7 ms·

Is SUSE Linux not an option for Enterprise?

freedomben 3y ago
I evaluted SUSE quite a bit some years ago, and I ran into a handful of problems that were (at the time at least) showstoppers. The biggest one was that not all packages could be reliably installed from the command line. There was a GUI package manager application that used a different system than the command line, which for me was super confusing but also not viable on headless systems (which is most of them). There were also something different about their RPMs, where even though it was RPM based you couldn't use centos/fedora RPMs. This was all at least 5 years ago, maybe 10, so take with a grain of salt. I'm sure if I really learned the system it would be fine, but I've got two decades of the Red Hat Way engrained in me. It would be hard to change.
- Arnavion 3y ago
  >The biggest one was that not all packages could be reliably installed from the command line. There was a GUI package manager application that used a different system than the command line This doesn't make any sense. I've been using OpenSUSE for a decade and there's no package that can be installed via Yast (the GUI) but not via zypper (the CLI). >There were also something different about their RPMs, where even though it was RPM based you couldn't use centos/fedora RPMs. Obviously. They're different distros with different package names and library paths. "RPM" is just a file format.
  - freedomben 3y ago
    > Obviously. They're different distros with different package names and library paths. "RPM" is just a file format. This is absolutely not obvious to a person coming from EL/Fedora (which is the context we are discussing here). Things that are "obvious" to an existing user are not necessarily obvious to new users.
    - Arnavion 3y ago
      If you thought you could install RHEL packages on SLES, what did you think the difference between RHEL and SLES was? Also I'm not sure what "new" or "existing" users have to do with it. I've never used RHEL so I'm technically a new RHEL user, but I don't have the misconception that distro packages are interchangeable.
      - freedomben 3y ago
        > If you thought you could install RHEL packages on SLES, what did you think the difference between RHEL and SLES was? I didn't know what the differences were. I learn by doing. Everybody has to install and try a distro for the first time at some point. Unless you are arguing that you were born with innate knowledge of Suse, then at some point you didn't know either. > Also I'm not sure what "new" or "existing" users have to do with it. I've never used RHEL so I'm technically a new RHEL user, but I don't have the misconception that distro packages are interchangeable. I would argue that you actually have the misconception, so this is ironically pretty good evidence that "new" or "existing" users does matter. In the RHEL ecosystem, packages can often be installed on any other (non-Suse) RPM distro, as long as the dependencies are met. For example, Fedora packages can be put on RHEL or CentOS or Alma or Rocky or Amazon Linux or Oracle Linux or Scientific Linux etc. I have some packages built for EL9 that are installed on my Fedora machine right now. Putting on a different distro you run a risk of having broken dependencies, but things are largely the same. The same is also true for Debian, Ubuntu, and many other .deb distros. This is far more common in the linux ecosystem than not. Suse seems to me to be the odd-one-out here.
        Arnavion 3y ago
        >Everybody has to install and try a distro for the first time at some point. Unless you are arguing that you were born with innate knowledge of Suse, then at some point you didn't know either. No, it's absurd to assume that you can transplant distro packages, not that you can't. And I don't really care to argue with you about this. Your incorrect assumptions are your problem, not mine. >I would argue that you actually have the misconception, so this is ironically pretty good evidence that "new" or "existing" users does matter. Wrong. Once again I remind you that you're the one who made the incorrect assumption and got burned by it, so your attempt at deflecting is laughable. >In the RHEL ecosystem, packages can often be installed on any other (non-Suse) RPM distro, as long as the dependencies are met. "As long as the dependencies are