My Suse Rants

I wrote this blog after reading about a similar experience by Gabriel Gunderson.

Man, you took the words right out of my mouth! I hadn'’t tried another Linux distribution in 2 years, so I decided to give Suse 10.1 a try (Suse was my first love, many years ago)

The first thing I do after installing a new OS is check for security updates. I noticed that there is a small updater icon in the system tray. Clicking on this, it says, "There are no software updates available"”. I think, "“Hmmm. I guess everything is updated and patched for security vulnerabilities."” But looking a little further, it appears that by default Suse doesn'’t look online for updates, it only searches the install CD. Talk about a false sense of security!

Here are some more of my "Suse Rants". (Scott - Perhaps you can respond to our critiques on your blog?) What are the differences between "YAST", "“Control Center"”, and "Applications > System > Configuration"? Why are some tools found in multiple places (User Management), and some are found in only one (Login Photo)?

In summary, my recommendations to Suse are to change its default settings to automatically check for software updates online, and to simplify the path to find management tools. YAST was great when it was the only thing out there, but now it needs to be greatly simplified and consolidated.

If you want an example of what I consider simplified desktop administration, take a look at Ubuntu 6.06 LTS. Notice how all of the management tools are located under "System>Preferences" or "System>Administration". There are only two levels of pull-down menus, so you don't have to go searching for buried applications. Lastly, all of the tools have a descriptive name. (Ubuntu 6.06 LTS will be released in few weeks.)

Since I like to end on a positive note, Suse 10.1 looks very, very, nice. With a few small (but important) changes, Suse could become my second favorite Linux distro.

Tristan Rhodes

Comments

  1. Anonymous5/17/2006 4:48 AM

    KDE alone is a nightmare at best, let alone the bloated-overhacked-throw-everything-in-plus-the-kitchen-sink SuSE. Again, another reason to use something lightweight like Ubuntu and Fluxbox.

    With that said, I too downloaded SuSE 10.1, and have been playing around with it. Sure glad I am an Ubuntu/Debian user! :)

    ReplyDelete

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