Novell News Summary - Part I: Problems at Planet OpenSUSE; Farewell, Beebe

Dr. Roy Schestowitz

2009-03-21 11:14:50 UTC
Modified: 2009-03-21 11:15:39 UTC

YaST boot

Arrivals and Departures

IN THIS JOURNEY OF ups and downs we are finding one person who has decided to move from Ubuntu to OpenSUSE.

I’m a convert from Ubuntu, after several years with that distribution of Linux, and the difference between Ubuntu 8.10 and OpenSuse 11.1 is night and day.

[...]

No version of Linux is ever as good without all the other versions. Development on Ubuntu, has undoubtedly benefited development on OpenSuse because that’s how open source software works — it benefits all other open source software. For many people, Ubuntu “just works” the way it’s supposed to. As for me, I love Linux and have a new favorite flavor in OpenSuse 11.1.

Bill Beebe, who has supported OpenSUSE for many years, got his hands burned, just like Marcel Gagné a couple of weeks ago.

I'm pulling the plug in openSUSE 11.1, and in the process, on Linux in general as a home system...

LifeHacker has been looking for votes on top distributions and OpenSUSE made the cut. It's described as follows.

While not quite as simple to install as some of the other distributions on the list, openSUSE is quite user friendly. This distribution includes YaST (Yet another Setup Tool) to make installing applications a breeze. The user interface also gets a boost from Slab, a polished Windows Vista-like start menu. openSUSE puts an emphasis on hardware support and ease of use, making typically troublesome tasks like setting up a multi-monitor system less awkward. OpenSUSE is also part of the SMOLT driver project—when you install it, you can opt in to participate in a hardware survey to help continue the growth of Linux and foster support for new hardware.

Stephan Binner posted to opensuse-announce where he was saying that opensuse-planet most likely suffered from DNS issues, just like TuxMachines a couple of months ago. However, we did manage to find an informative post about Zypper and also a vulnerability. There is likely to be more news substance in the OpenSUSE Web site.

In this Week:

* Geeko wants you! * Update on openSUSE Infrastructure Services (download.opensuse.org) * KDE 4.2.1 released * OpenSUSE vs. openSUSE * Easgs: How to setup a software RAID-5 distribution in openSUSE (video)

For SLE*, unlike OpenSUSE, it has been a fairly busy week and next week will be even busier. The next post will say more. ⬆

