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SUSE Linux Becomes openSUSE

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the radical-new-direction dept.

houghi writes "With the anouncement of the release of SUSE Linux 10.2 Alpha 2 there is also an anouncement that SUSE Linux will be renamend to openSUSE. A very logical step to clear things up. The name went from S.u.S.E over SuSE to SUSE Linux and for many people it was not clear what the name realy was. It also points out the importance Novell gives the the openness of the whole openSUSE project."

55 comments

  1. I could swear that... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I could swear that it's been called that for a little while now. I downloaded it a few weeks ago, and it was reffered to as "openSUSE" on their website then. Old news?

    1. Re:I could swear that... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      The marketing hacks finally figured what the engineers and the users been doing all along, so it was time to send of a news statement to the wire.

    2. Re:I could swear that... by Chaotic+Spyder · · Score: 2, Interesting

      yes yes.. It has been using the same name since 10.0

      --
      Losers whine about their best, Winners go home to fuck the prom queen
  2. This doesn't affect SLED and SLES by michael+path · · Score: 5, Informative

    Summary is a bit misleading....

    With current naming we experienced confusion internally and externally
    between the project openSUSE and the distribution created there. And
    especially with the new naming of our Linux business products (SUSE
    Linux Enterprise 10) the differentiation between our business products
    and community/consumer product is not intuitive. Therefor the upcoming
    community/consumer version will be named openSUSE 10.2. We'll
    implement first name changes with Alpha 3 starting directly after
    Alpha 2 and will have a fully renamed distribution with Beta 1 in Nov.

    The SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 and SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 are keeping their names.

    This seems to illustrate yet again the issues Novell has had for the last decade with their product marketing - how can they develop brand loyalty when they keep changing the product names?

    Had they left the Novell Linux Desktop name and replaced the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server with Novell Linux Server or Novell Linux Enterprise Server, wouldn't they have been able to distinguish the community versions against the enterprise versions much easier?

    Novell's seemingly quarterly change in nomenclature and direction is baffling.

    1. Re:This doesn't affect SLED and SLES by joib · · Score: 1


      Had they left the Novell Linux Desktop name and replaced the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server with Novell Linux Server or Novell Linux Enterprise Server, wouldn't they have been able to distinguish the community versions against the enterprise versions much easier?


      Yes, but then they would have thrown out the brand SUSE had built around their enterprise versions.

      Most people probably never knew what "Novell Linux Desktop" was.

    2. Re:This doesn't affect SLED and SLES by Azarael · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Which was why in my mind they should have just kept the Ximian name in the first place.

    3. Re:This doesn't affect SLED and SLES by badfish99 · · Score: 3, Funny

      What's worse: everyone knew what "Novell" was, and didn't want it.

    4. Re:This doesn't affect SLED and SLES by rowama · · Score: 1

      We'll implement first name changes with Alpha 3 starting directly after
      Alpha 2 and will have a fully renamed distribution with Beta 1 in Nov.

      Is it just me or is the above wording confusing?

      Alpha 3 => open [i.e., first name]
      Alpha 4 ... time passes ...
      Beta 1 => openSUSE [i.e., full name]

    5. Re:This doesn't affect SLED and SLES by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What?

    6. Re:This doesn't affect SLED and SLES by Mini-Geek · · Score: 1
      how can they develop brand loyalty when they keep changing the product names?
      Yeah, it worked so bad for m/b/Phoenix/Phoenix Browser/Firebird/Firebird browser/Mozilla Firebird/Firefox...

      p.s. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Mozilla_Fi refox#Naming
      --
      do {print "Mini-Geek Rules!\n";}
      until ($TheEndOfTheWorld);
    7. Re:This doesn't affect SLED and SLES by michael+path · · Score: 2, Interesting

      That's a lot different - most people were first introduced to Firefox, not its previous incarnations. Moreover, most people didn't have to invest money or remarkable effort to find out what Firefox was all about - being a free download for Windows and all.

      If a product is important enough, it can obviously survive a change in name. I have a hard time believing that the latest Novell line of Linux solutions are going to prove as important or interesting as Firefox has unless it becomes THE flagship OS for new servers and desktops.

