Novell Returns to the SUSE Name

soren42 writes "It appears that Novell has decided to rename their enterprise desktop line SUSE, once again. According to an announcement at CeBIT, Novell will be releasing the next version of their desktop product under the name SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop - ditching the moniker Novell Linux Desktop. Naming aside, it looks like the features will be there to make it a strong desktop competitor."

Comments

Name matters

[Spy Handler]

SUSE is a better choice than Novell.

When you hear the word Novell, the image that pops up in your mind is "Old and Busted"

SUSE on the other hand, sounds vaguely of "New Sweetness"

Re:Name matters

[mtenhagen]

In my mind an image popups of of powerfull, reliable and secure software. Not the best looking but something you can build your business on.

With SUSE I think about some guys who decide to package a bunch of free software.

I think most of the "older" IT decision makers still remember the old novell software as being pretty stable.

Re:Name matters

[SpinyNorman]

As someone who remember using Novell Btrieve (B-tree index file library) way back when, the last thing I associate with Novell is quality. This simple library had dozens of new errata every few months.

Re:Name matters

[Bender Unit 22]

Yes but it never did help Novell to appeal to the tech guys, now did it?
They should have learned something from Microsoft 10 years, never mind the tech people having to work with it, but clever marketing directed at the suits (to which Novell sounds old).
(And when you got them, THEN you can make a reliable product, but that is another story :D)

Re:Name matters

[Profane MuthaFucka]

More like old and "god I'm sick of looking at that nasty server won't that piece of crap ever die?"

Re:Name matters

[barefootgenius]

Actually, SUSE makes me think, "How do you say it?".

Re:Name matters

[goldtek]

AKAIK Btrieve was a product of Pervasive Software that ran on Novell NetWare, sounds like your gripe is with Pervasive not Novell. Sure it's their responsibility because it was bundled with NetWare, but if Novell haven't got the source code they are reliant on their third party.

Re:Name matters

[andersa]

I'd like to see either a version of xine that isn't totally crippled, or else take it out. If it doesn't play mpeg, it's no good to anyone, and everybody on the Kaffeine mailinglist is sick and tired of answering questions about it.

Re:Name matters

[10Ghz]

In my mind an image popups of of powerfull, reliable and secure software. Not the best looking but something you can build your business on.

True that. Whenever I hear someone say that "this piece of software is rock-solid", I always think "rock solid, eh? I wonder how it compares to Netware?"

We moved from Netware to Active Directory some time ago. And comparing Windows-server with AD to Netware is.... Not nice. Everything seems to be more complex in with the MS-solution, we have all kinds of strange issues with it (nothing catastrophic, but things that make the whole system awkward to use, whereas Netware was a breeze). And while Windows has been reasonable stable, it's nowhere near as stable as Netware was. In the time I started working here, to the time we dumbed Netware (about three years), it went down once, and that was due to power-outage. During this year or so that we have been on Windows/AD, the server has been down... 3-4 times, due to patching, crashing, lockups and the like.

If I had to choose between Netware and Windows, I would choose Netware, no questions asked. And that sentiment is shared by just about all techies here. But since it's the PHB's that call the shots, and Microsoft had shinier PowerPoint-presentations than Novell did, we are stuck with AD.

Re:Name matters

[hotdiggitydawg]

Sorry, but I have to disagree. Novell Netware was the first system I learnt to hack (with a hat as white as the driven snow of course ;) ), and it honestly was a piece of crap, even for a beginner. Vaguely stable crap (compared to the Windows boxen it was running on anyway), but hardly what I'd call secure.

Re:Name matters

[aurelian]

I think most of the "older" IT decision makers still remember the old novell software as being pretty stable.

Would those be the same "older" IT decision makers who have abandoned Novell in droves for Windows networking?

Re:Name matters

[Stormwatch]

the image that pops up in your mind

Not if you turn on the pop-up blocker!

Re:Name matters

[Flopy]

In my mind an image popups...

Yeah, that happens to me too when I use IE...
using Linux and teh f0x solved it, tho.

Re:Name matters

[gregarican]

No doubt. I recall back in the day manually loading NLM's on one of my company's servers. Simply misspelling something could abend the server. No autoreboot either. Just the BSOD (black screen o' death).

Re:Name matters

[HateBreeder]

It's amusing how you thought that expanding the BSOD abbreviation is nessecery, and keeping the NLM abbreviated is fine.

I for one, have no idea what "NLM" is.

Re:Name matters

[gregarican]

Netware Loadable Module. If you didn't use old Netware and you didn't know how it could suck then the comment isn't applicable anyway. And the BSOD is a different take of the Microsoft _Blue_ Screen of Death. Different shade, same fubar result.

Re:Name matters

[nbvb]

I call BS!

NOTHING is NIS > NIS+. Plaintext > NIS+. Hell, even StreetTalk > NIS+!

And StreetTalk's been dead for at least 5 years now. :) .. and eDirectory is one incredibly great product. Netware != eDirectory ...

Re:Name matters

[walstib]

Simply misspelling something could abend the server

And any other OS has spell check on the command line and the ESP module loaded so it KNOWS what you intended to type?

Re:Name matters

[gregarican]

And any other OS rather than return a syntax error message actually locks up the entire OS?

