Linux distributor SuSE said last week that future versions of the open source operating system may arrive at a slower rate, a move designed to increase stability for users. UPDATE: SuSE Linux 9.0 offers sneak peek at 2.6 Linux kernel, 32/64-bit support, and easier Windows migration, the official press release says. Chris Schl"ager, Director of Distribution Development at SuSE, explains some details of the most important new features.
SuSE Plans Longer Linux Cycle
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSAlert.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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I just hope its not longer than a year, if it is that would be a shame.
I prefer a longer cycle. I don’t need every 6 month a new release. once a year is enough.
Meanwhile you can update kde, gnome etc. online.
It is one of the things I liked about SuSE, you could update sooner. Now it will be on the same slow cycle as RedHat, how unfortunate.
As long as I can update in a fairly reliable manner, this is a good thing.
For example, SuSe 9.0 is to ship with kde 3.1.4, but KDE 3.2 is nearing release. I don’t want to wait a year to get all of 3.2’s improvements. If SuSe will give me an official way to update to KDE 3.2 without breaking my system, then I think this is a wise move on SuSe’s part.
I think this might be possible already, but while I’m old to linux, I am new to SuSe.
As long as it’s shorter than Debian’s atrocious release cycle. Every 3 years or so?
>>As long as it’s shorter than Debian’s atrocious release cycle. Every 3 years or so?<<
Now that’s a bold statement! I never considered Debian to be on some kind of release cycle. Do they even have a schedule?
Well, at least i can update easily.
I agree, Debian has shot themselves in the foot with such long release cycles. I eventually switched to Gentoo because the Linux world is certainly not a stagnant one. I am almost positive that SuSe, being an organized organization, will not be nearly as bad as Debian. I see this as a potentially good move.
the problem with linux is the fact that every software ‘package’ has a version, with 100+ packages, and who knows which one will have the next big ‘bug’ so they have to release another entire OS “update”.. people wonder why they dont stock linux distros on store shelfs anymore.. they learned after they had a $200 box of Redhat 4.0 sitting for 2 years, because anyone that buys linux knows the box on the shelf is already outdated. </end rant>
I agree with Hiryu, SuSE needs to have official ways to upgrade programs, or parts, as in KDE.
I also agree that a longer cycle is the way to go.
If I wanted to pay an average of $40 every 6 months, I could go Microsoft. Linux averages to $320 for every 3 years… Where is the savings in that? Microsoft averages a new relaese now every 3 years now and the upgrade price for the Pro versions is $120 less. How can I convert family and friends when I cannot even show them a savings in the OS?
I want to buy the OS once and be able to upgrade only as necessary, but retain the functionality of upgrading like Debian versions.
I have spoken to other fellow Linux users @ our LUG meetings and I am not the only one tired of the upgrade treadmill and the cost associated with it.
I was just complaining recently that Fedora Linux is talking of moving from 2 updates a year to “2 to 3”. I think “1 to 2” per year is quite enough, thank you. I’ll be checking out SuSE for the future: I want a reliable, modern Linux that is affordable and not encumbered by contracts (a la the Enterprise versions), but not so quickly released that there’s a new version just when the old one was stable (a la Fedora).
“I prefer a longer cycle. I don’t need every 6 month a new release. once a year is enough.
Meanwhile you can update kde, gnome etc. online.”
I think you miss the point. When we talk about a longer release cycle, that means that you _won’t_ see the new KDE or GNOME or whatnot until the next cycle. You’ll just see security errata for longer. Stable targets DO NOT see upgrades, only security updates.
If update is synonymous with upgrade to you, you’ll probably like Fedora more. If you want a _stable target_ that keeps receiving security updates, SuSE might now be better for you.
-Erwos
the reason taht I’m agains thsi if its longer than a year is nto that I would update every 6 months, it’s jsut that if I wanted to, let’s say get KDE 3.2 I would not have to wait another year when it was released a month ago.
SuSE has “KDE and Gnome” services where they provide you with RPM packages when a major DE version is released.
I’m in favor of this longer release cycle, stability is good.
I have to download 15 rms and install each one to upgrade KDE or GNOME and than there are often incompatibilities or extra libraries I have to go after.
I was just complaining recently that Fedora Linux is talking of moving from 2 updates a year to “2 to 3”. I think “1 to 2” per year is quite enough, thank you. I’ll be checking out SuSE for the future: I want a reliable, modern Linux that is affordable and not encumbered by contracts (a la the Enterprise versions), but not so quickly released that there’s a new version just when the old one was stable (a la Fedora).
Fedora is a community distro. How much cheaper than a free-as-in-beer distro do you want?
When they release their first isos under the Fedora name, you’ll be able to download them and burn for free from mirrors or send CheapBytes or Edmunds Enterprises a couple bucks for a CD set.
I haven’t tried it yet, but after exploring their website a bit further, I found this link http://www.suse.com/us/private/download/index.html
for KDE and other updates.