    8. Re:This doesn't affect SLED and SLES by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I thought it was enough that their "community/consumer" product shipped with KDE by default and their "business" product was full of gnome garbage by default. How could ANYONE confuse the two?

  3. If they changed the name... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why is THIS on the opensuse site?

    Download SUSE Linux
    Get the last released version or current development build of SUSE Linux.

    SUSE Linux 10.2 Alpha 2 was released on Thursday, 13th of July.

    1. Re:If they changed the name... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is because the openSUSE naming convention is in alpha stages. The website will be updated once it reaches beta.

  4. That clears everything up. by rowama · · Score: 3, Funny

    I now feel better about my decision to consider possibly maybe eventually switching to openSuSE.

    1. Re:That clears everything up. by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      What are you switching away from?

      Not trying to start a distri war, just curious about the migrations in the Linux world.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    2. Re:That clears everything up. by ClickOnThis · · Score: 1

      I now feel better about my decision to consider possibly maybe eventually switching to openSuSE.

      I'm absolutely certain that I could possibly maybe consider the notion that perhaps you haven't actually made any decision to feel better about in the first place.

      --
      If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
    3. Re:That clears everything up. by rowama · · Score: 0

      After considering it (briefly), I'm not switching. Debian has been good to me over countless installs and with 8 systems currently living productive, healthy lives (including two gui desktop Xandros systems).

      I should have been clear that I was joking about the name change not making much difference -- to me, at least. AFAIK, SuSE has a faithful following based on technical and aesthetic attributes of the distro, not the name. This name-changing exercise is a result of the misdirected priorities typical of the corporate marketing.

  5. What are the ramifications? by kimvette · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Does this mean that the following will no longer be bundled and have to be downloaded separately?

      - Real Player
      - Planmaker
      - Textmaker
      - Java (and dependent packages)
      - Opera]
      - ATI drivers
      - NVidia drivers

    Yeah, I know, CD #6 contains some of the extras, but it sure is nice to get them all on one DVD like the retail SuSE has offered. It's more convenient than OpenSuSE has been.

    I've been buying the retail version of SuSE for a few years now, and really like it, even with the problems the distribution has had from time to time. I hope that this move doesn't change anything for the worse.

    --
    The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
    1. Re:What are the ramifications? by Mini-Geek · · Score: 1
      - ATI drivers
      - NVidia drivers
      IIRC from when I got SuSE 9, it did not include the nVidia drivers, and therefore I doubt it would include ATI drivers, so these haven't changed because it's open.
      --
      do {print "Mini-Geek Rules!\n";}
      until ($TheEndOfTheWorld);
    2. Re:What are the ramifications? by kimvette · · Score: 1

      You may be right, I know I've downloaded the drivers via YOU on both versions, but don't deal with it much since most of our systems have ATI cards still, and with ATI I stick with the open source drivers because the open source drivers actually work. On the Nvidia systems we do have I do use the proprietary drivers, but I don't remember whether they were included on the SuSE 10 disc or if I had to download those via YOU.

      --
      The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
    3. Re:What are the ramifications? by kirun · · Score: 1

      In SUSE 10, the drivers are installed via YOU (the 'fetchnvidia' script), in theory. However, it didn't work for me (I think that nVidia's download servers were sucking when I tried), but the manual install is pretty painless as long as you're able to read instructions, and remember which one's which between the generic nvidia and official nvidia when telling sax to switch drivers.

      --
      I'm scared of numbers that can't be written as a fraction. It's an irrational fear.
    4. Re:What are the ramifications? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No product code changes from prior...just branding change.

      What what I heard, they felt there was still sufficient confusion on behalf of folks who had difficulty differentiating between SUSE Linux (community release, regardless of packaged or downloaded product) and SUSE Linux Enterprise (enterprise release).

      Should note another easy way to tell the difference between the community release and the enterprise release is that the community release ALWAYS has a minor number (e.g. 9.1, 9.2, 9.3, 10.0, 10.1) and is never identified solely by the major version number. The enterprise has traditionally been based on the 2nd release from the community for the major release (SL 8.1 -> SLES 8, SL 9.1 -> SLES 9, SL 10.1 -> SLES 10). The enterprise version is NEVER identified with a minor version number, and only by it's major version number (e.g. SLES 8, SLES 9, SLES 10).