Re:Name matters

[walstib]

sorry, i don't have time to tell you how stable our netware servers are, i have to go patch our windoze boxes; again...

Good idea

[parasonic]

From my experiences, I've noticed that it's never a good idea to change the name of a well-known product unless you have a GOOD grip on the market where people are forced to remember/figure out the new naming. Otherwise, a lot of times, mass confusion occurs when something's name is changed, and customers go and try to find another product because they haven't been told that the name changed and assume that it disappeared (or think that something else might change).

Props to Novell. This was the right move.

Re:Good idea

[Nuroman]

Didn't we go through this once before? Anyone remember Borland/Inprise/Borland??

Re:Good idea

[Mistshadow2k4]

"If you have to use Fedora (read: can't afford RedHat Enterprise Linux), you're feeling a second class citizen."

As a Debian-user, I'm surprised people who use all of those distros that have a pro version don't feel this way if they're using the free version - SuSE, Mepis, Mandriva, Xandros, etc. This is part of why I don't use any of those distos. Why pay for a pro edition when I can apt-get anything I want (or compile if you're a Gentoo-user)? Just because the distro is harder to use? Yeah, well, the *nix-beginner ratio of "no problems at all" to "some problems" is about 1:3 in my experience in chat and on message boards with these easy-to-use distros. (I could get into a much lengthier discussion on this subject, but that would be off-topic. More importantly, I need to go use the bathroom.)

Re:Good idea

[moranar]

Normally, what's lacking from the "free" editions are three things:
1) Official support, which you don't get either in debian.
2) Expensive proprietary software, which you don't get either in Debian.

It might be different for Fedora, but I don't think there's any other distinction in SuSE or Mandriva.

> Why pay for a pro edition when I can apt-get anything I want (or compile if you're a Gentoo-user)?
> Just because the distro is harder to use?

To support a distro, most of the times. To get official, quick support. Oh, and please get in the 21st century: we do have other usable package managers other than apt-get. Please inform yourself, and spread it. I'm sick of Debian fans comparing apt-get to the bare rpm when Yast, smart, urpmi and yum exist.

Re:Good idea

[moranar]

Third thing intentionally left blank :)

Some screenshots

[Zaitor]

http://scr3.golem.de/?d=0603/Novell_Next_Generatio n_Desktop&a=43914

Re:Some screenshots

[ylikone]

I love how distro's always have screenshots... when in fact they look the same as anything else running KDE or Gnome. It's ridiculous.

Re:Some screenshots

[MrDomino]

Ew. Just look at the Qt theme in that YaST screenshot. Maybe that'll get cleaned up before release, but I somehow doubt it, as themes take a while to create and there's no Qt equivalent of gtk-engine-qt. Could somebody please explain to me why Novell decided to ditch SuSE's long history of innovative KDE hacking altogether and hop on the GNOME bandwagon?

Re:Some screenshots

[Andrew Tanenbaum]

They have to use a crappy Qt theme, getting rid of its looks and its speed, so that it will fit in with GNOME programs.

Re:Some screenshots

[WindBourne]

Because the Ximian guys won the battle. It took several years, but apparently, they are now in control.

Re:Some screenshots

[Zaitor]

KDE is still there, just select it during install, and you get SuSE with KDE like you always have.

Re:Some screenshots

[Zaitor]

Quote from http://www.planetsuse.org/

Apparently there is some confusion caused by bad coverage: it's the successor of Novell Linux Desktop 9, a rebranded NLD 10 - if you like to say so - which gives you the choice to use either KDE or GNOME. As Nat Friedman stated to some press you will not lose functionality when you choose to use KDE: every desktop's applications will run on the other desktop, OpenOffice.org will integrate into both equally, desktop search is available under both and Xgl/Compiz (if supported on your graphic card) is desktop-agnostic too. Also the KDE desktop inherits from SUSE Linux 10.1 nice stuff developed at SUSE like kpowersave and knetworkmanager which other distributions maybe will only adopt in their next but one release.

Re:Some screenshots

[archen]

Well there's more to a release then just being KDE or Gnome. I bought SuSE 9.0 and I'd say that was the stepping block from me to Linux, despite having been "exposed" to RedHat for years. I found SuSE to be reliable and rather attractive by default. A far cry from the drab, devoid of any cheer, "put me out of my misery" looking bluecurve theme RedHat came up with. Now I see that SuSE also has a theme that evokes images of lifelessness.

It's hard enough to get people to use computers; making the colors and themes look uninviting is NOT helping. I'm not saying you need to do gumbyland like Microsoft, but just use nicer colors at least (and I'm talking defaults here because a lot of people will never touch the configuration). Ever since KDE3 came out, the KDE team has been making a more appealing desktop. Too bad SuSE has gone over to the dark side =P

Re:Some screenshots

[menkhaura]

Someone please mod this troll down.

Re:Some screenshots

[Fred_A]

Don't you want to know what colour the Novell icons are ?

What kind of geek are you ?

Re:Some screenshots

[VON-MAN]

Isn't that sweet; just echo some false old platitudes about KDE as a AC and bingo: 3 interesting.

