SUSE Linux distributions

SUSE Linux logo

SUSE Linux (pronounced /ˈsuːsə/[1], German: [ˈzuːzə]) is a computer operating system. It is built on top of the Linux kernel and is distributed with system and application software from various projects. SUSE Linux is of German origin and mainly developed in Europe. The first version of this distribution appeared in early 1994, making SUSE the oldest existing commercial distribution. It is known for its YaST configuration tool. The SuSE brands and trademarks have been owned by Novell since 2003, when the company bought SUSE.

Novell, one of the founding members of the Open Invention Network, decided to make the community an important part of their development process by opening widely the distribution development to outside contributors in 2005, creating the openSUSE Project.

Novell employed over 500 developers working on SUSE in 2004.[2]

Contents

History

The company

The company S.u.S.E. was founded on September 2, 1992 in Nuremberg, Germany, by four people: Roland Dyroff, Thomas Fehr, Burchard Steinbild and Hubert Mantel, all in their early twenties. Three of the founders were still studying mathematics at a university; Thomas Fehr had already graduated and begun work as a software engineer. The original idea was that the company would develop software and function as an advisory UNIX group. According to one of the founders, Hubert Mantel, this idea did not materialize significantly, as working in this industry sector is difficult to achieve. After a while, the group had the idea to distribute Linux, making in parallel some support and sale of software.

The name "S.u.S.E" was originally a German acronym for "Software und System-Entwicklung", meaning "Software and systems development", a name not so original for a software company. However, the full name has never been used and the company has always been known as "S.u.S.E", later shortened to "SuSE" in October 1998.

The official logo and current mascot of the distribution is a veiled chameleon officially named "Geeko" (portmanteau of "Gecko" and "geek") following a competition launched by SuSE. Its design has evolved over time[3].

The origins

The company started its activities as a service company, which among other things regularly released software packages that included SLS and Slackware, printed UNIX/Linux manuals, and offered technical assistance. In mid-1992, Softlanding Linux System (SLS, now defunct) was founded by Peter MacDonald, and was the first comprehensive distribution to contain elements such as X and TCP/IP. The Slackware distribution (maintained by Patrick Volkerding) was initially based largely on SLS, and the SUSE Linux distribution was originally a German translation of Slackware Linux.

Thus, the company was sending a set of 40 Slackware floppy disks to people who wanted to get Linux. Thereafter, the Patrick Volkerding' scripts were translated, making in 1994 the original S.u.S.E Linux 1.0 distribution a German version of Slackware, developed in close collaboration with its developer. The floppies set turned into CDs, following the normalization of this support.

According to the memories of Bodo Bauer,[4] one of the first employees of the company, S.u.S.E's leaders thought that it was better to develop their own distribution than always fixing the same Slackware bugs, as Patrick Volkerding wasn't taking into account the work of the company and didn't include the fixes in its new versions. They also became aware that they needed, among many other things, a better tool for installation and configuration. S.u.S.E used as its starting point the distribution Jurix (now defunct) created by Florian LaRoche, the latter joining the S.u.S.E team, and began to develop YaST, the installer and configuration tool that would become the central point of the distribution.[5]

S.u.S.E Linux 4.2 and its 3 CDs (1996)

In 1996, the first distribution provided by the company under the name S.u.S.E Linux was published as S.u.S.E Linux 4.2. The version number chosen has caused much discussion: it should have been just a version 1.1, but above all it was the beginning of a new distribution. As version 1.1 was finally rejected, the number 4.2 was rather considered, and is an intentional reference to the reply of the "Big Question about Life, the Universe and the Rest" of the H2G2 science fiction novels series of the English writer Douglas Adams: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The number of the first version of YaST, 0.42, was also drawn from the same source.

The expansion

Over time, SuSE Linux incorporated many aspects of Red Hat Linux as its RPM Package Manager and its structure / etc / sysconfig, the number of CD of the distribution began to rise 1 to 2, then 3, 4, ...

S.u.S.E. was the number one distributor in Germany and recognized as a partner for everything related to Linux, when in 1997, SuSE, LLC was established in Oakland (California) for reaching the path on the U.S. Linux market. While Red Hat was ubiquitous in the United States, the popularity of the SuSE Linux distribution continues to grow in Europe. SuSE was particularly popular in Germany, its country of origin but also in the Nordic countries such as Finland and Sweden. Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux kernel, used it himself fairly often. SuSE soon became a global company with the establishment of offices in the United States (1997) and the UK (1999).

However, in 2001, optimism and a too rapid expansion of the company led to a point where the company was forced to significantly reduce its wing in order to survive.

The Novell acquisition

SUSE/Novell company building in Nuremberg

On November 4, 2003, Novell announced it would acquire SuSE for $210 million.[6] The acquisition was finalized in January 2004.[7]

In a move to more effectively reach its business audience, SuSE introduced the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server in 2001, and consecutively changed the company name to SUSE Linux in September 2003 a few months before Novell's purchase, as a part of its overall new branding strategy.[8] "SUSE" does not officially stand for anything anymore.

