC [defunct?], Debian, Yellow Dog Linux [Red Hat based], and SuSE. The dual boot setup is pretty easy for those with linux experience, a guid is available here. I have to give Apple props for the case design, among other things. My only complaints are the 8meg ATI Rage 128 Mobility [it lags a bit] and a soft modem which is unusable under Linux. I got the AirPort card to work {kernel compile), but the lack of a modem irks me because in having a laptop portability is a must and that includes having a working modem. Overall I am happy with my purchase, BUT a PowerBook G4 would be nice... Oh yeah, when you buy an Apple you avoid the Microsoft Tax completely (and it comes with a nice *NIX preinstaled too!) =)

*sigh*

Link to Debian/PPC home page
(Link to a project called "Fink" that offers apt-get and a server with very many Mac OS X native binary packages of popular linux software packages)

Link to Mandrake/PPC faq and ordering information

Link to SUSE/PPC home page (With screenshots of MOL (like VMWare for mac) in action!)

Mandrake, debian and SUSE are not "for all practical purposes" x86 only. It is unlikely in the extreme that you will find linux/ppc binary files on the random internet, but full, current versions (in the case of SUSE, including all 8 CDs!) of the three linux distros you mention are available and functioning for PPC computers. I have not used Mandrake and SUSE, but i have Debian/PPC installed on a spare mac at home, and i can tell you that it works exactly the same as the x86 version. In fact, this is the biggest advantage (besides apt-get) of Debian/PPC over Yellow Dog, for me-- the documentation and IRC help channels for debian/x86 apply absolutely equally to debian/ppc, making troubleshooting way easier than if you used Yellow Dog or something else obscure.

-- author of anonymous coward post #3855992

Anyone who runs SuSE Linux from version 6.4 through version 8.0 inclusive may be interested in this.

SuSE's "SuSE-Security-Announce" mailing list released this post today regarding their response to the OpenSSH vulnerability. It contains a ton of information, and FTP links to update your OpenSSH packages for the aforementioned versions of SuSE's distribution.

Drop the vendor: they obviously haven't got a clue what they're talking about.

1) They should read their vendors' EULA's (and probably their own). No software these days is supported. ("This software is provided "AS IS"...).

2) Lots of free software is very much industry proven.

Perhaps you could try a little education.

Of course SuSE supports this platform. Those who follow these kind of things know that it was SuSE who added Hammer support to the official Linux kernel at the start of this year. See here

And they have OEM Licensing.. A couple groups to license it for inclusion in their prodcuts are Ximian ($9.95 per month, or $59.95 purchase) and Suse ($24.95).

RedHat is just a bit slow with the 64 bit stuff. SuSE Linux Enterprise 7.0 is already available for Itanium since december last year.

(As well as a Xeon optimized version since last may.)

RedHat is just a bit slow with the 64 bit stuff. SuSE Linux Enterprise 7.0 is already available for Itanium since december last year.

(As well as a Xeon optimized version since last may.)

Funny to see how SuSE is not part of that alliance. They were the first to ship an Itanium distribution, back in June 2001!

I am currently trying to write a HOWTO/make an RPM for the NSA SELinux to work with a SuSE distro (Vanilla kernel)...

Shell I stop doing so now and just install this distro instead?

Is it really more secure than LVM/RSBAC patched kernels with additional hardening?

For sure?

just my two cents...

Suse Does that, check out their firewall on cd. Its a firewall running of of a cd.

Maybe this one deal alone is enough to keep SuSe in business and by extension United Linux.

I wonder when the government of the United states of America will get on the bus.

I think it is not nice for SuSE, maybe they see it as a big blow to ? They are of German origin, after all. And they have a nice distro, I think.

As a faithful SuSE customer, I first appalled that SuSE would start charging per-user licensing fees. I noticed that many others felt the same way from the last Caldera, as long as I can remember, has charged per-seat. Thus, on the economic side of UnitedLinux, _nothing has changed_. The licensing is still the same. It's just that all the certified products are going to interoperate from the bottom-up (i.e., binaries, scripts, etc.).

> We can also vote with our pocketbooks and do our
> best to ensure this product does not suceed.

Ok people, let's boycott, everyone who bought SuSE Linux Enterprise Server for $600,- please raise your hand?

SuSE makes their distribution available to be installed via FTP, but their download site it so slow that it usually doesn't work.

