● 08.04.08

●● Béranger Gives Up on Novell’s SUSE, MSI Cripples SUSE Laptops

Posted in Debian, Microsoft, Novell, OpenOffice, OpenSUSE, SLES/SLED at 4:06 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Getting the boot

This didn’t even take long [1, 2]. It was actually package management that broke the camel’s back (among other things) and Béranger has just decided to move to a solid Debian.

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Next, I was trying to find newer Oo.org builds made for openSUSE 11.0. The openSUSE build service is a mess, anyone can have a repository there, and it was easy to find two repositories for Oo.org 2.99.* (3.0 betas) that were simply broken (not just RPM hell, but simply hell). Eventually, adding OpenOffice.org:/UNSTABLE/openSUSE_11.0/ provided me with a working 2.99.25-12 build, but to no avail (and it was ugly, and it had missing toolbar icons, and it was missing the integration with the GNOME open/save dialog, and it couldn’t load the Antidote RX add-on).

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So I can’t use a vital Oo.org add-on under openSUSE 11.0. I had to dump Novell’s jewel. Oh well…

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This may seem like unnecessary criticism of OpenSUSE, so moving to a more curious item, watch this.

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MSI’s Web site also finally acknowledges a version of Wind carrying a Novell’s Suse Linux OS instead of Windows XP. People searching for the mini-laptop will have to turn to page two on the Web page to have a look. Unfortunately, it appears the Wind-Linux will come with a 3-cell battery instead of the 6-cell batteries on the devices coming out in August.

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Previously, the Linux version of Wind was not on the company’s Web site.

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So, here one can find some bogus or semi-hearted support where GNU/Linux is considered a Microsoft asset and is therefore being taxed (for mythical software patents). Furthermore, after Microsoft's considerable discounts and tying up of key vendors, there’s little less than just a hidden option that is not very appealing, hardware-wise. Acer too offers inferior specs (yet a lower price too) for the Linpus-based Aspires. Is this a triumph? Microsoft’s market distortion must be combated, not accepted or even tolerated. Novell remains a big part of this problem. █

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