      And finally the Desktop product has been named similarly to the server (SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop, vs. earlier versions such as SUSE Linux Desktop and Novell Linux Desktop). So all in all, despite many false starts/mistakes, I think they're FINALLY on the right track here.

      And Novell doesn't distribute ATI/nVidia drivers now, however they do provide methods to easily get them (see previous posting about their 'driver delivery service' which helps with proprietary drivers, such as ATIs and nVidias). I further believe that they still intend to sell the community release with some add'l add-ons in your local computer store (much like they do today), as well as provide eval versions and the pure open source version (without the proprietary extras)...all based on customer demand and to give them the choice they desire.

  6. CapitalizAtion by Kelson · · Score: 1

    I missed the whole SuSE --> SUSE switch.

    It's probably just as well -- mixed case tends to confuse people. Look at all the people who still write about "FireFox" (with the second F capitalized) instead of "Firefox."

    Anyway, the good thing about this name change for the free version is that it'll match the domain name of the website!

    1. Re:CapitalizAtion by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      It's probably just as well -- mixed case tends to confuse people. Look at all the people who still write about "FireFox" (with the second F capitalized) instead of "Firefox."

      Apart from trying to launch the firefox executable from a Linux command-line, when have people not been able to locate/discuss/refer to said browser by (not) capitalizing a particular letter? Does it really matter? To what "confusion" are you referring? Have you honestly met people who ask you about "FireFox" and, upon receiving you comments re: "Firefox", are completely lost?

      Incredible.

    2. Re:CapitalizAtion by Ant+P. · · Score: 1

      Incorrectly uppercasing first letters of syllables tends to make you look as clueless and illiterate as you would by uppercasing every second letter.

    3. Re:CapitalizAtion by dhfx · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The lower-case 'u' came about because in German it's the abbreviation for 'und' - the equivalent of an ampersand. So when you see SuSE you can think S&SE.

    4. Re:CapitalizAtion by jtobin · · Score: 4, Funny

      Yeah, capitalization is important. It's the difference between "I helped Uncle Jack off his horse" and "I helped uncle jack off his horse".

    5. Re:CapitalizAtion by Kelson · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The "confusion" I was referring to was in terms of spelling. FireFox is misspelled. Firefox is spelled correctly. When people are used to mixed case, they can get confused as to whether a particular name is spelled with conventional (just one capital) rules, camel case, rules from another language (as another poster pointed out, the original S.u.S.E. capitalization comes from German). "I know one of the letters in SUSE isn't capitalized, which one is it?"

      When I'm writing formally, I still can't decide what to do with names like iMac, eBay, etc. at the beginning of a sentence -- and those are names I know how to spell.

      So no, I'm not saying that people calling it "FireFox" get confused by people calling it "Firefox." You could probably write "Fyrefawkes" and still get the idea across. But the large number of mixed-case names in the computing field has led to confusion about how the name is spelled.

      As it is, I think making the "open" part lowercase is still asking for trouble, but "openSUSE" is at least a bit more standard than "openSuSE." Me, I would have gone for "OpenSUSE" or even "Open SUSE."

    6. Re:CapitalizAtion by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's the beauty of the GNU/Linux, BSD, Unix, -insert your non-microsoft/DOS like OS here- world.

      On Windows there is NO DiFeReNcE!!!

  7. Exactly. by Jack+Johnson · · Score: 2, Informative

    As usual, Novell lacks focus and can't figure out how to name or version their products properly.

    Forgive me if I'm wrong about some of these. I work with these products every day and I don't even know exactly how to differentiate everything. In the last few years we've had...

    -NNLS (Novel Nterprise Linux Services), a package of Novell Services like eDirectory for use on Linux.

    -OES (Open Enterprise Server Linux and Open Enterprise Server NetWare) They are both called OES by Novell. The NetWare version is basically NetWare 6.5 and the original Linux version was SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9. Obviously, OES L and OES N are very different. I think Novell used this naming to give people a false sense of security in sticking with NetWare based systems a little longer while they got their Linux act together.

    -SLES (SUSE Linux Enterprise Server) - SLES and OES are used interchangably by Novell employees and some documentation even though SLES didn't have the components on disk to be OES until SLES 9.