Re:Some screenshots

[water-and-sewer]

This screenshot seems to indicate SUSE has copied the concept of the "phenomenally confusing start menu" from Windows XP. That new start menu in XP is the first thing I turn off. How is it possible that the folks at Novell decided to just chase Microsoft, bad ideas and all, "in the name of user familiarity" rather than make good design decisions on their own? This is one aspect I hope stays in the dumpster. Meanwhile, I'm happy with SUSE 9.2, which runs well on my PIII 555 Mhz Compaq (bought in 2000), so it's just academic to me anyway.

Re:Some screenshots

[iamwahoo2]

From what I have heard, Suse plans to continue supporting the KDE desktop. They just want Gnome to be the default for the "corporate" desktop. Apparently KDE eye candy is considered unprofessional.

I think that the Suse Enterprise Desktop is replacing the Novell Desktop Linux, not Suse Linux.

So Novell will have three Suse Linux products: Suse Linux, Suse Enterprise Server, and Suse Enterprise Desktop.

I plan to continue using Suse so long as their KDE support does not fall into disrepair.

Good brand recognition is important

[LardBrattish]

Just ask Borland/Inprise/Borland...

Re:Good brand recognition is important

[hackstraw]

Just ask Borland/Inprise/Borland...

Who?

Re:Good brand recognition is important

[Professor_UNIX]

I think he's referring to an old company that used to make really good compilers for Pascal and C but have become obsolete with Microsoft's dominance on the Windows platform with Visual Studio and GNU's dominance everywhere else. Could you believe that people actually once PAID for a C or Pascal compiler for their computer? How fucking silly is that?

Re:Good brand recognition is important

[LardBrattish]

Yep, it is silly. People still pay M$ for their crapola and Borland's superior tools languish in relative obscurity.

I have used Borland tools since the 1980s

I was a Delphi Beta tester

Delphi is running on my PC as I write this.

Re:Good brand recognition is important

[mnmn]

Just ask ftp.cdrom.com. One-stop shop for all Linux applications and games.

Re:Good brand recognition is important

[Orion Blastar]

How about Jack-In-The-Box/Montery Jack/Jack-In-The-Box?

Time/Warner/Turner/Time Warner/Time Warner/AOL/Time Warner?

Micro-Soft/Microsoft?

AT&T/South Western Bell/Bellsouth/SBC/AT&T?

US Robotics/3COM/US Robotics Modems?

Burger Chef/Carl Jr's/Hardees?

Re:Good brand recognition is important

[sirnuke]

I agree. Borland's free C++ compiler is excellent (and free!), even though it hasn't been updated since 2000.

Re:Good brand recognition is important

[ceeam]

Pray tell what's excellent about it? Crashing on "precompiled headers"? Slow executables? Incompatible .obj format?

(Though I've been programming with Delphi more than with any other single tool, I guess. Apart from obsolete editor it was pretty good. Though after v5 it stagnated.)

Re:Good brand recognition is important

[civilizedINTENSITY]

Borland's compilers kicked ass. They were blinding *fast* to compile compared to everyone else. Way back in the day Borland's SideKick was way cool too, as it was a TSR (terminate and stay resident), which allowed DOS to act like it could multitask. If only producing a better product for less correlated with corporate survival...if only life were so simple.

Honestly

[WebHostingGuy]

I didn't even know they dropped the SUSE name. I guess maybe they didn't market the other name very well. (They might want to try to brand SUSE a little better).

Re:Honestly

[rtb61]

Hopefully when they go back to the SuSe name they will also go back to being a bit more user friendly and drop the whole corporate attitude. Ubuntu was looking by far the more desirable choice. Perhaps Novell's lack of fiscal performance had a lot to do with running with the wrong kind of attitude and alienating a lot of potential customers and annoying actual customers.

Novel sux, SUSE sweet

[Anonymous Coward]

I have been a RedHat who...um, practioner...since 4.2 and through Fedora Core 4.

I just installed OpenSUSE 10.0 and am really enjoying it. I had to live with NLD 9 ona job last year, and it was OK. I preferred CentOS however.

But, SUSE 10 is solid, quick (once you turn off Beagle indexing in GNOME) and full featured.

Novell fails to inspire confidence. But, if they use the SUSE name, I can almost forget it is from Novell. I like that.

Just kill it already

[ylikone]

Go ahead Novell, kill it. You know that's what you are really good at. It is inevitable. RIP SUSE.

Re:Just kill it already

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not, it killed Wordperfect.

Brand recognision

[themushroom]

To be kinder than a previous post (but the "old and busted" sentiment remains, hee hee!), brand name recognision is there:

SuSE is the name of a Linux distro. People know it's a Linux distro. Calling it "Novelle" makes it sound like it's not a Linux distro.

Novelle is a networking systeme. Networking, not a desktop environment. SuSE may be able to be used in a networking environment but it's not a network environment in itself like Novelle.

Corporate vanity failed. The world is on the way to being right again. It'll be better when Earthlink spins off its dialup service, renames it back to Mindspring, and hires Americans to take the tech calls since the reason why the two merged was for Earthlink [good brand, lousy cust service] to obtain the customer service skillz of Mindspring [unknown brand, JD Powers-praised cust service].

Re:Brand recognision

[themushroom]

...okay, and doubling the customer base from 3mil to 6mil. There was that too. :)

To be expected.

[jd]

Brand Recognition Good, Brand Confusion Bad.

