[Scribus] suse 9.2

[Plinnell]

On Thursday 13 January 2005 15:48, bart at solozone.com wrote:
> I use both SuSE 9.0 and 9.1 and I am ready to upgrade to 9.2. But I hear it
> has partially proprietary kernel?

FUD, you can download any of the srpms from ftp.suse.com

> Moreover, they do not put all their 
> programs on CDs but only on a two sided(?) DVD and my 9.2 does not have a
> DVD reader; the other one does or very soon will (tomorrow). Do you folks
> think I would be better off with Fedora? if so which? Will I be missing
> programs, of which SuSE gives one a big number?
>
> Bart Alberti

There are some missing apps on the CDs, as there are loads of them, fitting 
them all would be another 2-3 CD's at a guess.

I always like these kind of discussions *IF* they do not degenerate into flame 
wars ;)

Having used both extensively and made RPM packages for both, here is what I 
would hope is a fair minded view: 

Suse 9.x pros

Yast2 rocks. A. you can let it manage everything or B: use it and know when to 
*not* let it manage things. Yast outshines most all of the system-config 
tools written for Fedora-RH. 

Larger overall number of apps packaged, but when Fedora-Extras comes on line, 
this will be less of an issue. 

I prefer their packaging of KDE and KDE apps. Redhat does not enable some KDE 
features which are superior to gnome based ones. Example: kpackage - not 
enabled in RH/Fedora.. IMO overall best RPM manager i've used. The latest 
Fedora versions are far less heavily patched than previously. Note the 
kde-redhat repository has more kde friendly packaging and updates for older 
versions.

Overall performance edge, but I can't qualify it with numbers. Part of it I 
suspect is resierfs is more responsive for desktops than ext3.

Fedora pros

More updated kernel and drivers are available faster if you are willing to 
test their development tree. The flip side is proprietary drivers for Nvidia 
and others are more difficult.

Public bugzilla.  Means a lot sometimes when tracking down issues. Having a 
direct dialog with packagers/devels means a lot sometimes. That said, the 
cooperation with Suse devels has also been excellent.

Better and more uptodate packages of GCC, including snapshots of the next 
version which install cleanly and do not break your system.

Fedora enables pre-link by default and its good enough to use on production 
machines. This makes program launching faster.

Better and more upto date Gnome packaging.

Slight edge with RPM packaging QA which is stricter. When you follow the 
rules, rarely causes packaging issues. 

Both are damn fine distros and I use either one depending on the situation. 
I've also used both for production servers and have had few issues. 

Both work "out of the box" with Scribus and the rpm packages done by both the 
Fedora folks and Suse developers are first rate. 

Cheers,
Peter