That's why they have mirrors...you can install from those, and they're usually fairly quick. (That said, I usually build Linux From Scratch. You need an existing Linux system to kickstart the LFS build, though, and SuSE is what I used before LFS.)

It'll be available for download from ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/8.0/ soon.

Hmm...
How does this look?
SuSE Linux Groupware Server with Lotus Domino
I dunno, but it looks like this is a pretty good system. The MAJOR problem with exchange is its price. Every copy I have seen sold comes with limited client licences. You STILL need to buy software for the clients, even though you already paid for a limited number up front. Every time you want to connect more clients, you have to purchace both client software and a client licence. They (MS) charge you out the nose TWICE for just letting people share a calender and email. All this still has to run on a Microsoft server OS, which in itself costs another $1000 (for only 5 client licences) which wont even run on older hardware.
Another thing: can you tell me an easy way to get DNS, file/printer sharing, NAT, firewall and DHCP client/server on a Pentium 83MHz (overdrive for 486 mobo) system using MS software? That works reliably? I set it up in a couple of hours with Linux. It was a great learning experiance. I learned how to configure BIND, Samba, DHCPd, IPTables, etc. If Linux had a good groupware server, that would be great, because it would mean that people dont need to have an MS server at all. From what I have seen around the web, Linux can basically do just about anything an MS server can do, except Exchange. If there was a good Linux alternative, Linux could finish taking over the server market. It looks like Domino is pretty promising. It just needs a bit more publicity. (oh, I found it with a quick google search in case you were wondering)

How are the different flavors (Redhat, SuSE, etc.) of Linux affecting IBM's development efforts? What are the teams' favorite(s)? Why?

Ruger

My main concern with moving to a Unix environment is scheduling with MS Exchange. I would need to find an affordable mail server application that can compete if not beat out Exchange Server. Is there such a thing?

Well, for Linux email servers, you could either use an open and free package, like sendmail or qmail. Or if you have an extra thou, you could spend money on something like SuSE Linux eMail Server III .

I've never used Exchange. What is the draw?

Yes, if by "first major distro" you mean second

Step 1: Uninstall all current file sharing progams on your PC

Step 2: When finished, simply start accquiring your music/movies through ethical and legal methods, like Emusic.com, or through an secret, ancient technique from the Far East called "Bu Yingt Hecd" (note from UpEvil medical staff: if you experience discomfort at the thought of supporting the corporate system through the given methods, we have found the best way to alleviate this pain is to cease the purchase/accquiring of corporate-produced music altogether)

(optional) Step 3: As an added bonus, install a Free operating system and avoid having to pay for Monopolyware too!

This has been your daily UpEvil "Kazaa-whores-are-a-bunch-of-cheap-whiny-fucks" post of the day. Thank you, and good night.

Well, i've been working at the ACCRC For over a year and a half now. It's a terrific place. Most of our volunteers come from the homeless shelter next to our building. It's amazing how much people can leanr when they're immersed in technology so completely.

A couple of answers to previously proposed questions. The Athlon 850's and motherboards for them were graciously donated by AMD for use in our cluster. They also gave us a good deal of PC100 dimms to help us expand the cluster. 3Com donated all of our switches and ethernet cards.

Microsoft has never contacted us, nor are they likely to. I find it highly unlikely that they would attempt to shut us down because we distribute Linux. SuSe Gave us 30,000 boxed copies of 7.0 in its various incarnations, and this is the OS we distribute. We'd love to get any other distributions we could, but for now, we will use SuSe because we have a buttload of it.

Now, some related links! Webcams In the Ministry of Truth, AKA the media lab at the ACCRC.

Buy Shit from the ACCRC here. Extremely disorganized, just like the warehouse is.

Anyone in the bay area is invited to come by and check us out. We are open from 10-5 weekdays and 12-5 saturdays. We invite anyone to volunteer, no matter what your skill level is. Also, if you would like to send us your equipment for a donation and a tax write-off, send it to our street address, not our post office box.

Thank you ve5ry much for all your enthusiasm. We need volunteers badly! Volunteers get digging rights!!!!

Yast, the SuSE installation program is not free, and does not comply to the Open Source definition. Remember that when choosing between SuSE and other distros.