The big danger is that chopping and changing the brand name again will worsen the confusion, rather than clarify things. Those who have grown used to the Novell name may not be so happy with the SuSE name and may even reach the (incorrect) conclusion that it's a distribution fork. Remember, the enterprise market has been pumped up with the FUD that Linux is going to fork "some day".

The name-change to Novell was a Bad Idea (apologies to 1066 And All That), so it would seem that switching back to SuSE would be a Good Idea. There is also strong evidence that the Solaris/SunOS name-switching by Sun didn't kill the product line - although it definitely didn't help and was such a farce that it is still clearly remembered to this day.

Red Hat's method (Red Hat for the Enterprise, Fedora Core for the Real Users) is acceptable, though certainly not brilliant. It's one way of leveraging brand recognition for multiple brands. Works better in the car industry than the software industry, I suspect.

Re:To be expected.

[LardBrattish]

Red Hat's method (Red Hat for the Enterprise, Fedora Core for the Real Users) is acceptable, though certainly not brilliant.

That's a marketing disaster for Red Hat IMHO.

They had the undisputed #1 dominant brand & split off the goodwill generating bit and forced most of their loyal users to switch to a different distro and - get this - the users figured there were OTHER non Red Hat Linux distros and - shock horror - some of them did stuff better than Red Hat.

Brilliant move morons. 5 years ago Red Hat was the shoo in no brainer distro for servers everywhere. Today Suse is the preferred supplier to the NSW govt.

Re:To be expected.

[pembo13]

Disaster for you maybe. The goodwill part is still around. They just didn't want to offer support for it, so they gave it a different name. It is not a different distribution.

Re:To be expected.

[LardBrattish]

Disaster for you maybe. The goodwill part is still around. They just didn't want to offer support for it, so they gave it a different name. It is not a different distribution.

IIRC at the time they did this there was a semi-revolt by some of the Red Hat community who didn't like the change.

In Australia you used to be able to buy Red Hat from Newsagents for a very reasonable price. It was available, THERE, when you wanted an up-to-date distro to put on your PC & they got awesome market presence as a result.

Now hardly anybody uses Redhat anymore and a reasonably sizeable %age don't use Fedora either. I moved to Gentoo & I have a DVD of Suse waiting patiently for my new laptop to arrive. If they'd kept the Red Hat/ Red Hat Enterprise branding or even made it Red Hat Community and Red Hat Enterprise they'd have kept a lot of users they've lost. The Joe Sixpacks who would dutifully go down every few months & buy the update for $20 from their local Newsagent but now go & buy a copy of a Linux magazine with a different distro each month.

The managers who used to think Linux was Redhat. Community members know what Fedora is but if Linux is going to really hit the mainstream it's crucial we do a better job of marketing than this. You don't rebrand a successful product without backing it up with a huge marketing budget.

OLD NEWS!!

[peterpressure]

Errrr.... Weve been using the Novell SUSE enterprise desktop where I work for ages. Dunno where this "New Name" came from but they sold it to us awhile ago when we paid for SUSE Desktop and Zenworks... We paid a lot so i hope we didnt get bilked...

Re:OLD NEWS!!

[Jahf]

as far as I remember, Novell only released their desktop product as Novell Linux Desktop, which was based on SuSE Enterprise Linux. They kept the SuSE naming for the business products.

Re:OLD NEWS!!

[peterpressure]

yea, i actually ment 2 be more sarcastic then informative... we only received the copies recently (month or so)... ;p

I gotta say this for SuSE

[StressGuy]

While I use Ubuntu on my "home office" computer, I think SuSE is the current front-runner for the home computer desktop OS. I've got SuSE 9.1 on our home computer for the wife and kids to use, it's just a slick package.

Given the choice, it's the first one I would recommend to relatives.

Re:I gotta say this for SuSE

[Zanth_]

I use Ubuntu as well and I'm curious as to why you would go with SuSE over Ubuntu for home use? What does it offer over Ubuntu? I would like to migrate over to linux as soon as possible and if SUSE will make the transition even marginally easier, then I'm all for it.

Dear Novell People,

[dartarrow]

I have a stuffed penguin with the name 'Novell' written on it's belly which I purchased from your staff at an IT conference. Now, due to the name change, my dear Novell Tux is considered worthless and damaged goods. As the damage is caused by your part, I expect to receive full compensation in form of one (1) stuffed penguin sized 100" by 40" which is 10 times the size of my Novell Tex(tm). The increase in size is requested to remind you that what seems like a simple change of name is in fact psychologically damaging to a nerd. Upon receiving the new Suse Tux, I will destroy my Novell Tux to eliminate the chance of any other geek suffering from the same trauma I have. I expect you to comply with my wishes within 30 days from today. Failing which you will hear from my whose amazing achievements can be seen here.

Sincerely,

Me

Re:Dear Novell People,

[alfrin]

Now, due to the name change, my dear Novell Tux is considered worthless and damaged goods.
I take it you are new to the software business.

Makes perfect sense to me

[Black Copter Control]

People who want Linux will recognize the SUSE name.

For people who want Novell, you can sell them "Novell Directory Server on SuSe Enterprise", or whatever.

I think that they'll really get the best of both worlds with the new setup.