According to J. Philips, Novell's corporate technology strategist for the Asia Pacific region, Novell would not "in the medium term" alter the way in which SUSE continues to be developed.[9] At Novell's annual BrainShare gathering in 2004, all computers ran SUSE Linux for the first time. At this gathering it was also announced that the proprietary SUSE administration program YaST2 would be released into the public under the GPL license[10], making the distribution completely free in the eyes of the Free Software Foundation.

The openSUSE Project community

On August 4, 2005, Novell spokesman and director of public relations Bruce Lowry announced that the development of the SUSE Professional series will become more open, with the launch of the openSUSE Project community. Similarly to the Fedora Project of Red Hat, they want to reach a wider audience of users and developers.

The software, by definition of open source, already had their coding "open," but with the launch of the openSUSE Project, the distribution is therefore developed in an open model—public development process, allowing developers and users to test the product and help to develop it. Previously all development work was done in-house by SUSE, and version 10.0 was the first version that offered public beta testing.

In a few months, the SUSE distribution has changed from a very "closed" status, where a period of 2 months of waiting was necessary for those who previously had not bought the box, to a completely open status, with a freely downloadable distribution available on the web (along the lines of most open source distributions) and as a boxed edition. This change in philosophy led to a quick boosting of its popularity and success, with the release of SUSE Linux 10.0 on October 6, 2005, available in completely open source ("OSS") or that has both open source and proprietary applications ("non-OSS") and retail boxed-set editions. As part of the change, YaST Online Update server access was complimentary for all SUSE Linux users, and also for the first time, the GNOME and KDE desktops were placed on an equal term, the distribution being historically oriented towards the KDE desktop.

Given the confusion that there were between openSUSE community and SUSE Linux distribution denominations, it was decided at an early alpha version 10.2, to rename the distribution "openSUSE" and keep the term "SUSE Linux" for the enterprise products of Novell.[11]

A new dimension

On November 3, 2006, the parent company Novell signed a landmark agreement with Microsoft covering three areas: improvement of the interoperability of SUSE with Microsoft Windows, promotion of both products and a cross-license on the use of patents, and an agreement on marketing. The agreement is considered controversial by part of the Free Software community.[12][13]

Since the acquisition by Novell in 2003, SUSE Linux has gone from a status of a distribution which included proprietary software to a free distribution model (release of YaST, the central tool of the distribution) with immediate and freely availability for all releases and a transparent and open development.

Versions

Project Version Date of issue End of life Linux kernel version
S.u.S.E Linux

(Slackware-based)

 3/94  ??-03-1994  ??-??-????  ?.?.?
7/94  ??-07-1994  ??-??-????  ?.?.?
11/94  ??-11-1994  ??-??-????  ?.?.?
4/95  ??-04-1995  ??-??-???? 1.2.9
8/95  ??-08-1995  ??-??-????  ?.?.?
11/95  ??-11-1995  ??-??-????  ?.?.?
S.u.S.E Linux 4.2  ??-05-1996  ??-??-????  ?.?.?
4.3  ??-09-1996  ??-??-????  ?.?.?
4.4  ??-05-1997  ??-??-????  ?.?.?
5.0  ??-07-1997  ??-??-???? 2.0.30
5.1  ??-10-1997  ??-??-???? 2.0.32
5.2 23-03-1998  ??-??-2000 2.0.33
5.3 10-09-1998  ??-??-2000 2.0.35
SuSE Linux 6.0 21-12-1998  ??-??-2000 2.0.36
6.1 07-04-1999  ??-??-2001 2.2.6
6.2 12-08-1999  ??-??-2001 2.2.10
6.3 25-11-1999 10-12-2001 [14] 2.2.13
6.4 09-03-2000 17-06-2002 [15] 2.2.14
7.0 27-09-2000 04-11-2002 [16] 2.2.16
7.1 21-04-2001 16-05-2003 [17] 2.2.18 / 2.4.0
7.2 15-06-2001 01-10-2003 [18] 2.2.19 / 2.4.4
7.3 13-10-2001 15-12-2003 [19] 2.4.9
8.0 22-04-2002 30-06-2004 [20] 2.4.18
8.1 30-09-2002 31-01-2005 [21] 2.4.19
8.2 07-04-2003 14-07-2005 [22] 2.4.20
SUSE Linux 9.0 15-10-2003 15-12-2005 [23] 2.4.21
9.1 23-04-2004 30-06-2006 [24] 2.6.4
9.2 25-10-2004 31-10-2006 [25] 2.6.8
9.3 16-04-2005 30-04-2007 [26] 2.6.11
10.0 06-10-2005 30-11-2007 [27] 2.6.13
10.1 11-05-2006 31-05-2008 [28] 2.6.16
10.1bis 13-10-2006 31-05-2008 [29] 2.6.16
openSUSE 10.2 07-12-2006 [30] 30-11-2008 [31] 2.6.18
10.3 04-10-2007 [32] 31-10-2009 [31] 2.6.22
11.0 19-06-2008 [33] 19-06-2010 [31] 2.6.25
11.1 18-12-2008 [34] 31-12-2010 [31] 2.6.27
11.2 12-11-2009 [35] 12-05-2011 [31] 2.6.31
11.3 15-07-2010 [36] 15-01-2012 2.6.34
12.0  ??-03-2011[36]  ??-??-???? TBA
12.1  ??-11-2011[36]  ??-??-???? TBA