• Reasons to Use SuSE Linux
  
• Choose from among XFS, ext2, ext3, reiserfs, and others during install
• choose to encrypt your filesystem
• free security updates, unlike RedHat
• improved YaST2, the ultamite in system configuration utilities, let's you configure everything from a DHCP server to CUPS
• YaST Online Update, for automatic upgrading of your RPMs
• conformance to the LSB, the only compliant distro so far
• the most secure distro, according to LWN.net research
• Personal Firewall configuration through YaST
• 90 days of tech support through email or telephone with the Professional version

Sun's Grid Engine is included in SuSE 8.0... I think that's a significant addition, as grid computing becomes the "hot" topic amongst CS researchers nowadays. Good to see Linux on the cutting edge.

Wow! It looks like cburley is guilty of the kind of FUD Distribution that the linux-o-philes hate.

If you're not going to fully support the software you make, there are plenty of jobs at Target to fill your "free" time.

"free, ad-hoc" support. What a joke. Ad-hoc support is always inconsistant, frequently self-contradictory, and usually way over the help-seekers head.

cburley seems to be hopelessly engrained into thinking that software support=source code access

If cburley's attitude was taken to the process of changing the air-filter on my car, I'd be an expert at rebuilding Honda engines by now - which is NOT what I want to do with my time; I want my system to work, reliably, with little fuss, and not have to learn Linux Kernel programming to keep my system working.

One thing that's interesting about the analogy is that while all cars are more or less equally complex, in the same general ways, operating systems (and by extension, distributions) actually compete in areas like ease of installation, ease of use and ease of administration.

"Choice D" is what everyone who buys commercial software products does. You PAY for the product (!= free, as in speech OR Stolen Beer) and get support from that company, if at all. Software support for choices A thru C is shotty, unreliable and teduous at best.

SCENARIO 1: 1) Linux Distributions that are "free" (as in your friend's Beer) do not come with support, but you can give it away.
SCENARIO 2: 1) Big software company gets someone into a management position who is a rabid Linux user/coder/penguine fetishist and convinces the company that they should have a Linux Distro
SCENARIO 3: 1) Group of Linux coders/penguine fetishists get together and form a company to make and distribute their own brand of Linux

Your second scenario has only one example that I know of--Corel. They failed, but who cares? Xandros might yet succeed, and the Debian project is still chugging right along, providing "orphaned" Corel Linux users with all the updated software they need.

The third scenario, in which a bunch of geeks form a company to create an incompatible distribution, is just one example of how companies can naturally fail in an open, free, non-monopolistic market. Incompatibility is a bad idea for a young company--if they go that route they probably deserve to fail. If you're early on the scene, like Red Hat and Slackware were, you have the chance to create de facto standards that other vendors adhere to. Wow, capitalism at work!

Support for open-source products is so poor, inconsistent and unreliable that one should consider it virually non-existent.

In conclusion; if I use something that someone has made, whether I paid for it was given to me as a gift (as open-source is), I would expect that "someone" to help me fix it, and in a manner that I would understand.

While I think that trying to define what goes into .prn domain would open a can of worms, I still wouldn't mind seeing a seperate domain for adult material. Most of us are old enough to remember the fiasco that was the Meese Report, and I would surely like to avoid another waste of tax-dollars like that. That said, it sure would be nice to be able to browse to suse.com without accidently going to suse.org. This kind of typo domain squatting complete with "I'm barely legal" pop-ups of silicone and labia should hardly fall under the First Amendment. They are not making a profound statement for our times, nor are they offering a unique service at a realistic name. They are trying to annoy the user by catching us in a mistake and deluging our desktops with body parts that we didn't discuss in Biology, and promises of teens fellating horses. In reality this is blatant misdirection, and forcing imagery that wouldn't be allowed on a public TV network on us.

IMHO this is no different than seducing people into a Scientology clinic with blatant misdirection, and then trapping them for hours while they forcefeed Xenu BS down their throats. The entire /. community rallies against Scientology, but rails against this reform. It's hypocritical.

While sending the scat-mongers and necrophiles to another domain might initially be an affront to civil-liberties, on deeper consideration I ask you to consider this: surfing the web freely without the fear of 429 enlarged and color-corrected goatse.cx ripoffs popping up faster than you can kill them. Then, when you've recovered your lunch, imagine your child doing it.

