Marcel Gagné working on a new book!

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Mon Dec 26, 2005 8:10 pm

I was just checking an online book store today for some stuff on Red Hat Enterprise and I noticed something set for release next year called Moving to Ubuntu Linux: Kiss The Blue Screen Of Death Goodbye, by Marcel Gagné.

Personally I would have hoped he would have done one of SuSE Linux, because I find it vastly surperior, and more mature, as a Windows XP replacement.

Wally Balljacker · Post by **Wally Balljacker** » Mon Dec 26, 2005 10:05 pm

Don't you find RPM based distros to be more prone to dependency issues than a Debian, or Gentoo based distribution? I don't mean to start a distro war here, but I started off with RedHat based distro's like almost everyone else does, and I wish I had just skipped them altogether and installed a Debian derived distro instead. To each their own I guess. If SUSE is working great for you, than that's fine.

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Mon Dec 26, 2005 10:10 pm

Wally Balljacker wrote:Don't you find RPM based distros to be more prone to dependency issues than a Debian, or Gentoo based distribution? I don't mean to start a distro war here, but I started off with RedHat based distro's like almost everyone else does, and I wish I had just skipped them altogether and installed a Debian derived distro instead. To each their own I guess. If SUSE is working great for you, than that's fine.

Well, I just use apt on SuSE to handle some of this stuff, and since there isn't so many crazy homebrew repositories for SuSE there aren't really any problems, it's been A WHILE since I ran into a dependency issue.

Judland · Post by **Judland** » Tue Dec 27, 2005 12:45 am

The thing about Ubuntu, which is probably why he's used it, is that it can be run from the CD. So, you don't have to install anything to try it out... just like Knoppix (the distro. he used in his first book). Last I heard, only SUSE 9.x had a live version... I don't know about 10.x.

As far as I know, the latest release of SUSE has to be installed to a hard drive and requires more modern equipment to function. I know, 'cause I tried to install SUSE and it failed each and every time.

Although I don't like Ubuntu myself, he's probably used it because it's more accessible to more people. If I were him, I would have used Kanotix over Ubuntu for this purpose.

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Tue Dec 27, 2005 7:06 am

Judland wrote:The thing about Ubuntu, which is probably why he's used it, is that it can be run from the CD. So, you don't have to install anything to try it out... just like Knoppix (the distro. he used in his first book). Last I heard, only SUSE 9.x had a live version... I don't know about 10.x.

As far as I know, the latest release of SUSE has to be installed to a hard drive and requires more modern equipment to function. I know, 'cause I tried to install SUSE and it failed each and every time.

Although I don't like Ubuntu myself, he's probably used it because it's more accessible to more people. If I were him, I would have used Kanotix over Ubuntu for this purpose.

SUSE Linux 10.0 absolutely has a LiveDVD, it's 1.1 GB, not too bad.

SUSE Linux doesn't really require that much horsepower to work, it just needs at least 256 MB of RAM, which most people have, at least that's the case here in Denmark

More accessible you say? Well, you can buy a retail version of SUSE Linux that includes installation support, pretty thick instruction manuals and all the discs needed for install plus a bonus DVD with even more stuff. You could also just go to opensuse.org and download it.

Judland · Post by **Judland** » Tue Dec 27, 2005 10:18 am

Tsuroerusu wrote: SUSE Linux 10.0 absolutely has a LiveDVD, it's 1.1 GB, not too bad.

SUSE Linux doesn't really require that much horsepower to work, it just needs at least 256 MB of RAM, which most people have, at least that's the case here in Denmark

More accessible you say? Well, you can buy a retail version of SUSE Linux that includes installation support, pretty thick instruction manuals and all the discs needed for install plus a bonus DVD with even more stuff. You could also just go to opensuse.org and download it.

This is my point exactly.... you have more people who own CD drives than DVD drives. Limiting yourself to only those people with DVD drives is... well.... limiting.

In the case of making a beginner's guide that is made to reach as many people as possible, you'd want something that is usable to as many people as possible. These are just some reasons I thought I'd point out to suggest why SUSE might not have been chosen for his book.

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Tue Dec 27, 2005 10:24 am

Judland wrote:
Tsuroerusu wrote: SUSE Linux 10.0 absolutely has a LiveDVD, it's 1.1 GB, not too bad.

SUSE Linux doesn't really require that much horsepower to work, it just needs at least 256 MB of RAM, which most people have, at least that's the case here in Denmark

More accessible you say? Well, you can buy a retail version of SUSE Linux that includes installation support, pretty thick instruction manuals and all the discs needed for install plus a bonus DVD with even more stuff. You could also just go to opensuse.org and download it.
This is my point exactly.... you have more people who own CD drives than DVD drives. Limiting yourself to only those people with DVD drives is... well.... limiting.

In the case of making a beginner's guide that is made to reach as many people as possible, you'd want something that is usable to as many people as possible. These are just some reasons I thought I'd point out to suggest why SUSE might not have been chosen for his book.

Well, Marcel is pretty good at remastering LiveCDs, so he probably just could cut some stuff out of the LiveDVD and turn it into a LiveCD, which probably wouldn't be that hard to do.

I personally think Ubuntu is not the right distribution for beginners, mainly because it uses GNOME, which I find utter bollocks for new Linux users (Just using a LugRadio sentence here), but also because it doesn't have a slick configuration panel in the same style as Windows. If you wanna make Windows users feel at home, give them something that's familiar and Ubuntu is anything but familiar IMHO, and also, it's a hastle for new people to do a dual boot, you have to manually create the partitions, and that's a classic old issue where new people get stuck, which Leo Laporte has pointed out countless of times.