Why is there no forum for SuSE?????

Kerridis · 02-28-2004, 10:33 AM

I use a SuSE since 6.2, now I have 9.0 installed.
I tested other distros (Red Hat, Debian, Slackware, Peanut, Vector, LindowsOS, Mandrake, Knoppix) - but I always return to SuSE

I like their configuration tool yast, I like kinternet/qinternet, I like finding all my kde stuff in /opt not in /usr, I like the susewatcher (which I had to disable because of KDE 3.2) and so on...

And I never had hardware problems with a SuSE...

Sure there are things I dislike (don't you have that for every software you are using?):
I dislike it when some icon pops up on my desktop and garbles my icon alignment just because I have attached a usb stick to the computer (for G*'s sake you can disable it in 9.0 because it is separated from susewatcher) - I would love to see that icon on desktop permanently (sticky where I put it to) but just greyed out if not active...
I dislike the sorting of files in 9.0 (the ignorance of special keys like _ and so on) though that seems to be a distro wide "feature" (kernel???). But SuSE 9.0 does not allow a user to have the dot-files sorted to the beginning anymore... well at least I don't find a way to...

But to come back to the original topic:

... guess I need a SuSE forum in here

Maybe SuSE does fear that nobody wants to use their pay-support if they engage at linuxquestions.org? Why pay for support when you can get it in a forum for nothing? And the SuSE guy who would do the job - well he/she can't block every question and point to the pay-support...

Present · 02-28-2004, 12:25 PM

yes, but you have to consider the negative publicity (because everyone may assume they are not participating because they want to increase support revenue). in addition, if you are going to take a position of non-participation you BETTER have ABSOLUTELY AWESOME support.

if people are paying for the support, you better have the right answer right away, and it better be the right answer the first time. in my observation, they are not in a position to offer that yet, and my experience is that their support is substantially below-par. maybe with Novell's help they can get closer to that soon, but until then, it would help their sales and customer satisfaction TREMENDOUSLY if they did participate. IMO they would net 5-10x more sales revenue than "possible" lost support revenue.

i should prepare a survey, hmm... that would be very difficult to do, i mean to make sure the survey was indeed measuring the factors you are trying to, in order to come to a relevant conclusion regarding the benefits/liabilities of forum participation.

guess without a survey, i'm still entitled to my opinion ;-)

dushkinup · 02-29-2004, 02:54 AM

Personaly, I use SuSE. I used to have Mandrake for a while, but then things got messy because.. Well.. Mandrake sucks

. Then I switched to Redhat - which is good, but sometimes annoying. And now I use SuSE.

SuSE is the ultimate distro. Come on! Be nice and make us a forum!

sxa · 02-29-2004, 11:28 AM

With all of this said.. sitting here complaining among ourselves is not going to make it happen faster.. if you want a SuSe Forum, you need to keep in contact with SuSe.. I am sure when they get enough requests they will come over hear, and allow for a forum to be on here..

eBopBob · 02-29-2004, 11:44 AM

Freakygeek55 is exactly right. Jeremy has already said it, more than once, he will not put up a SuSE forum unless SuSE actually decides to take part. I understand, for many, that is a very difficult thing to understand and something very difficult to deal with - however, you need to get over it!

I agree, it's a shame, but those are the site rules. If you want a SuSE forum, you'll need to contact SuSE and ask them nicely, simple. However, like many I also think SuSE will always say no as then less people will probably pay for their support... theirfore I'm afraid to say, I think you're flogging a dead horse.

Just because there is not a SuSE forum does not mean you cannot ask questions about SuSE, I even see questions relating to Mandrake and some other distro's in the general distro forum even though those distros do have special forums. You can still ask your questions, just in the general distro forum.

jeremy · 02-29-2004, 12:15 PM

Just for a status update. I had been in contact with Novell and was optimistic that we'd have a Suse forum quickly. My last few emails however have gone unanswered. I can't see having a forum here hurting paid support contracts at *all* as the companies that pay for support want enterprise level support (with a contract, SLA's, etc.) from the distro in question. That being said I am still open to Suse (and in fact any distro) having a forum here at LQ. Hopefully at some point someone there will "get it".

--jeremy

Patsy · 02-29-2004, 12:33 PM

I found SuSE forums at:

http://www.atech.me.uk/suseforums/

it also works if you type: www.suseforums.com

They do not contain a vast amount of data (yet)and sometimes they are pretty dead, but from time to time you can find something useful there.

Present · 03-01-2004, 08:45 PM

i've actually found this site to be more helpful:

http://forums.suselinuxsupport.de/index.php?

since it is a german domain, i would imagine it might be more official. there are several users 'vir@s' and 'storm' who seem to answer a majority of the posts, but they have been very quick to respond to many of my q's.

give that forum a try if you have problems resolving things here or at the link above....

jeremy · 03-01-2004, 10:09 PM

I am happy to report that I am back in contact with Novell/Suse...stay tuned.

--jeremy

sxa · 03-02-2004, 12:42 PM

I know a guy his names Tom that uses SUSE where he works.. I will get him to send a message to SUSE/Novell.. I am sure he would make great use of these forums if SUSE was on here...

oRg · 03-03-2004, 12:51 PM

I use SuSE as well and I have tried others (i.e. RH, Debian, Mandrake, LFS) and I still think SuSE is better IMO. Every OS has it's problems, (none more than Windows

) so of course there are going to be problems about SuSE. I also think their support is reall good too. I messaged the support guy with a question and like an hour later I got an email back. If you ask me that's quite fast for email. I use SuSE 9.0 Professional and I would like to see a SuSE forum in here for us SuSE people to talk about it.

supertechmyers · 03-06-2004, 03:12 PM

At the company that I work for we are purchacing suses openexchange w/200 seat liscence. I called suse up and threatened that we werent going to buy openexchange from them unless they got in contact with linuxquestions.org about a forum. Lets see if that works.

supertechmyers · 03-06-2004, 03:13 PM

Jeremey,
When I got in contact with suse I told them to email you did they?

Mr.Kex · 03-06-2004, 07:31 PM

Please, help, can somebody help me to find SuSE 9 (iso) to DOWNLOAD, but NOT a Live version..

Thanx, Prophet..

supertechmyers · 03-07-2004, 12:02 AM

There is no Isos available. But what you can do is copy all the files to an existing partition and copy the boot.img to a cd and do a install from existing partion. You can do a FTP install as well.

best ftp for suse that ive found is:
ftp://mirror.mcs.anl.gov/pub/suse/i386/9.0
I thinks thats right.