After Ubuntu hell it’s time to test drive OpenSUSE
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I’ve reached the end of the line with Ubuntu. After struggling with sluggish graphics performance, audio problems, networking hell, and a community of arrogant self-appointed zealots for weeks, I’ve made the decision to get rid of Ubuntu from my computer.
It’s clear to me - despite all the hype - that Ubuntu is far from being ready to propel Linux to prime time on the desktops of normal computer users everywhere. It doesn’t live up to expectations. And it’s just not a good operating system.
I think one of the prime examples of how much the team behind Ubuntu has to learn is in their choice to include a beta version of Mozilla Firefox 3 in the shipping version of 8.04. Even now Firefox 3.0 has been updated to “stable” it still performs horribly on my Linux machine. Most ordinary computer users want a machine that just works - they do not want to help beta test an upcoming product as part of their daily lives.
The fact that I can’t play audio in multiple applications at once, pausing between music or DVD playback to hear web content, or that Ubuntu refuses to remember my updated wireless connection settings on reboot, and Firefox 3 performs like junk, collectively makes for a terrible computing experience.
So for me it’s bye bye to Ubuntu for now at least.
But I’m not giving up on Linux just yet. Those who have taken the time to post well-reasoned responses to my personal hell trying to live with Ubuntu have been suggesting OpenSUSE is an excellent alternative.
So I am about to begin the installation process of OpenSUSE now and we shall see how the experience compares to Ubuntu.
9 Comments
Matt Ryan
June 21st, 2008
at 10:30am
I will agree to a point there. The Linux community tends to fill itself with self righteousness. No offense to anyone in that community, but when you are surrounded by snobbery the logical step for anyone to take when joining the pack is to follow suit. As a resul you end up with a giant guild of snobs where only a small percentage of them really know enough to warrant the high nose.
Am I saying that Linux community is full of snobs? Not at all. I just believe that Linux would be taking over a whole lot more market share if it had more evangelists and less elitists.
leftystrat
June 21st, 2008
at 10:52am
Without comment on anything else, I suspect you’ll like the new OS. I don’t have problems with Ubuntu but I understand OpenSUSE inherits stability from its commercial counterpart.
Mind you, I had a lot of trouble getting the commercial counterpart to come up, but ymmv.
You can also try out some live distros or run them in virtual machines to test them out before install. Have you tried PCLinuxOS? Debian?
I have to go clean out my nose so when I hold it up, it won’t embarrass me in public
Gnimsh
June 21st, 2008
at 2:03pm
Hi, please let me know how your audio issues go in OpenSUSE. I have been plauged by the one application at a time in ubuntu, and have fixed with dmix so now everything shares nicely, but if I run flash videos, then nothing else will work til flash is done using the sound card, which is incredibly annoying.
Mike Harpe
June 22nd, 2008
at 6:27pm
I just loaded OpenSUSE myself. I thought Ubuntu was a little too stripped down. I found myself having to load a lot of extra packages after the base install. I tried Fedora but they have some support issues that were a hassle.
We use SUSE at work and I am thinking of moving from network engineering back to systems programming so I decided that OpenSUSE would be a good thing to learn.
cody joe
June 22nd, 2008
at 9:05pm
Well after reading several of your articles, as least you know how to make people upset, which I also understand. Make them angry and they will come.
Anyone with half-mind knows what you are doing, and your opinion is like ass-holes everyone has one
Nikesh
June 23rd, 2008
at 5:05am
You are correct, I never liked Ubuntu tooo much striped down, I love having the lots of package.
Try OpenSuse 11
Andrew Steele
June 23rd, 2008
at 8:28am
If you had browsed the various blogs and forum, you would have found the reasons for including Firefox 3 Beta and why it was chosen instead of having Firefox 2 in there.
And second, OpenSUSE 11 comes with Firefox 3 Beta 5 by default as well.
aid
June 24th, 2008
at 3:49pm
you obviously missed the firefox 2 icon on your taskbar, try clicking it if you dont like firefox 3 or whatever hogwash you said.
as for your graphics and sound get a new computer, it sounds like your setup is real dated if you don’t mind me saying, to eb fair you are a fool to base your decision of which distro to use on a third party web browser that you may have a dislike for…
Mr
April 7th, 2009
at 6:12pm
^lol wanker