Misleading subject

[houghi]

The subject makes you believe that Novell had dropped the SUSE name and returns to it now. That is not completely acurate. The SUSE (Not SuSE anymore) name was always there as a distro and at no point was there any thought about dropping that name.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop is not the same as the SUSE Linux you can download for free. By naming it is does show, again, Novells comitment with Linux.

Oh and just so you are all clear on names: SUSE is the distribution, openSUSE is the comunity. SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server are the products they sell for real.

Re:Misleading subject

[rm69990]

SUSE had a product they called SUSE Desktop 1.0, and it was for businesses. Novell released the next version and renamed it Novell Linux Desktop. Now the next name is SUSE once again.

Ha!

[recharged95]

A light went off in the company. Someone must have said, "Why do we have OpenSuSE and NLD and OES, SLES instead of just SuSE Linux?

At least MS (Windows ) and Apple (OSX ) got it right. And I mean the cute code name stuff in all Linux distros is starting to get out of hand.

Aside from RedHat, you guys got to admit SuSE has a lot of potential (i.e. OpenSuSE and SuperSuSE specifically).

Re:Ha!

[Bull999999]

At least MS (Windows ) and Apple (OSX ) got it right.

I'm not sure if MS did get it right. At first, they used letters (NT) for business OS and years (95, 98) for home OS. Then it switched to year (2000) for business OS and letters (ME) for home OS. Then MS combined the business and home OSes into a single codebase (which I think was a good idea) and called it XP, but kept their server OSes in year naming format.

Re:Ha!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah... The cute codenames in all Linux distros are getting to me, too. I mean, what's up with Slackware 10.2? When will it end?

Re:Ha!

[0racle]

When it goes to 11.

Re:HA HA!

[Bull999999]

I still won't use it!

What if they rename it to iWindows BSD Professional?

Rose by any other name.

[MrCopilot]

If you knew SUSE like I know Novell....*

*After coming up with 12 different endings for this joke I leave it open for debate.

Come on now...

[technoextreme]

I have a stuffed penguin with the name 'Novell' written on it's belly which I purchased from your staff at an IT conference. Now, due to the name change, my dear Novell Tux is considered worthless and damaged goods. As the damage is caused by your part, I expect to receive full compensation in form of one (1) stuffed penguin sized 100" by 40" which is 10 times the size of my Novell Tex(tm). The increase in size is requested to remind you that what seems like a simple change of name is in fact psychologically damaging to a nerd. Upon receiving the new Suse Tux, I will destroy my Novell Tux to eliminate the chance of any other geek suffering from the same trauma I have. I expect you to comply with my wishes within 30 days from today. Failing which you will hear from my whose amazing achievements can be seen here. [com.com]

You can now sell it now because it's a collectors item. Make some mola from some nerd.

Linux and Solid Desktop Contender...

[OSgod]

... in the same sentence just seems not right.

NLD vs Suse Desktop vs SLES

[TheNinjaroach]

Novell Linux Desktop was their attempt at an enterprise-grade desktop OS.

SuSE Linux was them continuing the SuSE distro. While it *could* be used in the enterprise, that's not how they were pushing it.

SuSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) was their server.

They never offered a Linux server OS w/ the Novell name on it. Now it appears they're trying to be a bit more consistant with the naming scheme. NLD and SuSE Linux were two different beasts all together. I had much luck with SuSE 9 while NLD 9 gave me many headaches - they should have been nearly identical but weren't.

Maybe they're simply dropping the Novell Linux Desktop distro?

Re:NLD vs Suse Desktop vs SLES

[cpthowdy]

"They never offered a Linux server OS w/ the Novell name on it."

Feel free to take a look a NOVELL OPEN ENTERPRISE SERVER.

"Maybe they're simply dropping the Novell Linux Desktop distro?"

No they're not dropping it, this whole friggin article was about them CHANGING THE NAME of said distro.

Re:NLD vs Suse Desktop vs SLES

[sconeu]

Also Novell Small Business Server.

Re:NLD vs Suse Desktop vs SLES

[rm69990]

SUSE Desktop 1.0 was renamed Novell Linux Desktop, now being renamed back to SUSE. It was not an incredibly popular product, which is probably why you don't remember it.

Re:turn off the lights

[wclacy]

Most Government agencies have not switched from Novell products because Novell products Work better and cost less.

What do most Government agencies use Novell products for? Most use mainly File and Print Servers as well as Novells Directory.
Novell has the Best File Server, The best Print Server, and the Best Directory of any Company and any product!
Many of their other Products could also be considered better than the rest.
ZenWorks is much better than Microsofts SMS! What do you want people to switch to? Microsoft?

The company I work for is in the process of switching over to Microsoft for File and print.
We are switching from Netware 5/6 servers to a Windows 2003 Cluster.

For this switch my company has paid millions to Microsoft and in the end we are going to have less functionality and it will take more time to manage than what we could do with Novell 10 years ago!!!

The reason that Microsoft can sell it's product is because they make their pitch to the CIO of a company, and tell the non technical CIO how much money he will save. (They don't tell him about the increased down time and increased time to manage and patch. Or the hundreds of thousand of dollars he will have to pay to 3rd party software venders just to make the crap work.)

I have talked to some IS staff at various places and have heard the same story from all of them:
Microsoft came and talked to the CIO and gave him a deal on Microsoft products, But Only if they agreed not to renew thier contract with Novell.
In most cases they were willing to give them Microsoft software to replace their Novell software for pennies on the dollar. Microsoft looses nothing since they were already getting the same amount of money for Windows and office. But now they are able to use their Monopoly on the desktop to try and push Novell out of business.