Hope it is helpful.
From this article:
> The latest version of this product, which is largely aimed at home
> users, will be available on 30 September
And Eugenia wrote on the description for a recent article titled “SuSE Linux 9.0 Coming Next Month”.
> SuSE Linux announced today that it will release SuSE Linux 9.0 on
> October 24.
I wonder when the actual release date of SuSE 9.0 is. It looks as if someone (not necessarily Eugenia) is spreading false information.
I think also KDE, Gnome and other components and applications of Linux distributions will move forward to longer release cycles. OpenOffice and the kernel itself are good examples of that.
I don’t think frequent releases make sense. Release creates a lot of additional fuss and consumes a lot of time and effort. The more you release, the more time you spend in the release process, instead of development. That time is better spent when they carefully check that everything really works, without flaws.
LinuxHawk,
“Microsoft averages a new relaese now every 3 years now and the upgrade price for the Pro versions is $120 less. How can I convert family and friends when I cannot even show them a savings in the OS?”
Don’t forget the additional cost of:
(for each machine … to be legal ya know.)
1) the full first version of MS-Windows.
2) antivirus package and subscription fees.
3) the mandatory hardware upgrades.
4) the mandatory software upgrades.
5) imaging time because someone thought that
registry key didn’t look important enough.
6) THE PER-MACHINE UPGRADE LICENSE FEE.
Last I checked SuSE Pro costs $80 and you can install that on as many machines as you can find. You can build client workstations and/or hearty servers from this distro so you should rethink your remarks.
A release cycle of 1.5 to 2.0 years is just fine for Linux. If you want to update/upgrade then the packages are available and feel free to do so but “IF IT AINT BROKE DONT FIX IT”. I ran a SuSE v6.3 distro up until v8.1 because it did the job. I didn’t have to update just because new versions came out, only a moron would upgrade based on that logic alone.
Last I checked versions 7.x are still supported by SuSE, how long ago did they debut? If you want everything done for you then pay the money and support the cause, otherwise get your hands dirty and stop whining.
Just my $0.02
“SuSE has “KDE and Gnome” services where they provide you with RPM packages when a major DE version is released. ”
Using the link someone so generously provided, you’ll also notice the big disclaimer they have:
“These updates are provided as a free service to customers. SuSE in no way guarantees these updates and therefore will not provide support of any kind. The updates listed here are “Use-At-Your-Own-Risk”.”
So, yes, they provide upgrades, but since they’re unsupported, they’re NOT part of the SuSE release. IE, if you install them and things break (that rely on QT, presumably), you’re SOL. My original point stands: if you want that support for sure, you’re going to be stuck on an obsolete version of the desktop for a longer time than, say, Fedora, but you’ll also be spared the pain of upgrading (which ought not to be so painful with yum, I think).
Like I said: Fedora is going to be “cutting edge” whereas SuSE will be “stable but obsolete”. Nothing wrong with either philosophy.
The only problem I see is that SuSE “Desktop” is going to be hard-pressed to compete with RHEL with only an 12-18 month support cycle. RHEL-WS-Basic ($180) has, what, 5 years? Even SuSE’s enterprise offering only has a guaranteed maintenance of 2 years, which is vaguely disturbing. $180 is quite a bit of money for a Linux distro, but if you factor in one year of RHN and security updates for 5 years, it seems a little better.
-Erwos
I personally work at a very large shop (I couldn’t begin to count the number of computers something like eight thousand plus where I work and I am just one division). To this day the shop runs old, old (but supported) solaris (1997?) mail and web servers, redhat 6.2 (April 2000) file and print servers, win98se (May 1999) desktop machines, with an occasional win2k (February 2000) box. Lets see we are two days shy of October 2003 and of all the machines mentioned, the redhat machine, which is the youngest, is the only one deprecated.
It’s good to see that Suse isn’t afraid to draw a line in the shifting sands of the OS world. A move toward a stable release, with desktop (KDE, GNOME) backports available seems very Debian to me.
Debian does not have 3 year release cycles. Woody 3.0r1 was released in December last year, and Sarge is due in December (on a set release schedule, BTW). Further, backports are available for the latest KDE, GNOME and many other packages (see http://www.apt-get.org for an extensive list).
If only Debian were easier to set up… Well, we’ll see in December, with the release of Debian Sarge with its new installer. I may not be ready to try it out straight away, as it is oh-so-easy to upgrade to the latest stable using apt.
There’s something to be said (in terms of productivity gains) for having a stable, unchanging installation to use for more than the typical Redhat 6 months treadmill.
Read the interview, the statement about longer release schedule was given in context with SuSE Enterprise Server product, not SuSE Personal/Professional.
*yuk*
so it says on Suse’s german site.
I’m all in favor of this. After all most distros have unsupported beta releases if you really need to be on the bleeding edge.
Well that’s strange. The English press release says it will be released by October 24th, the German says (according to Babelfish anyway) it will be released starting on October 15th.
