Are you sure you don’t mean ‘rambling’?

See my comments on Freedom. That said, the JRE is easy to install on Ubuntu.

That said Graham. Thanks for your write up. Keep in mind that in my case SUSE was already installed but it was still difficult to use.

UNR is even better – see my next post.

“I want all the options so that they don’t need to worry about doing installs or adding packages or customising later on, after the initial install.

Start of both installs pretty much the same in terms of selecting install language but no keyboard selection in *buntu

A lot of blank screen in *buntu. CD drive seems to be working and there seems to be hard drive activity and this goes on for about 2 minutes, phew thank heavens I finally get something that resembles a screen…

OK I have to choose a language again… Maybe it just needs reminding.

Hmm only one English, bloody US of course! Great, the install is going to be misspelt. In SUSE at least I get a choice of US or UK as well as keyboard selection, which to me seems should logically be together but *buntu puts each of these selections either side of the timezone selection.

Now we are at the partitioning stage, OpenSuSE predictive partitioning is very good since 10.1 and even better in 11. The *buntus however want me to install everything on a single partition ala windows. Bad form from my way of thinking.

However lets get on. I select the “Custom Partition (Advanced)” option. Luckily it finds the old SuSE partitions and I just edit for swap, / and home because I’m installing over a SuSE install.

Name and password next.

Thus far the installs are only different in detail and in the order of things but I’ll give it to OpenSuSE because of two things.

One: It seems logical to choose language and keyboard layout at the same time, now my preference would be to have that AFTER the locale selection so that it should theoretically be able to predict the language settings. So clicking on NZ would give you the primary choice of english or maori for language and select US Keyboard by default. But neither Ubuntu or SuSE do this right.

Two: The OpenSuSE suggested partitioning is considerable better so much so that I rarely have to edit the partitioning during install, just go with the suggestion.

Now there is a divergence. One thing I like about OpenSuSE is that you can do a pretty large install without the need for a net connection. 11.1 has 6.7 GB on a dual layer DVD in the retail pack.
(I should add big ups to Novell. I buy the retail box of OpenSuSE, Clients like to see the boxed set. Order on line on Friday, it’s in my mail box, Rural Delivery I should add, on the following Monday. From Salt lake City. I can’t get that service from Auckland and if I get hardware from Ascent? Forget getting that quick.)
The big DVD (Dual Layer)has both 64 and 32 bit versions on it and a selection of Window managers, KDE and Gnome of course, XFCE, Windowmaker, ICEWM etc. The OpenSuSE 11.1 pack also has a live CD with it… The point is, at this point of the SuSE install you need to choose your install layout. The default package install is as good as *buntu, but you can choose either KDE or Gnome or just XFCE or all of them. The default these days is Gnome. A change from the past which used to have KDE as the default.

With the Ubuntu it seems to carry on regardless and install what it considers it should. Presumably it figures if you want more you’ll download it later when you hook up to your broadband connection that everyone has of course…… Yea right!

Install finished and reboot, so far so good. The only thing that has really concerned me with *buntu to this point is the partitioning suggestion.

Logged in and let’s check out the System settings: Seem to be a little better than I remember in 8.04, but that probably says more about my memory than antything else, however software management still not a patch on YaST even though the interface is quite similar…but still nothing I couldn’t get used to. System sound is working but won’t play cds! Bugger. (Note: This was a Kubuntu bug. In Ubuntu the CD played fine.)

OK check out the OpenOffice.org install:….. 3.0 m15, not unexpected, although OpenSuSE has m21 and they come from the same source, i.e. the Novell/goo.org version with some Ubuntu hacks, but that is probably due to different release dates. Of course Base doesn’t work and no Mail merge capability cos no JRE! :(.

Naturally enough, I’m running m51 which is the latest snapshot (m52 soon to be released)leading up to OOo 3.2 so a quick download of a Pavel Janik m51.deb build from ftp://ftp.linux.cz/pub/localization/OpenOffice.org/devel and we try an install.

In OpenSuSE there are a number of options to install.
1.Using YAST as a Konqueror plugin,
2.directly from YAST after adding a file on the comp as a repository or (my usual method)
3.Untar and rpm -ivh etcetera in a terminal.

Big win to OpenSuSE as far as gui install is concerned..

