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SUSE Studio — Linux Customization For the Masses
apokryphos writes "Novell just released the first alpha of SUSE Studio (screencast), which provides an easy way to customize your own Linux distribution with the software and configuration you want. Among other things, you can spin a Live CD, a USB image, or create a VMware image. It builds upon the already established openSUSE Build Service and KIWI imaging system."
SUSE SUSE Studio
Women are like electronics: you don't know how damaged they are until you try to turn them on.
For very small values of masses.
...here.
Actually, the screencast is at http://studio.suse.com/, not suse.studio.com, which is an adfarm that just struck gold.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
"Your browser is not officially supported We have detected that the browser you are using, Microsoft Internet Explorer, is not officially supported. Currently, for the alpha of SUSE Studio, we only support Firefox 2 and 3, and Safari 3."
FUCKING YES!
Anybody want my mod points?
i believe i speak for all* linux users when i say:
HAHAHA, how does it feel now bitches!!! oh yeah now its your turn!
*well im sure that's how my mate feels and as microsoft has pointed out many a time, there are in fact only 3 people using linux.
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
Indeed, it is actually designed to be friendly for other distributions as well. Both the build service and KIWI (both GPL) intentionally have generic designs so that you can both build packages for other distributions, and build customisable versions of other distributions, too. It's a really nice thing: when a distribution goes out of their way to ensure that others can benefit from the tools as well.
"We didn't achieve mass customization of cars until Ford thought up the assembly line. We need the equivalent of the assembly line in the (operating system) world:"
Err, no we don't, at least not Dell/Apple's definition of 'customization' where you have two or three choices of hardrive upgrade options, each increment of cost would buy your the retail part outright.
Worse, ford and his mass production gave us any colour so long as it's black.
This is rather the opposite and a Good Thing. The better analogy would have been the custom car scene from the 1950s onwards, where you can pay for a customized build, rather than do all the work yourself. This might get frowns from those who like object to paying someone do it.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
as a web developer, i definitely agree that not having to support IE saves a lot of development time. on most projects i've worked on, about 20% of the development time is spent going back and forth with the client to come up with a layout design that they're happy with. only 5% of the time is used to cut up the graphics and actually implement the layout for standards-compliant browsers like Firefox/Safari/Opera/etc., which is pretty straight forward; just follow the W3C specs, and if it works in one browser, it'll pretty much work in all of them.
but the most painful part of any project is trying to get your site, which validates and renders properly in all other browsers, to render correctly in IE--which takes up the remaining 75% of the development time. not only is it a huge PITA for web developers (who are forced to mangle their previously elegant & well-formed code with a patchwork of unwieldy CSS hacks and clumsy JavaScript), but it also costs website owners a ton of money (if your designer/developer charges by the hour--which most smart freelance web developers do) as well. sure, the percentage may be less if it's a relatively simple site, or the designer creates the layout with tables, or if they simply design the site just for IE, standards be damned. but on the whole, supporting IE takes more time, effort, and money than is required for all other browsers added together.
however, in this case i think SUSE is a large enough company that they can afford to spend the money on IE support. so if their site doesn't work in IE, it's probably done on purpose to, either, a.) support web standards (and send a message to IE users), b.) support Firefox (and send a message to IE users), or c.) filter out clueless IE users that don't belong on their site. i mean, this service isn't exactly aimed at the typical computer novice who accidentally wandered out of their AOL/MSN playpen. anyone who's expected to use this site would know better than to use IE.
Haven't I seen this before - yes, over on Fedora, they have a "spins" functionality, making this an evolutionary, not revolutionary improvement.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/CustomSpins
Ken
but the most painful part of any project is trying to get your site, which validates and renders properly in all other browsers, to render correctly in IE--which takes up the remaining 75% of the development time
I find that percentage hard to believe. Almost all IE6 bugs have been thoroughly documented including fixes. If you consistently spend that percentage of time, then I think you need to rethink your process. For example, one developer could focus on IE6 bugs and port your layouts. That person would have most bugs (including fixes) in his head.
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