    -NLD9 (Novell Linux Desktop 9), based on SUSE 9.

    -SLED (SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop), the new name for NLD and when it switched to SUSE 10.

    -SUSE 10 OSS (The open sourced version of SUSE 10), this is now openSUSE it seems.

    Before this we had...

    -DirXML which became Identity Manager overnight with a major revision.

    -NDS, NDS 8 and eDirectory 8 and eDirectory. eDirectory 8.5 is newer than NDS 8, it's module version is v85.x versus v8.77. Though, Prior to eDirectory 8.5 it was eDirectory 8.3 which used module v8.3. With eDirectory 8.6 the module versioning was changed entirely v10110.xx and incremented from there.

    1. Re:Exactly. by michael+path · · Score: 1

      OES is technically both. When you buy OES, you get both Netware and SLES. I believe OES SP2 is actually comprised of Netware 6.5 SP4 and SLES 9 SP3.

      When DirXML's scope increased, it became "Novell NSure Identity Manager", which, in version 3 is now "Novell Identity Manager". Novell's iChain's next revision is being released as "Novell Access Manager 3". To be fair, in each instance the products evolved greatly. However, the radical changes suggest a lack of vision.

    2. Re:Exactly. by SupraTT+GOP · · Score: 1

      To those who aren't familiar with these products, I bet this sounds absolutely RIDICULOUS!! Because it is...

  8. I hadn't realised... by HaloZero · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ...that it was called S.u.S.E. at one point. Did it stand for something?

    --
    Informatus Technologicus
    1. Re:I hadn't realised... by cpankonien · · Score: 1

      Software und System Entwicklung

    2. Re:I hadn't realised... by HaloZero · · Score: 1

      Aha! 'Software and System Development' in german. Gotcha. Neat.

      --
      Informatus Technologicus
    3. Re:I hadn't realised... by enitime · · Score: 5, Informative
      it was called S.u.S.E. at one point. Did it stand for something?


      "Software und SystemEntwicklung" = "Software and System Development" in German.

  9. New Novell Misguided Marketing Slogan by dohboy · · Score: 1

    OpenSUSE
    opensUSE

    insertFOOT

  10. Shouldn't that be... by sharkey · · Score: 2, Funny

    GNU/openSUSE?

    --

    --
    "Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
  11. Not going for the bait. by pair-a-noyd · · Score: 1, Informative

    I bought the retail Suse 10.0 last year.
    When 10.1 came out I tried that and it is total shit.
    Nothing works right, ALL the multimedia features are crippled and the package management system sucks ass.

    After two weeks I dumped Xgl & Compiz because it's broken crap that can't go an hour without crashing and locking up. After a month I gave up on 10.1 totally. I reformatted the drive and did a fresh, clean install of 10.0 retail and by that evening I was up and running with everything working properly as it should.

    Suse 10.0 is a little slow and clunky on my Athlon 64 3500+ w/1gb ram but it's tolerable.
    The 64bit version has way too many short comings to use, namely it won't support my proprietary and very expensive Epson scanner. So until Epson/Avasys releases a 64bit driver I'm stuck in 32bit hell..

    As for Suse 10.2, no way in hell.. 10.1 was a piece of steaming monkey crap. 10.2 will be a piece of steaming gorilla crap.

    Mod me down but I've been using Suse since the 7.x days and I use it daily on several machines...

    1. Re:Not going for the bait. by 0R35T35 · · Score: 1

      "Suse 10.0 is a little slow and clunky on my Athlon 64 3500+ w/1gb ram but it's tolerable."
      What? SUSE 10.0 (SuSE, suzy, whatever) always ran sweetly on any nearly new system I installed it on. Maybe you should upgrade to Vista?

    2. Re:Not going for the bait. by pair-a-noyd · · Score: 1

      Maybe you should upgrade to Vista?

      There is no such thing as an "upgrade" to Vista.

      I wouldn't use Vista on a bet. Sadly though, I have to support people that do use it so I have a Vista machine that I fire up only for tech support purposes. It's used for no other reason or occasion.

    3. Re:Not going for the bait. by michael+path · · Score: 2, Informative

      No, you're dead on. They decided to do some crazy things with the installation and package management starting with 10.1.