SLAPP Censorship - Part 30 Out of 200: The Time We Reported Abuse to Greater Manchester Police (GMP) and It Was Escalated to Its Cybercrime Unit: he started trolling and harassing me for criticising his employers' monopolistic and users-hostile agenda
Hardly Seeing Slopfarms Today, Even in Google News: Google's adventures with slop increased its debt significantly
Links 02/04/2026: Apple Turns 50, Efforts To Ban VPNs: Links for the day
Gemini Links 02/04/2026: Kubernetes With FreeBSD, OFFLFIRSOCH, and Great Circle Distance: Links for the day
Dr. Andy Farnell on Microsoft Silencing or Deplatforming Opposition in the UK and Elsewhere: Microsoft as a king or a kind of "religion" one cannot question
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, April 01, 2026: IRC logs for Wednesday, April 01, 2026
'Modern' Cars Not a Rosy Industry: The current "modern" cars already have a shelf life similar to that of many toothpastes
Wrongthink Detector and Filter in "Think About the Children" Clothing: It is not about "age verification", it's a Trojan horse for social control
IBM Facilities Now Deemed Legitimate (Military) Target, Along With GAFAM Bases: Does IBM have any defences in place to protect against "downtime by explosions"?
What Happens When Some Large News Sites Turn to Slop and Spew Out Nonsense: LLM slop makes such grotesque mistakes abundant
Links 01/04/2026: Quantum Hype (Turing and Google), "US Fuel Prices Surge Past $4 a Gallon": Links for the day
Gemini Links 01/04/2026: "Sacred Week of Cycling" and Zenity for Scripts: Links for the day
Losing Debian: Sruthi Chandran election flop: Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
French judgment: parasitisme by FSFE & Matthias Kirschner (CO23.002709): Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Microsoft Uses April Fools to 'Joke' About Inserting "Age Verification" (Surveillance) Into Linux: MinceR says the "lkml [message/page] one is April Fools or at least they're trying to pass it off as April Fools [however] the [GitHub] one was archived on the 8th and yesterday, so that probably isn't..."
IBM "Headcount Reductions" by Early Retirement and Death: The tragedy at IBM started 33 years ago on the first of April
Red Hat: Latin-1 character set under threat from Bishop Michael Martin, North Carolina: Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 01/04/2026: Microsoft GitHub Now Pushing Ads Into People's Code/Commits, Earth Overshoot Day Draws Nearer: Links for the day
What IBM and EPO Workers Have in Common: European Media Not Covering Very Major News (Press Became Dysfunctional): Are IBM operatives working to scuttle the process of investigative journalism?
Free Speech in the United Kingdom When "Chilling Effect" is Increasingly Prevalent: If politicians cannot even use a term like "parasitic behaviour", then where do we as a society end up?
Oracle Lays Off Because of Debt and Commercial Issues, Not Slop: Like Scam Altman, Larry Ellison hangs around Cheeto King because he could use some bailouts in the form of government contracts or phony money with an incredible name like "Stargate"
The Real Reason Many Sites and Forums Shun Microsoft Lunduke: When forums say that they banned Microsoft Lunduke or don't want him mentioned it's probably because they are familiar with the "stench" that follows him around
Gemini Links 01/04/2026: Hallucinations, Stitching, and Type Systems: Links for the day
Lots of Layoffs at IBM, "Media Blackout" About Mass Layoffs at IBM's HashiCorp and Confluent Last Month: IBM is a dying company circling down the drain while manipulating or paying the media to pretend everything is fine
Microsoft Under Investigation by the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) for Abusive Tactics: What's noteworthy is that this is "set to begin in May"
Sounds Like Red Hat (IBM) Layoffs in Slop Clothing: This is an IBM policy. They try to justify staff cuts.
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, March 31, 2026: IRC logs for Tuesday, March 31, 2026
In Time for April Fools (and Easter), 30,000 Oracle 'Pink Slips' While People Are Asleep: Oracle probably has no choice but to fire a ton of people
SLAPP Censorship - Part 29 Out of 200: Violent Language Won't Go Away When You Use It in Your Site, Blog, and Social Control Media: abuse began in 2012 because I had politely and accurately criticised Red Hat
Gemini Links 31/03/2026: Five Years on Gemini (Rob's Gemini Capsule), OFFLIFIRSOCH 2026, and More: Links for the day
Slopfarms Persist, But Google Seems to Have Delisted Many: We are still checking
Links 31/03/2026: More Energy Shortages Noted, Taylor Swift Faces Trademark Infringement Suit: Links for the day
Chaff, Slop and Spam Help Distract From Parallel Crises at IBM: IBM seems very eager to undermine discussion about what goes on inside
Lacking Business Model, Bluesky Has Become Slop and Gravitates Towards Plagiarism, Bots: LLM slop/plagiarism under the guise of "Artificial Intelligence" (AI)
IBM-Spawned Lexmark Sold, Then Came Mass Layoffs, Now the CEO Who Did This is Leaving: IBM is really not a magnet for talent at this point
Not April Fools But April First: Red Hat Staff Becoming "IBM": claims of mass layoffs set to kick off at IBM some time soon
Gemini Links 31/03/2026: Antenna Packed Up, AuraGem and AuraSearch Maintenance: Links for the day
Links 31/03/2026: More Social Control Media Bans, BBC Now Run by GAFAM (US) Executive: Links for the day
'Broligarchs' Don't Want Science, They Want Entertainers to Entertain Them (and Make Them Richer): Of course this will result in things getting worse in the sciences and everyone who relies on the sciences
When Republics Turn From Democratic Governments Into Imperialistic Dictatorships: What goes on in the US would require talking about politics
Companies That Have Nothing Except Buzzwords and Promises Will Perish: Dishonest media will perish along with the companies it is covering up for
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) to be Grilled in Two Weeks' Time by the British Government for "Recent Regulatory Failures": we escalated to our politicians
GNU/Linux Will Thrive as Long as It's Modular, Not Monolithic: To IBM, it's all about money. Nothing else matters.
EPO "Cocaine Communication Manager" - Part X - People Are Leaving: "I was happy to be at the EPO in the beginning, but since I realized it's all a big mafia"
IBM's 33 Years as a "Financial Engineering" (Accounting Tricks) Company: In relation to Red Hat, this "financial engineering" involves culling many workers and trying to replace them with slop
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, March 30, 2026: IRC logs for Monday, March 30, 2026
Links 31/03/2026: Rising Costs, Cyberattacks, Novo Patent Expiry: Links for the day
Gemini Links 31/03/2026: American Spring, Distributed Systems Simulator, and Calculus for Electronics: Links for the day

Novell News Summary - Part I: Problems at Planet OpenSUSE; Farewell, Beebe

Arrivals and Departures

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