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SUSE to go private

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Re: SUSE to go private

#221
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to run SUSE about 20 years ago and have always thought it was cool but haven't kept up with it much since then. What are some of the things they do that make them unparalleled?

Open Build System and OpenQA, for automated building and testing of packages. This is what gets updates to their rolling release Tumbleweed faster than Arch, but with no instability ever. I can't emphasize enough how rock solid Tumbleweed is. OBS also doubles as their own AUR equivalent - you can make your own repo and do your own builds and install from the command line, or browse and install what other people have…

I moved from Ubuntu to Tumbleweed a year ago and slowly warmed up to it. Two days ago some update made it fail to start sddm (the display manager, aka graphical login screen) correctly. Some error regarding missing libraries. Network is also not working anymore.

After trying to repair it for a while I am about to ditch it and go with KDE Neon or Mint (their Debian edition sounds interesting).

I will look into this Snapper thing you mentioned, maybe that helps. Otherwise my trust in that distro is unfortunately gone.

Re: SUSE to go private

#222
post #217

Love it! Personally i dont think the public offering has done them any good. They are unparalleled in the kubernetes space and im expecting much more awesome things to come. (and no, i dont simply mean clicky bunty rancher) By now i am suggesting Suse products to all my clients with the guarantee that even if i get hit with a bus and will not return, there will always(!) be someone to support their software. They are…

> They are for instance the only ones actually doing this. And Red Hat isn't? What am I missing?

Red Hat has much less product on the market for this purpose and is nowhere near as complete as SUSE. OpenShift is powered by kubernetes. SUSEs solution IS kubernetes.

Furthermore, i think they have clearly demonstrated how they see things.

Re: SUSE to go private

#223
post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are for instance the only ones actually doing this. And Red Hat isn't? What am I missing?

Red Hat has much less product on the market for this purpose and is nowhere near as complete as SUSE. OpenShift is powered by kubernetes. SUSEs solution IS kubernetes. Furthermore, i think they have clearly demonstrated how they see things.

OpenShift is also just regular old Kubernetes.

Re: SUSE to go private

#224
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, I’ve been through the PE takeover experience. It wasn’t pleasant and the surviving company bore little resemblance to prior self. The best that can be said for the experience was they gave me a decent buyout. Leap was my main driver for a good number of years though of late Arch in VM has been my daily. I see a migration from SUSE in the near future.

Leap has been announced to be EOL a while ago anyway.

I know. I had considered just going to Tumbleweed. But that's why I tried Arch. And since they extended Leap's EOL for another year, it gave me more time to play around and figure out where I wanted to land.

Re: SUSE to go private

#225
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience was limited to laptops and monitors, but hardware's been good and service has been excellent. Honestly, it reminded me more of early-Amazon customer support, than anything more recent. E.g. support agent following up with a personalized email to me to make sure everything worked out okay with a warranty claim. Talking to humans was novel and pleasant. That was on the consumer side though.

It’s all about the tier of support. At work we bought 20k laptops and screwed up the support spec. So we ended up with some garbage tier support that wouldn’t fix issues caused by Dell docks. You have to have “ProSupport” We also have a region where they have a 2 hour support SLA with part in hand. They will literally put your computer down to fix ours to avoid whatever punishment that gets meted out. Back in the day…

International warranty transfer has been Dell's killer feature for me.

Re: SUSE to go private

#226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Red Hat has much less product on the market for this purpose and is nowhere near as complete as SUSE. OpenShift is powered by kubernetes. SUSEs solution IS kubernetes. Furthermore, i think they have clearly demonstrated how they see things.

OpenShift is also just regular old Kubernetes.

Guys while I know that Redhat also contributes to SIGS for kubernetes, My point is that SUSE is just much more available.

This is especially true on the edge and unless you are a megacorp, i don't see anyone forking over money for the license. The open source offering is not to be used for production and simply as a testing ground for features that make it upstream... OKD, could have been a closer match to k3s in terms of cost but not necessarily simplicity and we are not even talking about how ready rke2 is.

SUSE's offerings, provide a balance of simplicity and enterprise features, making them compelling for SMEs. Here in Europe there is not even a question about it. Kubernetes is free and in the end of the day simply a wrapper of apis, which should not require licensing.

Re: SUSE to go private

#227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All these are nice features but until I see suse wiki pages in google search results along side the ones I see from arch, it's just easier to stay on arch. > Open Build System and OpenQA, for automated building and testing of packages. This is what gets updates to their rolling release Tumbleweed faster than Arch, but with no instability ever. Arch also has "no instability ever". And I don't think I've ever run into…

> Arch also has "no instability ever". Lolwat. I've tried it in earnest several times over the years on basic thinkpads (once on my only development machine, in which my only customizations were basically installing intellij ides and docker) and I would never ever, call it stable. I mean, if someone were to ask me for a picture of instability for a dictionary and they asked me to choose between Arch Linux and Windows…

I've had arch running for a solid 7 years the only instability I've had to deal with is when a kernel update broke Bluetooth on my desktop.

What instability did you face?

Re: SUSE to go private

#228
post #109
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lets hope their incentives more strongly align with their customers, now. Private equity is incompatible with "optimism" and "hope". Even worse when it is the same company that got them listed in the first place, implying that going public was a mistake.

I've been hearing a lot about private equity lately (particularly from folks who used to pursue VC money in the past). Can you expand a bit on the negatives of PE?

Not op, but as i understand it: they swoop in, load up the company with debt, fire lots of people, then go "oh, fiddlesticks.. whelp, what can ya do??" and throw up their hands as the company inevitably crumbles.

Citation: Read up on how Toys'R'Us was put through that wringer.

Edit: actually, here's a good write-up:

  "Less attention was paid to the albatross that Bain, KKR, and Vornado had placed around the company’s neck. Toys “R” Us had a debt load of $1.86 billion before it was bought out. Immediately after the deal, it shouldered more than $5 billion in debt. And though sales had slumped before the deal, they held relatively steady after it, even when the Great Recession hit. The company generated $11.2 billion in sales in the 12 months before the deal; in the 12 months before November 2017, it generated $11.1 billion."
Article: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/07/toys-r-...

Archive link: https://archive.is/OH9QF

Re: SUSE to go private

#229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OpenShift is also just regular old Kubernetes.

Guys while I know that Redhat also contributes to SIGS for kubernetes, My point is that SUSE is just much more available. This is especially true on the edge and unless you are a megacorp, i don't see anyone forking over money for the license. The open source offering is not to be used for production and simply as a testing ground for features that make it upstream... OKD, could have been a closer match to k3s in ter…

You do know red hat contributes far more to upstream kubernetes than suse/rancher don't you? You know they helped google open source it, don't you? Rancher certainly got the jump on red hat for lighter weight deployments, but to claim that it is more kubernetes than the red hat offering shows you don't actually understand what you're comparing.

Re: SUSE to go private

#230
post #68

I am cautiously optimistic. From the article: > Both SUSE’s Management and Supervisory Boards have expressed support for the strategic opportunity presented by this delisting. They believe that it will enable SUSE to concentrate on its operational priorities and the execution of its long-term strategy without the pressure of public markets. Lets hope their incentives more strongly align with their customers, now. I a…

I am ambivalent and withholding judgement. Hopefully this is a process to protect SUSE from greedy VCs who want to capitalize any value they can get their hands on, but it could also be a long-con process to punish SUSE for daring to fork Red Hat at their organizational level.
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