I have been supporting Netware, windows, Linux, and Unix since the early 1990s and I have not found anything that works as good as Novell's products.

Re:HA HA!

[porl]

fair enough, don't. not sure why you think that everyone on here needs to know that though. i'm sure not one person on here could care less about what i will or won't use either.

Take a look...

[soren42]

There's official Novell screenshots (a nice sneak preview) online at http://www.novell.com/products/desktop/preview.htm l.

It went something like this...

[jav1231]

"After discovering that our customers didn't know WTF Novell Desktop Linux was, but oddly enough had heard of SuSE, we're changing our Linux line back to SuSE!"

Re:It went something like this...

[skogs]

I agree with this.

Novel does indeed have excellent name recognition: unfortunately the name recognition has been tainted over the last 12 years by people struggling to migrate AWAY from the platform and on to this rediculous microsoft BS.

Thier memories do include Novel as being a necessary and integral part of their windows installs and such, and it was bomb-resistant and sturdy, it was not a happy happy taffy eating time.

We've spent 10 years migrating away from this and now you want us to migrate back? WTF?!

And my parent post is right: SUSE does have a fairly strong name recognition in the tech field, and it isn't a negative one, in fact it it not even remotely negative: it is purely positive, and slightly intriguing.

Positive and intriguing is far better than bad nightmares for me.

I'll take Suse product names over Novel any day.

And yes, I like Solaris better than SunOS too. Its more classy.

Re:It went something like this...

[jav1231]

And it's not so much that "SuSE" is a better name than "Novell" so much as SuSE is recognized as the Linux distro. Novell = Linux distro just doesn't exist in anyone's mind yet.

Re:Brand recognision -

[PoconoPCDoctor]

It's Recognition!

and

Novell - (sans E)

Not so Insightfully moderated by spelling charlatans!

Hmph! Please add this post to my next Meta-Moderator list - thank you very much!

You call that a name?

[transami]

It doesn't even fit in a normal size mouth. "SUSE Linux Enterprise What"? I mean really, could the name be any more convoluted? From the other posts it is obvious there are plenty of Linux geeks supporting this, but to the lay user this is just garble. What is a SUSE, anyway? At least people KNOW the name Novell. Many have nostalgic feelings for those early network days. So what's wrong with "Novell Desktop" or if you insist on the lizard, "SUSE Desktop from Novell".

K.I.S.S.

Re:You call that a name?

[Kelson]

"SUSE Linux Enterprise What"?

I can think of a whole SLEW of names better than that...

Pronuciation?

[goodie3shoes]

It's embarassing to be chatting with fellow geeks at the LUG meeting and mispronounce distro names - is it "Suzy/Susie" or "sooz" (rhymes with "muse")? And Ubuntu - is is "yew-bun-two" or "ooh-bun-two"?

Re:Pronuciation?

[drewness]

SuSE - zu-zuh
Ubuntu - oo-BOON-too

Re:Pronuciation?

[DragonTHC]

I say SuSE like John Philip Sousa -> Sooza

Re:Pronuciation?

[StressGuy]

I just say S-U-S-E....like E-I-E-I-O

Easier to spell....

Re:Pronuciation?

[nbritton]

um... what do you mean? :-)

--
BSD Podcasts @ http://bsdtalk.blogspot.com/

Re:Pronuciation?

[zenmojodaddy]

I tend to pronounce both as 'Not Slackware. Meh.'

Re:Pronuciation?

[denidoom]

Reminds me of people pronouncing Moog as Mewg, rather than as in Vouge.

Support Confusion

[Skewray]

When I used to use SuSE, I went to the SuSE website for support, such as using bugzilla. With the switch to Novell, I had to wander around for hours in Novell's mazelike web pages to find, register, and use the same set of support utilities. Will I have migrate back to SuSE for the next distribution? Maybe half here and half there? What a mess they are making of this. Reminds me of Red Hat's mess when they stopped supporting the desktop, and then created Fedora some months later. A lot of users, myself included, switched to SuSE then.

On the other hand, I have found SuSE/Novell/whatever much more pleasant to use than Red Hat. The Novell bugzilla response has been particularly good.

Heh!

[jd]

Oh, Java used to be branded Oak, when it was aimed at household appliances.

I'd have to agree...

[jd]

...that they would have done better to use a different name for the enterprise edition and keep the goodwill name for themselves. Fedora Core isn't really a different distro - they just used the fedora name.

Fedora?

[mnmn]

Are you kidding me? Fedora was a bad joke on the opensource community which gave birth to, and continues to feed redhat.

Fedora is throwing the scraps to the dogs. The whole reason why anyone would choose redhat or suse is theyre enterprise and have been well standardized. You can much more easily run Oracle, DB2, Domino, Websphere etc on these two (as certified) than on slackware, debian, knoppix, gentoo, mandrake. Say you own a company and need an oracle server. You pick up a cheap server with good raid disks and install redhat and suse, then oracle. Even if youre a slackware or gentoo fan, you'll have to use redhat or suse to avoid the headaches.

Now how easy is it to install those enterprise commercial apps on fedora?

What do you mean?