met" is doing some pretty heavy lifting there, isn't it? And why do you think your attempt to install those RHEL RPMs on SUSE failed? >For example, Fedora packages can be put on RHEL or CentOS or Alma or Rocky or Amazon Linux or Oracle Linux or Scientific Linux etc. First of all, four of the distros in that list are intentionally the same distro (RHEL, Alma, Rocky, Oracle), so it is expected that their assumptions and dependencies line up to allow you to install packages built for one on the other. Second of all, it is absolutely not true that packages from CentOS (assuming we're referring to Stream) and Fedora can always be installed on RHEL or vice versa. The whole point of them being upstream of RHEL is that they can have newer dependencies. Hypothetically Fedora can switch the libfoo package to v3 with a different soname while RHEL still has it as v2, so any package that depends on the v3 soname cannot be installed on a v2 OS or vice versa. Also, unlike all those distros which are either upstream or downstream of RHEL, SLES is not. So once again I ask, what did you think the difference between RHEL and SLES was? It sounds like you just assumed that SLES is upstream or downstream of RHEL, and made not even a cursory documentation search, nor talked to the SLES reps apparently, to relieve yourself of that assumption. >I have some packages built for EL9 that are installed on my Fedora machine right now. Putting on a different distro you run a risk of having broken dependencies, but things are largely the same. "The packages work as long as you ignore all the things that make them not work." >The same is also true for Debian, Ubuntu, and many other .deb distros. This is far more common in the linux ecosystem than not. Debian and Ubuntu will have exactly the same problem as the Fedora and RHEL example. Actually worse, because Ubuntu isn't a strict downstream of Debian but a random snapshot of Debian while it's between releases. The packages in Ubuntu can end up not corresponding to any Debian stable nor unstable. And again, the scenario of taking RPMs from RHEL and trying to put them onto SLES is equivalent to taking RPMs from RHEL and trying to put them onto Debian. If the latter sounds absurd to you, why did you think the former made sense? >Suse seems to me to be the odd-one-out here. No, you just have very bad ideas about how Linux works and are weirdly stubborn about correcting them.
neurostimulant 3y ago
People with tight dependency with RHEL usually have a hard time migrating to SuSE Linux, and vice versa. For example, SuSE Linux is popular among meteorologists running their own weather models. A few years ago, I was trying to run a popular open source weather model on CentOS and failed to do so after a few days of full time tinkering with the source. Gave up and installed OpenSuSE and I got it up and running in a couple hours.
mr_cyborg 3y ago
Anecdotally, I have only heard of Europeans using SUSE.
- dlandau 3y ago
  Cray, the US super computer company uses SUSE
- skissane 3y ago
  Place I used to work at in Australia 15+ years ago used SUSE. Novell owned it and they positioned it as their replacement for NetWare, and a lot of ex-NetWare sites ending up running it (at least for a while). But even that place, we had more Oracle Linux than SUSE. Everything that ran on Solaris got migrated to Oracle Linux (e.g. Oracle RDBMS); everything that ran on NetWare (GroupWise, eDirectory) got migrated to OES (SUSE plus extra ex-NetWare bits). But then I think most of the SUSE went away when GroupWise/eDir were replaced by Exchange/AD on Windows. Whereas they are probably still using Oracle Linux today. Actually, originally we were going to use RHEL, but found Red Hat’s sales team too difficult to deal with, whereas we already were an Oracle customer.
- neurostimulant 3y ago
  SuSE Linux is absolutely popular among HPC folks, especially in the weather forecasting / modeling community.
- znpy 3y ago
  And mostly germans, afaik.
  - cpach 3y ago
    SUSE is a fascinating company. They’ve been in the game since the 90s. They have over 2300 employees. Revenue is ~650 MM USD. But I rarely hear of anyone using their distro.
    - toyg 3y ago
      European public sector.
homarp 3y ago
https://www.suse.com/c/navigating-changes-in-the-open-source-landscape/ https://www.suse.com/c/navigating-changes-in-the-open-source...