      10.0 was nice as it was released. However, there's a lot of things that were needed in 10.1 to make it unusable. It made no sense for it to be a minor revision, as it was a major overhaul.

    4. Re:Not going for the bait. by Phase+Shifter · · Score: 1

      As a longtime SuSE user (5.1, 5.2,,7.1, and then 9.2) I was impressed with the ease of installation on generic systems and stability of their distribution under the 5.x versions, but things went downhill from there.

      I wouldn't say it ran smoothly on any new system that I ever tried it on--the last two versions I bought wouldn't work on new systems because...well, the choice of driver modules for installation kernels was severely limited. The sad part is, I could theoretically compile a kernel with the needed drivers from the source included with the distribution, but in reality this was impossible due to the fact that the precompiled kernels (and modules) didn't support the HD controllers for either of my last two computers. So even booting a liveCD, I couldn't compile a new kernel and write it to any media.

    5. Re:Not going for the bait. by grendelkhan · · Score: 1

      Been running compiz and Xgl on Ubuntu Dapper Drake for some months now (since way back in beta status) and the Quinnstorm and Reggaemanu compiz, Xgl, and Mesa debs are not only very very good, but very very stable as well. I cannot recommend this combination highly enough - it works really well. Dash me an email if you want the specifics.

      --
      Wu-Tang Name: Half-Cut Skeleton Get your own Wu-Na
  12. Any recommendations for a fedora guy? by wintermute000 · · Score: 1

    Aside from geek points, is it worth taking a look if you're currently running a happy stable Fedora setup? Been reading a lot of hype that's all but there's nothing specific that I want to do that SUSE can and Fedora can't, at least from what I can tell. Anyone who knows both well, would appreciate your input.

    1. Re:Any recommendations for a fedora guy? by wolftone · · Score: 1

      ...if you're happy with what you've got, why switch? If SUSE has something you want, and Fedora can't offer the same, why not switch?

    2. Re:Any recommendations for a fedora guy? by u38cg · · Score: 1

      I was a happy SuSE fanboy for some years, starting with 6.something, and it just got better with every release...until it went all open. The quality and level of testing seems to have dropped dramatically: it was only stable in a default configuration, and sometimes not even then. I ran 8.2 for years with all sorts of stuff messed around and hacked the way I wanted it, and it all held together. I ran 10.1 for about a week and my last act with SuSE was to download and burn the Ubuntu iso.

      --
      [FUCK BETA]
  13. Open, SUSAME by Elwood+P+Dowd · · Score: 2, Funny

    Is this name supposed to be a reference to Ali Baba and the forty theives?

    --

    There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
    1. Re:Open, SUSAME by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There just aren't enough Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves jokes nowadays.

      Oh, wait, maybe one is enough.

  14. Hmmm... is it porn? by ylikone · · Score: 1

    There could possibly be some misunderstanding when people hear you talking about downloading "open suzie".

    --
    Meh.
  15. SUSE Mirrors Screwed Up by Jizzbug · · Score: 1

    Has anybody else noticed that SUSE's Update mirrors are screwed up at the moment, and that almost every mirror on the Internet has an equally broken mirror?

    --

    -=/\- Jizzbug -/\=-
  16. Re:Mod Parent Informative by mpapet · · Score: 1

    This was exactly my experience. I was quite happy up to 9.3.

    I believe Novell and Red Hat let hobbyists work out bugs on a relatively free (as in freedom) distros. The "enterprise" versions bundle in non-free things, draconian licence terms, support and hopefully do more bug squashing.

    I just don't find the stability I need in the opensuse or fedora distros. (someone will no doubt declare otherwise) For me, it's back to Debian where testing is the equivalent of running opensuse/fedora and stable is production quality.

    --
    http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
  17. Perspective by itomato · · Score: 1

    What are you doing with Fedora? Will you get a better experience out of another distribution?

    You can look at others to get a feel for why things are they way they are. Novell uses a slightly different configuration and package management mechnism than Redhat and Debian. You might understand why Yum is in your Fedora there if you deal with YaST for a while. The main attraction to Fedora just might be the default GTK theme - the way the screen looks..

    Nobody is counting 'geek points', so you are free to do whatever you want. Personal preference and necessity are what decide who uses what and why.