Tell me more ×
Unix & Linux Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for users of Linux, FreeBSD and other Un*x-like operating systems.. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 4 down vote favorite

So... I've been looking at 'returning' to openSuSE after a long absence (parted ways back in the 7.x/8x time frame). One thing that kind of jumped out at me all of a sudden was that for a relatively popular 'mainstream' distro that has been around for a long time... I don't believe I've ever heard of or seen any forks, spins or any other kind of distro based off of SuSE.

Any ideas as to why that might be?

share|improve this question
2  
They are so awesome there is no need to fork ;-) – choroba Dec 1 '12 at 21:20
1  
That is one possiblity... ;) I seem to recall some hate-n-discontent back around 8.x or thereabouts; kind of surprised that nothing ever spun off. – memilanuk Dec 1 '12 at 21:22

3 Answers

up vote 1 down vote accepted

Maybe openSUSE is slightly more tweakable than its main competitor Fedora. More important probably is that the community is smaller hence less chance of developing a fork - the critical fork-mass just isn't reached. Another "bonus" might be the BuildService, which provides lots of additional packages.

share|improve this answer
The more I look at it, the more I agree with this. SuSE Studio, where anyone can create their own 'build' based off the parent distro and store it in the cloud probably helps keep everyone closer to the mother ship. ;) – memilanuk Dec 3 '12 at 16:43
up vote 0 down vote

There are heaps of these. You should take a look at KIWI and SUSEStudio...

For instance, ownCloud-in-a-box: http://susestudio.com/a/TadMax/owncloud-in-a-box

There are many Fedora-style "spins" published at SUSEstudio (you can even spin some of them up online in the "cloud" and try them out without downloading an ISO to install by using Testdrive) http://susestudio.com/browse

You can create your own flavour of openSUSE using KIWI (even plug in your own branding in place of openSUSE or Novell's ). Very handy for a kiosk system, for instance.

share|improve this answer
up vote 0 down vote

The answer is that SuSE got bad after Novell bought SuSE. It is currently getting better again... (after now being part of Attachemate) But for professional use I would use SLES or some RH-spin-off.

Look closely who maintains the open-source-componentes that are part of SuSE - you will see many @rh.com - on places where you were used to see @suse.de - many of the SuSE-developers have left SuSE and are now working elsewhere - including RedHat.

share|improve this answer
I wouldn't say that it got bad. There have been some hiccups, but both open and enterprise distro was generally always on a par with the competition. More problematic was the OSS community negative over-reaction to the cooperation with Microsoft (not saying that it was presented by the company as well as it could have been). As for the numbers of developers - RH is far bigger than SuSE, what would you expect? – peterph Dec 3 '12 at 0:29

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.