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SUSE Studio 1.0 Released
apokryphos writes "Novell has just announced the release of SUSE Studio 1.0 — a user-friendly Web service that allows you to create your customized Linux distribution as a live CD, USB, Xen, or VMware image. Users have control over adding any repositories, packages, and files to the distribution. A new user can do the full creation and customization of the software appliance in roughly ten minutes. It also includes a Flash-based 'test drive' service, which allows you to try out your appliance in a Web browser before downloading it."
Oh if she called me Id be there Id come running anywhere Shes all I need, all my life I feel so good if I just say the word SuSE Studio, just say the word Oh SuSE Studio
"SUSE Studio is currently available to invited users only. Request an invitation on our user sign in page, and we'll send you an email soon!"
This seems like a big step forward in distro design and customization. The ability to specify exactly what you want included and where you want to run it makes a lot of installations easier.
The time to download a .iso, then install, then add packages and repositories was always a significant portion of any new distro testing/adaptation.
I especially like the ability to get a pre-loaded VMware image, because that is where I test new releases.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
I have been using this through Alpha and Beta, and it is the answer to many of the challenges I have faced when using tools like Debian's live-helper.
Less need to roll your own solutions to things like setting up repos, setting up a virtualization server, routines to handle changes/versioning (to some extent), storage, etc.
I have used it to pull out some demo environments to land a job (or intimidate the interviewers out of one), and grease the wheels on personal projects - things like a Live environment for Retail POS terminals, a LiveCD that boots into a 68K Mac emulator, and a playground for virtualized IBM s/390 and zSeries hardware with Hercules.
Seriously great tool. Nat Friedman and team have put a tremendous amount of effort and energy into this project, and they continue to be willing and open to lend a hand on IRC.
Hooray! I'd tele-cheers with a beer if I could!
This tool will hopefully end up on someone's short list of major Linux-related innovations of 2009.
I don't think this is to make full fledged distros like ubuntu and fedora so much as software appliances like the gparted live cd.
"A software appliance is a full application stack containing the operating system, the application software and any required dependencies, and the configuration and data files required to operate. Everything is preinstalled, preintegrated, and ready to run.
You can think of this like an extreme form of static linking."
Although an easy way to make a full custom distro would be hot.
1) does it force the use of RPM? Some prefer DEB, or even ebuilds.
2) potential for HyperVM, Virtualbox, etc images? Would be nice to see them.
3) kernels? what about kernels? Can you config your own? How about patches?
If it can't do these, it sounds like it's more of a toy for new comers. Not saying that's a bad thing, it just won't be as useful as I had hoped.
One day. Sheer flexibility in licensing and usage. Loading up Windows 7, it doesn't even want to pretend that you might want to dualboot. No repartitioning of existing partitions or anything.
Linux is the equivalent of a contortionist acrobat and Windows is a quadriplegic that makes everyone's life hell if you don't accomodate it's needs just right. Which would you rather marry and hang around all day?
Because no one, including you, sat down and did it before.
No, that isn't true. I wouldn't hand a LiveCD to a complete novice, and expect him to install successfully. But, an intermediate user can certainly do so. A novice could get through it, if he were willing to learn as he goes. Of course, learning is a benefit, in and of itself. Once that novice has managed to get his Linux set up, he is no longer a novice, and no longer dependent on the local computer shop that charges a hundred bucks to clean up a virus, or reconfigure the internet connection when it's been buggered up.
I'm afraid that you are either behind the times, or you are helping to spread FUD.
Of course, Linux is NOT for people whose IQ's are smaller than their shoe (or bra) size. I don't think it ever will be. Of course, to be fair, neither is Windows.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
This conversation just sounded like:
No sig for the moment.
No, you're right. So instead you spend half a freaking hour looking through tabs trying to find the option that you're sure you saw a while back, hoping that it is actually going to fix the problem you're having. Oh, and the forums to get help? They're full of people having the same damn problem and no one has the answer yet. I have yet to have as much problem with a Linux box. Give me a config file that I can search any day of the week.
someone can now develop their own Linux application and use SuSE Studio to create a LiveCD for it. They can pick only the things they need to run their program to create a demo CD or use it as a Live Distro that installs their Linux application with it.
I would like to see someone use it to create a Linux gaming CD with popular open source games on it, to help convert the GameHeads to Linux from Windows. At the very least they can boot the SuSE Studio LiveCD to play the games, if not run it in a Virtual Machine.
When my father's Windows XP computer had problems, I gave him a Linspire 5.0 LiveCD of mine and he was able to use the Internet for email and web access until I could get back to fix his Windows XP problems. But now I can build an SuSE Studio LiveCD with applications he may want to use as well with it, for example he likes card games and plays virtual pool, I could include those on a LiveCD as well as an OpenOffice.Org to work with his documents and a Scanner program to use his All in One Inkjet Printer, Scanner, and Fax machine. Giving him a LiveCD to use when his computer is down until I can come over there to fix it is a good idea, and I might even dual boot Linux and Windows for him as well if he likes it enough.
I am thinking of developing business applications for Linux, and this would be a good way to create a Demo CD or LiveCD with the software on it to promote it. It would have to include a database like MySQL or PostgresSQL with data in it to run the Demo, and then when it gets installed on the system the Database would be read/write and work as an actual install. Doing things that way might help a company decide to migrate away from Windows and consider a few Linux workstations to see how well they run next to the Windows versions. I was trying to figure out a way to make the server end with the database easy enough to install for non-technical people and the LiveCD route may be the way to go.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
One of our project managers just received his beta login this week and he showed it to me and I have to say it is pretty amazing. He is totally a non-techie type but in one day he had custom ISO's made and deployed (something he had been trying to get another engineer to do for month's). Heck, he even had non-RPM'd tarballs stuffed in there (good for those things you don't quite want to go through learning RPM spec files, but still a temp solution for him).
It has existed! Slax has had an online customized ISO builder for a few months now.
This seems like the ideal application for monetizing FOSS. They could easily charge a small fee for this, as you would be paying for CPU/bandwidth costs, and a custom product. It would be difficult for someone to do it for free without a big bankroll, and people distributing the product would not devalue the service (as the service is custom and the redistributions would be simple ISOs).
"Knowledge is the only instrument of production that is not subject to diminishing returns" -Journal of Political Econom