[Ignominious Cow Herd]

...I thought Inprise was a great name. :)

All the screenshots appear to be GNOME

[StressGuy]

I mean, I like GNOME, but it's hard to imagine SuSE without KDE.

Re:All the screenshots appear to be GNOME

[M1FCJ]

The screenshots were truly disgusting. I wouldn't have gnome screenshots anywhere near for an eye-candy race. Argh... I need a moment-of-zen image right now.

Re:Gnome, %@$%!

[nbritton]

What's up with the Gnome desktop on SuSE Linux? Gnome might have been ok for Novell Linux Desktop but once you switch the name to SuSE it better default to KDE.

SuSE == KDE
KDE == SuSE

enough said!

--
BSD Podcasts @ http://bsdtalk.blogspot.com/

Show me don't tell me.

[jbn-o]

Novell has made a couple of choices which don't display a clear committment to formats one can play with FLOSS.

Recently they started an audio show distributed online and this show is encoded exclusively in MP3 format. I wrote to them suggesting that they upload a WAV or FLAC file to archive.org and let archive.org make derivative files in a variety of formats including Ogg Vorbis, thus simultaneously offloading bandwidth and hosting resources while allowing people to hear their show without necessarily giving up their software freedom.

Now their "narrated screencam" is distributed exclusively in RealMedia format, for which there is no FLOSS player. This doesn't have to be this way—one could distribute the same movie in Ogg Theora+Ogg Vorbis format as well as their (apparently) preferred non-free format.

By contrast the Fedora project, York Student television (including Fluendo's Java player; I don't yet know if this will work with the Free Java software, but it's a handy way to point someone to a URL and let them watch the show) and a number of others distribute audio in Ogg Vorbis and movies with audio in Ogg Theora+Vorbis one can play on any platform using Free Software. There are even plugins for proprietary players to play these files (like illiminable's Windows Media player software).

Red Hat changes name too

[theendlessnow]

After coming out with:

Red Hat Advanced Server

Followed by:

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Advanced Server

Red Hat proudly announces the availabity of:

Red Hat Ultra Enterprise Linux Super Advanced Server Extra Value Edition

Or RHUELSASEVE for short.

You'll still be able get their workstation product as well:

Red Hat Ultra Enterprise Linux Super Advanced Workstation Plus

Or just say RHUELSAWP!!

KDE supported on SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop

[billybob2]

KDE will be equally supported on SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop. Stephan Binner, a Novell engineer who is also a lead KDE developer, confirmed this on his blog.

It sucks (literally!)

[Anonymous Coward]

If you read it in french, it means "sucks".

Almost as funny as naming a cara Nova which means 'doesnt go' in spanish.
Or my next door neighbor a fwe years ago, a charming german lady named Mrs. Kuntz.

I think they might reconsider SUSE in french speaking countries/

Re:It sucks (literally!)

[Fred_A]

Actually you'd need two "s" (or a "c") for it to sound like "suck" (it would be more like the imperative).

As it is, what it most reminds the French of is probably Suze, a local liquor which probably isn't sold much outside of France. See http://www.suze.com/ (flash site and in French).

This being said for some reason even when SuSE was German it didn't seem to be used much in France, people ran RH (in corporate settings), Debian (when the requirements were less formal) or Mandrake (on the desktop).

It might have changed lately.

Re:turn off the lights

[peterpressure]

keep drinking the novell cool aid buddy, guzzle guzzle...

I have used it.

[ACMENEWSLLC]

I have Novell Linux 10.0 installed. I ran RedHat from version 6 on to 9. Most of our RedHat servers ended life at version 8 and switched over to Mandrake 10.1o. Aka Mandriva 10.1, aka Madriva 2005?

Novell makes it almost impossible to get the free download of version 10.0, but if you are patient you can get it. Took me about 2 weeks to get the ISOs from their FTP server.

I was looking at Novell's Distro to provide DNS/DHCP. As a desktop, I was rather impressed. What I think is missing from most distro's is a central place to manage the system. Novell/SuSe has YaST which blows away apt-get, RPM, Urpmi, and has all the configuration settings in one well defined application with a constant feel. And unlike Urpmi and many of these tools, it actually works right out of the box. The live update works very well and is very user friendly. It handles Kernel updates and walks you through it.

Novell/SuSe has Ximian Evolution which looks very much like Outlook and has Exchange integration. http://helpdesk.its.uiowa.edu/exchange/ximian.htm

This is one awesome distro. But it comes at a cost. It really is bloated inside of VMWare. It seems to lock up every 5 seconds for half a second. It is not what I am looking for in a DHCP/DNS server.

I almost went with Trustix, but wasn't sure of it's future. BSD seemed a good choice for this, but as everyone knows BSD is dead :)

We use Zenworks, Netware, eDirectory, and many other tools from Novell. But we are no loyalist. We are moving away from their solutions due to the lack of direction at Novell.

Re:Name matters... Mame Natters

[davidsyes]

Sovell? Nuse? Nah, their market share would REALLY crash thru the floor...

Support Confusion - Novell Site

[krischik]

I have written to them more then once that I found the "new" Novel site crap. I like your description: mazelike! You click in circles and never get anywhere.

Of corse I never got an answer!

Ahh, the other thing that has upset me: I18N support with Novell is not was good as it used to be with SuSE.

