* Michael Cree <cree(a)phys.waikato.ac.nz> [2004-07-25 12:51]:
Most seasoned users find it pretty awful as far as distributions go
Why?
What is the point of your question? What I wrote is an observation that is true in my experience. Besides two or three exceptions, noone I know of has stuck with Suse for any length of time -- everyone seems to move on to other distros once they get their feet wet with Linux. Why is that? Who knows.
Its configuration tools interfere with manual tweaking a lot of the time, and the standard install doesn't include things like a Compiler, make(1), locate(1) and others that really should be available on every "real" system.
Who are they aiming it for? Why shouldn't configuration tools interfere with manual tweaking? Do we not need a version of Linux that makes it very easy to administer?
It limits flexibility. That might not matter where a large number of pretty uniform machines has to be maintained; I guess that's why Suse is so successful as an enterprise desktop distro. I don't know if that makes it a good end user distro.
Why should compilers, make, etc., be on "real" systems? What is a "real" system? Who users compilers, etc.? Programmers, no doubt. But don't we want Linux systems for and useable by the general public? What are they going to do with a compiler, with make, etc?
Come again? Compiling is not programming. I've written very little C code so far, but I'd feel severely crippled without a compiler. Guess why? There's a lot of stuff that does not come as a binary package. make is another, partially separate issue. You can't even install any Perl modules from CPAN (whether they contain any C code or not) without make (no, that doesn't count as developing either -- there are applications written in Perl). Nor would I want to use LaTeX without a make. That locate is missing on Suse's default install is just ridiculous.
Get a life, mate, and evaluate Linices on real issues.
Ad hominem basically forfeits any argument, you know. Good show.
If you want a European beginner friendly distro, Mandrake should be a much better choice.
Why? 'Mandrake "should" be'? Or is it really? Or does it just aspire to what it should? So what makes Mandrake so good compared to Suse?
Mandrake aims for the same people as Suse except it doesn't have the aforementioned downsides. I don't think that sentence requires a lot of explanation in its context.
Suse never had much of a following in NewZealand.
So what? Maybe that just proves how ignorant NZers are of excellent European distributions? Without more evidence how can we know?
FYI #1: I live in Germany. FYI #2: Mandrake is also European. Regards, -- Aristotle "If you can't laugh at yourself, you don't take life seriously enough."