Novell's SLED is failing on laptops, and not for the first time. It's practically failing this time around due to so-called "Service Packs," which no other vendor seems to have (except Microsoft which uses the same name). Beranger has posted a rant about it.

OK. Now go and read “HP 2133 Mini-Note broken by own updates”. It's about how, on the HP 2133 Mini-Note that comes with SLED 10, €«Novell’s Zenworks updater will ask you to install SLED 10 SP2, which contains a number of important bits including ‘cumulative security patches, maintenance updates, and bug fixes’, and essential 3G networking support for NetworkManager.€» And then... €«the update is breaking the 2133 for everyone!€»

Several links are provided as proof, including “SLED update to SP2, tried ndiswrapper, now won't boot”, for instance.

The beauty of trusting a payed support, Enterprise Linux distribution.

The beauty of getting Microsoft-grade, crappy updates.

Life is funny.

Here is the original post for those who are interested.

This raises a few questions.

* Why is HP is shipping SLED with non-compatible WiFi hardware? Oh, and for that matter: why are they shipping incompatible webcam hardware too? * Why did HP bother paying Novell for support if they’re not going to demand anything for it? * If HP is aware of the issue - as they apparently are - why can’t we find anything on HPs own site? * Why should customers pay for an OS which HP doesn’t seem capable of supporting?

Novell moved away from the desktop after it had signed a deal with Microsoft. And it shows. For their computing needs, laptop assemblers like H-P ought to look away from Novell and choose something which is not tied to Microsoft's commitments and unnecessary patent baggage. It's crippled and disadvantaged, by design. ⬆

"We need to slaughter Novell before they get stronger….If you’re going to kill someone, there isn’t much reason to get all worked up about it and angry. You just pull the trigger. Any discussions beforehand are a waste of time. We need to smile at Novell while we pull the trigger."

--Jim Allchin, Platform Group Vice President