They could be releasing the German first, and rolling out the international copies later on, but that seems strange – I figured they’d have sorted out simultaneous releases at this stage. Odd.
Still gives me time to figure out where to order it.
> They could be releasing the German first, and rolling out the international copies later on, but that seems strange
Exactly this happened for previous versions too.
SuSE creates Betas, for SuSE 9.0 there were at least three. But SuSE does a closed beta test. You could argue that more people would detect more bugs, but obviously SuSE was fine with the last release to spread the Betas only to few but qualified testers.
linux still has a lot to improve for desktops
so they should make a server version that is released once a year or more
and a desktop version version that is released each 6 months
debian is the best server OS :p
and slackware/mandrake for workstation :p
I would have never thought that a hobbyist approach without the chance to ever get support would qualify anything for corporate servers..
That’s why RH + SuSE are for servers and Debian is not.. oh-well.
Same goes for Debian never catching interest/contracts with big vendors like IBM, SUN and alike. This can even be extended to the Desktop.
We are talking about wide adoption, not what some Mr uber-hax0r found out to be the best for himself.
“Woody 3.0r1 was released in December last year”
That’s just a rolled-up security update, with no other changes. Woody itself was released in May.
And you know what? Debian’s slow release cycle IS good. Look at Microsoft — they release an OS and support it for 5 years or more. Their products may not be much good, but they really know what businesses want in a support contract.
Meanwhile, Fedora will only see 2-3 months of fixes after the next is released; in other words, about 7 months total. This makes it unusable in any kind of serious setting.
So I’m glad I can install Woody, and be sure that it’ll be supported with security patches and minor bugfixes for another 18 months at least. Everyone on here seems to be an armchair commentator on the industry, saying what should be done. I think we should see what Sun, HP and Microsoft are doing in the business sector and learn from that.
Long-term stability matters, not the desktop-du-jour etc.
G
Remember that Linux has a more active life cycle. The Linux OS, regardless of distro, has many more updates during the typical 6 months between distros then does Windows. If you need the latest bells and whistles, don’t use SUSE Linux. If your looking for support on your OS, use the Enterprise editions or buy Windows. Please stop comparing the Windows life cycle to the Linux life cycle. They are two entirely different beasts.
That depends. Companies with their own IT support or local low to middle tier businuesses are just as likely to run Debian as they are to run SuSE or Red Hat. The ones with in-house IT support don’t need the added value of long-term support, because they can and will do this by themselves. The local businuesses usually doesn’t look to a big company for support but to another local service provider – reseller, system integrator, etc. (Take Sun’s recent offer for its JDS, only customers with 1000 or more seats are welcome – the rest has to ask resellers) And there is no reason why an integrator should favor SuSE or Red Hat, since Debian offers a better margin.
Thus your statement only counts when you focus on bigger businuesses without in-house IT support or geographical diverse companies which want to have a single service provider for their complete network. We probably should also include businuesses where the decison what or whom to deploy is very detached from the people who are actually tasked to implement or work with the deployed software.
Of course, that’s why I said:
“We are talking about wide adoption, not what some Mr uber-hax0r found out to be the best for himself.”
I did see the segment you were mentioning. But at large, when you think about servers, what you are talking about is not what comes to mind first. Apart from that, I am not sure what those Debian-devs are up to focus-wise, besides stability. If you check the new advancements for SuSE 9, you will find there is alot geared towards the server admin by making configuration of typical server tasks such as samba etc a lot easier by providing organized access in YAST, etc… So SuSE does try to address this segment specifically. Sure, if you are in the know enough, you can take Debian whereever you want, *if*, that is. You’ll never get anywhere with Linux if you don’t simplyfy basic stuff for wider adoption. Debian/its users may not care since they don’t have a business in the first place, but SuSE does.
I bet its becasue Linus and gang are so friggin slow releasing kernels. I mean really why uprgade your linux version if only to get a newer version of KDE or Gnome? doesn;t make sense. Versions released based on when new kernels are released is the better idea. Other wise we will be up to RedHat 20 by the time Linus releases 2.8 or 3.0 of the kernel.
I’ve been getting SuSE’s KDE upgrades from http://www.suse.de/en/private/download/linuks/i386/update_for_8_2/index.html and haven’t had a problem with them yet (except SuSE forgot to include Qt in the latest batch but posted it a day later). I wish the upgrades were in larger bundles instead all these small rpm’s that have to be downloaded and installed individually. Or offered as other updates using YOU (Yast Online Update) for the point-n-click convenience. The download managers Kget and d4x are only somewhat helpful as they both stop working after some files. Maybe they are forgetting to close file descriptors.
As for KDE updates: Don’t anybody here know SuSE’s KDE update service? It has been around since mid-99 or so. You can always go and grab the latest KDE even for pretty old versions of SuSE:
http://www.suse.com/us/private/download/linuks/