In Ubuntu: Open Tar in file manager >extract.
Remove or add desktop integration as required
>select all >
right click >
open with Gdeb or something I can’t remember installer and kpackage in Kubuntu and suddenly 47 popup windows trying to install all the base packages at once. Result: a mass of confusion and crying about dependencies and me trying to kill all these bloody popups.

In OpenSuSE: Open Tar in Konqueror >extract
Remove or add desktop integration as required
>select all >
right click >
Open with installer > One popup window appears with all packages listed and: “Do you want to install these 47 packages”

Root password > OK

Done!

Installation from the terminal is pretty much the same, whether using rpm or dpkg…. except for menu integration. In OpenSuSE that’s done automatically and shortcuts appear in the “Office” section of the applications menu. In Ubuntu I had to put those in manually. In SuSE 10 that required restarting the xserver, so I tried that in Ubuntu, but no joy.

Then of course the old ugly “No JRE” so Base doesn’t work! Looks like I have to steal someone’s broadband for a while. For heavens sake Ubuntu people GTF over it. JAVA is opensourced, not GPL maybe, but hey there are proprietary Nvidia drivers in there by default. You limit the most important application on the computer, the office suite, by not having it, it should be a default, if not, then a decent alternative as part of the standard install.

So of course from my point of view the most important part of my OS is how well it handles constant updating of my OOo install and those of my customers. Not having JRE is a biggy and for some reason debs do not have it included as part of any download.

So from my Point of View, and like Don, I realise that there is possibly something I missed because of my familiarity with a SuSE/rpm environment, however it seems there is nothing in Ubuntu that matches YaST. Mandrake/ Mandriva used to have MCC (Mandrake Control Centre) along the same lines. YaST is a great GUI management tool. Could it be better? Undoutbtedly, but It’s indicative that you can conceivably achieve the whole of the NCLP Practicum from YaST. Of course mixing YaST and CLI works better, but it just points to the capability of the interface.

Package management is pretty much equal for the run of the mill packages.
Zypper and aptget seem to be level pegging when it comes to pulling stuff off their respective repositories.
But YaST handles mavericks like the OOo install considerably better.
Not having a JRE is a big tick in the con column for me and my clients, so that’s another plus for SuSE.

Overall a win to OpenSuSE.

KDE 3.5 is still my preference until KDE 4 gets it together. Not quite there yet. Looks sexy but for Small Enterprise and NFP market, too flaky, so Kubuntu comes an easy third in this little comparison.

Ubuntu is arguably the best iteration of the Gnome desktop, although the Redhat/Fedora/CentOS guys may have a different idea, However, I can’t do without Konqueror and it’s all round flexibility and Evolution has a long way to go to catchup to Kontact.

Ubuntu has a very good marketing strategy and a great global community, heaven only knows that I wish we could get that sort of drive with OpenSuSE.
Pushing Ubuntu, as a way for an ex-windows user to do a simple install over a windows installation is great and the marketing has given Ubuntu that sort of traction in that home user consumer type market, but I don’t believe in it’s present set-up that it is the best thing for OEM type installs.

KDE 3.5 on OpenSuSE however does that very well. I can talk to a client, discuss their or their businesses needs and from that customise an installation to suit them. I want all the options so that they don’t need to worry about doing installs or adding packages or customising. I do the install, walk in set it up, push the button, up comes their login and away they go, exactly as they wanted it. Then I sign them up for ongoing training and support and all is good.

So I’d call this bit a Draw. OpenSuSE is arguably more complex than is needed for a simple home install and Ubuntu doesn’t have enough in the default install for the “Installed for Enterprise” market.

Graham, your feedback is exactly the sort of thing I am looking for. I lack familiarity with SUSE (as I hope I made clear) and that is bound to colour some of my opinions.

For my Enterprise clients I stick with SLED mainly for it’s stability and then tune it for that client’s needs, but for a consumer desktop my choice would be OpenSuSE. I have a new client that I’m setting up Linux Laptops for their field staff, I’m going to evaluate Jaunty for them as well. I’ll report back from the POV of a SuSE user having a look at Kubuntu.

.comment blockquote { font-style: italic; background:#eaeaea; margin: 2px 0; padding: 2px; }

Cheers

Due to an ordering botch up on my part I ended up with two HP Minis…

I am definitely going to try and run that line past my wife next time I am shopping for kit.

Now that we have an Arch mirror here in NZ (thanks for that Don), you might want to consider that on one of your netbooks – it’s the business.