We don't let XXX video stores complete with viewing booths and glory-holes into our suburbs. Why is our internet any different. Zoning is not necessarily a bad thing.

Another way your e-mail address can be susceptible to spambots is if you participate in any mailing list. If the administrator decides to archive the list on a website, in many cases the email addresses of the participants will be there in plain text. I found this out after doing a google search for my own email address and having it turn up on the SuSE web site. I sent an e-mail asking that they do a regsub on the archive to substitute the '@' with [at] or something similar. That was more than six months ago and the SuSE website admin still hasn't done it.

This also works with update CDs, I think. Never tried it myself, but it could concievably work.

I don't run a production box, so I pretty much blindly upgrade stuff. If it breaks (none yet), I can always back out pretty easily. The utility also gives the security bulletin from SuSE or detailed descriptions of the packages if you want to look at them before deciding to install. Those that look risky... I generally avoid.

This is one of the best patch utils that I have found because of the advice component. It is similar to M$'s offering, but I think a little better (you don't have to reboot at the very least). I haven't tried Ximian's offerings, but my guess is that they are similar.

To respond to myself:

One way I think the site could be improved is to have a list of big companies that have converted to Linux/BSD recently. We could make a 'best of Linux users' listing from the following pages:

SUSE ccasestudies

Lufthansa

RedHat casestudies

Oracle, Amazon, Merrill Lynch

IBM case studies

Shell, NCSA


HP Case studies

Dreamworks, Boeing

I guess NASA should go on the list somewhere.

Any more?

note that IBM is now doing deals with Suse: "IBM and SuSE Team To Offer a New Generation of Enterprise Ready Linux Services". I bet IBM is trying to scare Red Hat, so IBM can bargain a lower price when they eventually buy out Red Hat.

BS. You can download it here. See the ISO images? ;-)

Here's a link to the page about KDE3 in SuSE 8 - for people who can't be bothered to find it themselves :-)

And that would leave us with how many commercial mail servers? None. :)

Hmmm, I wonder what this is then.

Suse has a bootable 'LiveEval' CD ROM (available as ISO). It has everything one needs; config is saved on some HD partition (this does not destroy anything). Of course, it won't boot as fast a floppy-based solution does.

Or how about a single disk image of my Win2K C: drive? Hangs head in shame...

Or an image of my Linux partition? Or how about combining all 7 CDs in the Mandrake 8.1 PowerPack into a single DVD

Natural selection at its finest... Crappy, bloated, and stupid distributions die, and real distros that aren't profit-driven continue to flourish...

From part 2:

The packages affected by the double-free() libz bug can be devided into
two categories:

1) packages that link dynamically against the system-provided
compression library. These packages get fixed automatically with
the update of the libz package as described in SuSE-SA:2002:010.
Please note that the processes will continue to use the old
version of the libz.so shared library if the have not been
restarted after the libz package upgrade.

2) packages that contain the compression library in their own
source distribution. These packages need an individual bugfix.
We have prepared update packages for this software that can be
downloaded from the locations as shown below.

The following is a list of the packages in category 2):
gpg
rsync
cvs
rrdtool
freeamp
netscape
vnc
kernel

From part 2:

The packages affected by the double-free() libz bug can be devided into
two categories:

1) packages that link dynamically against the system-provided
compression library. These packages get fixed automatically with
the update of the libz package as described in SuSE-SA:2002:010.
Please note that the processes will continue to use the old
version of the libz.so shared library if the have not been
restarted after the libz package upgrade.

2) packages that contain the compression library in their own
source distribution. These packages need an individual bugfix.
We have prepared update packages for this software that can be
downloaded from the locations as shown below.

The following is a list of the packages in category 2):
gpg
rsync
cvs
rrdtool
freeamp
netscape
vnc
kernel

As Linux becomes more and more popular, the question becomes more and more important: which distribution should I use? I use SuSE Linux for several reasons. Firstly, it is the most LSB-compliant distribution. It comes with huge amounts of software (6 CDs of binaries for the Professional version, and (arguably) SuSE has the largest security team. SuSE updates are free and released often. Announcements are even GPG-signed. According to LWN.net research, SuSE has the best security after TurboLinux (which much less security-related bugs than RedHat.

On a more subjective note, many consider SuSE to be the most polished distribution, and YaST2 is considered one of the best all-around system configuration utilities.