I evaluted SUSE quite a bit some years ago, and I ran into a handful of problems that were (at the time at least) showstoppers. The biggest one was that not all packages could be reliably installed from the command line. There was a GUI package manager application that used a different system than the command line, which for me was super confusing but also not viable on headless systems (which is most of them). There were also something different about their RPMs, where even though it was RPM based you couldn't use centos/fedora RPMs. This was all at least 5 years ago, maybe 10, so take with a grain of salt. I'm sure if I really learned the system it would be fine, but I've got two decades of the Red Hat Way engrained in me. It would be hard to change.

Arnavion 3y ago
>The biggest one was that not all packages could be reliably installed from the command line. There was a GUI package manager application that used a different system than the command line This doesn't make any sense. I've been using OpenSUSE for a decade and there's no package that can be installed via Yast (the GUI) but not via zypper (the CLI). >There were also something different about their RPMs, where even though it was RPM based you couldn't use centos/fedora RPMs. Obviously. They're different distros with different package names and library paths. "RPM" is just a file format.
- freedomben 3y ago
  > Obviously. They're different distros with different package names and library paths. "RPM" is just a file format. This is absolutely not obvious to a person coming from EL/Fedora (which is the context we are discussing here). Things that are "obvious" to an existing user are not necessarily obvious to new users.
  - Arnavion 3y ago
    If you thought you could install RHEL packages on SLES, what did you think the difference between RHEL and SLES was? Also I'm not sure what "new" or "existing" users have to do with it. I've never used RHEL so I'm technically a new RHEL user, but I don't have the misconception that distro packages are interchangeable.
    - freedomben 3y ago
      > If you thought you could install RHEL packages on SLES, what did you think the difference between RHEL and SLES was? I didn't know what the differences were. I learn by doing. Everybody has to install and try a distro for the first time at some point. Unless you are arguing that you were born with innate knowledge of Suse, then at some point you didn't know either. > Also I'm not sure what "new" or "existing" users have to do with it. I've never used RHEL so I'm technically a new RHEL user, but I don't have the misconception that distro packages are interchangeable. I would argue that you actually have the misconception, so this is ironically pretty good evidence that "new" or "existing" users does matter. In the RHEL ecosystem, packages can often be installed on any other (non-Suse) RPM distro, as long as the dependencies are met. For example, Fedora packages can be put on RHEL or CentOS or Alma or Rocky or Amazon Linux or Oracle Linux or Scientific Linux etc. I have some packages built for EL9 that are installed on my Fedora machine right now. Putting on a different distro you run a risk of having broken dependencies, but things are largely the same. The same is also true for Debian, Ubuntu, and many other .deb distros. This is far more common in the linux ecosystem than not. Suse seems to me to be the odd-one-out here.
      - Arnavion 3y ago
        >Everybody has to install and try a distro for the first time at some point. Unless you are arguing that you were born with innate knowledge of Suse, then at some point you didn't know either. No, it's absurd to assume that you can transplant distro packages, not that you can't. And I don't really care to argue with you about this. Your incorrect assumptions are your problem, not mine. >I would argue that you actually have the misconception, so this is ironically pretty good evidence that "new" or "existing" users does matter. Wrong. Once again I remind you that you're the one who made the incorrect assumption and got burned by it, so your attempt at deflecting is laughable. >In the RHEL ecosystem, packages can often be installed on any other (non-Suse) RPM distro, as long as the dependencies are met. "As long as the dependencies are met" is doing some pretty heavy lifting there, isn't it? And why do you think your attempt to install those RHEL RPMs on SUSE failed? >For example, Fedora packages can be put on RHEL or CentOS or Alma or Rocky or Amazon Linux or Oracle Linux or Scientific Linux etc. First of all, four of the distros in that list are intentionally the same distro (RHEL, Alma, Rocky, Oracle), so it is expected that their assumptions and dependencies line up to allow you to install packages built for one on the other. Second of all, it is absolutely not true that packages from CentOS (assuming we're referring to Stream) and Fedora can always be installed on RHEL or vice versa. The whole point of them being upstream of RHEL is that they can have newer dependencies. Hypothetically Fedora can switch the libfoo package to v3 with a different soname while RHEL still has it as v2, so any package that depends on the v3 soname cannot be installed on a v2 OS or vice versa. Also, unlike all those distros which are either upstream or downstream of RHEL, SLES is not. So once again I ask, what did you think the difference between RHEL and SLES was? It sounds like you just assumed that SLES is upstream or downstream of RHEL, and made not even a cursory documentation search, nor talked to the SLES reps apparently, to relieve yourself of that assumption. >I have some packages built for EL9 that are installed on my Fedora machine right now. Putting on a different distro you run a risk of having broken dependencies, but things are largely the same. "The packages work as long as you ignore all the things that make them not work." >The same is also true for Debian, Ubuntu, and many other .deb distros. This is far more common in the linux ecosystem than not. Debian and Ubuntu will have exactly the same problem as the Fedora and RHEL example. Actually worse, because Ubuntu isn't a strict downstream of Debian but a random snapshot of Debian while it's between releases. The packages in Ubuntu can end up not corresponding to any Debian stable nor unstable. And again, the scenario of taking RPMs from RHEL and trying to put them onto SLES is equivalent to taking RPMs from RHEL and trying to put them onto Debian. If the latter sounds absurd to you, why did you think the former made sense? >Suse seems to me to be the odd-one-out here. No, you just have very bad ideas about how Linux works and are weirdly stubborn about correcting them.

neurostimulant 3y ago

People with tight dependency with RHEL usually have a hard time migrating to SuSE Linux, and vice versa. For example, SuSE Linux is popular among meteorologists running their own weather models. A few years ago, I was trying to run a popular open source weather model on CentOS and failed to do so after a few days of full time tinkering with the source. Gave up and installed OpenSuSE and I got it up and running in a couple hours.

mr_cyborg 3y ago

Anecdotally, I have only heard of Europeans using SUSE.

dlandau 3y ago
Cray, the US super computer company uses SUSE
skissane 3y ago
Place I used to work at in Australia 15+ years ago used SUSE. Novell owned it and they positioned it as their replacement for NetWare, and a lot of ex-NetWare sites ending up running it (at least for a while). But even that place, we had more Oracle Linux than SUSE. Everything that ran on Solaris got migrated to Oracle Linux (e.g. Oracle RDBMS); everything that ran on NetWare (GroupWise, eDirectory) got migrated to OES (SUSE plus extra ex-NetWare bits). But then I think most of the SUSE went away when GroupWise/eDir were replaced by Exchange/AD on Windows. Whereas they are probably still using Oracle Linux today. Actually, originally we were going to use RHEL, but found Red Hat’s sales team too difficult to deal with, whereas we already were an Oracle customer.
neurostimulant 3y ago
SuSE Linux is absolutely popular among HPC folks, especially in the weather forecasting / modeling community.
znpy 3y ago
And mostly germans, afaik.
- cpach 3y ago
  SUSE is a fascinating company. They’ve been in the game since the 90s. They have over 2300 employees. Revenue is ~650 MM USD. But I rarely hear of anyone using their distro.
  - toyg 3y ago
    European public sector.

homarp 3y ago

https://www.suse.com/c/navigating-changes-in-the-open-source-landscape/ https://www.suse.com/c/navigating-changes-in-the-open-source...