Martin

Re:Support Confusion - Novell Site

[Skewray]

My experience with i18n is that scim actually works now in KDE, most of the time. I never got it, or any other i18n input method to work in SuSE 9.1 (probably my fault). I was so frustrated that I purchases a Mac just for i18n, and now I have two operating systems that both sort of work some of the time.

But will it be SuSE 10.0?

[Kelson]

OpenSuSE aside, will they actually call anything SuSE Linux 10?

Products seem to jump away from version numbers right around the time they hit that second digit. Red Hat renamed their main distro as Fedora Core and started over at 1 rather than release a Red Hat 10. Mandrake and Conectiva got up to 10, merged, renamed themselves Mandriva, then switched over to yearly vintages.

And let's not even get started on Mac OS X, which technically has a version number (two of them if you count "X"), but hides it in the fine print behind names of cats.

Re:But will it be SuSE 10.0?

[sbryant]

You must have been asleep, or hiding under a rock!

10.0 was released last year already. They're currently in the beta phase for 10.1, and should start with RCs for it in a few weeks.

They certainly don't appear to be shying away from using the number ten.

-- Steve

Now that we have this straight again:

[Hosiah]

Can somebody please tell me whether it's pronounced "Soos" or "SOO-zee" in English??? Just when I think I have it right, somebody comes along and corrects me. About ten times, now.

Re:Now that we have this straight again:

[aurelian]

No the e should definitely be short, so I tend to say something like 'soozeh'. Germans say something like 'sooseh'.

Re:turn off the lights

[Lumpy]

You sir are 100% correct. Novell servers have ALWAYS kicked the crap out of windows for Dos and windows file sharing, printing and directory services from day one. The Active Directory fanboys at work have never seen it work or had to work with the novell product before.

BUT, Novell in their foray into linux land made a fatal mistake. They should have taken the SuSE propduct they were selling and offered a "home edition" for 100% free to home users and non-profit companies. Redhat became King fast because everyone was using their distro. Hell before they closed up the free distros almost everyone who was in linux was running RedHAt 9.

Novell needs to do the same. give us iso downloads on the website give out free cd's at all the shows to everyone, etc...

they NEED to get the Os out there so people look at it. They need to send freebie discs of their enterprise product to major company IT departments so they can look at it.

Re:HA HA!

[somersault]

I care what, or at least *why* people choose a certain distro over another, it's good to keep informed. But as far as just saying will/wont use without a reason, you're right :)

Re:turn off the lights

[wclacy]

It is not a matter of "drinking the cool aid" It is a maatter of which software makes it easier to do my job. I work with this stuff at least 40 hours every week and I am telling you that Novell software gets the job done faster and with fewer problems.

Novell says "soos"

[pkbarbiedoll]

I attended an official Novell SuSE training class last year and the rep corrected our using "soo-see", "zu-zuh" and other variants.

The correct pronunciation according to Novell is "soos".

Love SUSE, indifferent towards Novell.

[Aslan72]

It's a good choice for a branding.

I think what SUSE has going for it is the know how of a corporation that has done work on OS useability for a while and offers them some good input on how to do the GUI really well.

Coming from a IIS world and starting a switch to Apache, we've had nothing but good experiences with SUSE and I would recommend it to anyone...

--pete

Novelle...

[Phormion]

...is a brand of mineral water in Finland: http://www.hartwallnovelle.fi/ :D. Not quite the same as Novell.

Re:turn off the lights

[wclacy]

Of course your Windows boxes don't have time to crash because you have to reboot them every 2 weeks because of security patches... And if you don't patch them....

When I worked for a local Goverment entity we had 90 Novell servers and 19 Windows servers. We missed a patch and along came a virus and all 19 Windows servers would no longer boot past a blue screen.

Nothing like rebuilding 19 servers in one day!!

As for linux servers I agree they are rock solid. The main problem I have with linux servers is that they do not have the tools to effectivly manage users, groups, and permisssions. Unless you can Recommend an integrated management utility that allows me to Create users, Assign File rights, Assign Directory rights, Use plugins to manage other user attributes such as E-mail, or chat, etc. Oh and it would be nice if it was intuitive and easy enough that I could teach my Mom to use it. After all you shouldn't have to pay highly trained people to do Simple user management.

I also dislike that standard Unix file permissions. Read, Write, and Execute are just plainly too little. And the only way to assign multiple users or groups rights to the filesystem is with an ACL that was implemented as an afterthought and doesn't have very good support in most unix tools. Sure rwx may work fine for a web server, but not for a File server.

By the way with Novell's open enterprise server you can use Novell's NSS which gives you all the functionality you need in the filesystem. And you can use IManager or Console One to manage everything.

I am not going to say that Novell's software is perfect. Some of their newer products that begin with an "I" havn't been as stable as their older products. I think that their stability will get better with their switch to linux having had to completely rewrite many of their products from scratch, instead of building on their old software.

Novell should be realeasing a bunch of new Software this month at their Annual Brainshare.

I Wish could go to Brainshare. But we are in the process of migrating to the dark side and they will not be sending us this year.

Re:turn off the lights

[ElleyKitten]

>>They should have taken the SuSE propduct they were selling and offered a "home edition" for 100% free to home users and non-profit companies.

It's called openSUSE