     Previous version without support      Previous version with support      Actual version      Future version

SUSE family products

SUSE Linux is available under two major branches, openSUSE and SUSE Linux Enterprise.

openSUSE vs SUSE Linux Enterprise

The former, openSUSE, is a freely available, community-oriented distribution project that releases on a comparatively frequent basis and generally uses more recent versions of the various open source projects that it includes. The SUSE Linux Enterprise branch is Novell's commercial edition of SUSE Linux, which Novell releases much less frequently in order to offer long term support more effectively for enterprise production deployments.

Novell typically uses a version of the openSUSE distribution as a basis for creating SUSE Linux Enterprise products. Novell states that the reduced number of packages is preferred for enterprise use, whereas general community users generally prefer a less specialized distribution with extensive options.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server vs Desktop

Within the commercial SUSE Linux Enterprise line, the two major offerings from Novell are SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop. Each of these distributions has been selectively pared down to include the open source packages for its specific purpose. For example, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop does not include the Apache Web Server, and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server does not include Xgl/Compiz.

openSUSE

Main articles: openSUSE and openSUSE Project

openSUSE is driven by the openSUSE Project community and sponsored by Novell, to develop and maintain SUSE Linux components. It is the equivalent of the historic "SuSE Linux Professional". After their acquisition of SUSE Linux, Novell has decided to make the community an important part of their development process.

It has a theoretical cycle development of eight months and a lifetime (duration of the critical updates) of 18 months from the date of release. It is fully and freely available for immediate download, and is also sold in retail box to the general public.

SUSE Linux Enterprise

Main articles: SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop

Novell develops products for its enterprise industry sector, based on the openSUSE distribution. These business products differ in that they are targeted at corporate environments, with a higher life expectancy (5 years, extendable to 7), a longer development cycle (24 to 36 months, a guarantee of stability at the expense of new developments), a longer technical support and are certified by independent hardware and software vendors. Also, SUSE Linux Enterprise products are only available for sale (updates fees).

For instance, SUSE Linux Enterprise has fewer packages than the openSUSE distribution. Most of the packages that have been removed are desktop applications which are more suited to consumers than to a business environment, as Novell states that the reduced number of packages is preferred for enterprise use, whereas general community users generally prefer a less specialized distribution with extensive options.

Enterprise Server oriented
Enterprise Desktop oriented

When installed using a Linux kernel, Novell Open Enterprise Server (OES) use SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) as a platform. This other Novell product is also known as OES-Linux.

SUSE Studio

Main articles: SUSE Studio

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ http://www.novell.com/linux/demos/desktop.html
  2. ↑ Arthur Griffith, CompTIA Linux+ Certification (Virtual Training Company, 2004)
  3. ↑ Goodbye Dots website
  4. ↑ Mailing-lists archives
  5. ↑ Jurix Readme file
  6. ↑ "Novell to acquire SuSE Linux". CNET news. http://news.cnet.com/2100-7344_3-5101680.html. Retrieved 2009-04-26. 
  7. ↑ Kennedy, D. (2003). Novell's Linux buy opens road to top. Retrieved December 20, 2003.
  8. ↑ "SuSE Rebrands Ahead of 9.0 Launch". internetnews.com. http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3085261. Retrieved 2008-03-03. 
  9. ↑ Ramesh, R. (2004). Novell: SuSE stays the same, for now. Retrieved January 14, 2004.
  10. ↑ YaST previous license was allowing modification and redistribution of the code, but not selling it.
  11. ↑ Mailing-lists archives
  12. ↑ "Microsoft, Novell Extend Controversial Partnership". Webmonkey. 2008-08-20. http://www.webmonkey.com/blog/Microsoft__Novell_Extend_Controversial_Partnership. Retrieved 2009-11-23. 
  13. ↑ "Microsoft cannot declare itself exempt from the requirements of GPLv3". Free Software Foundation. 2007-08-28. http://www.fsf.org/news/microsoft_response. 
  14. ↑ [1]
  15. ↑ [2]
  16. ↑ [3]
  17. ↑ [4]
  18. ↑ [5]
  19. ↑ [6]
  20. ↑ [7]
  21. ↑ [8]
  22. ↑ [9]
  23. ↑ [10]
  24. ↑ [11]
  25. ↑ [12]
  26. ↑ [13]
  27. ↑ [14]
  28. ↑ [15]
  29. ↑ [16]
  30. ↑ [17]
  31. ↑ 31.0 31.1 31.2 31.3 31.4 SUSE Linux Lifetime
  32. ↑ [18]
  33. ↑ [19]
  34. ↑ [20]
  35. ↑ openSUSE Roadmap
  36. ↑ 36.0 36.1 36.2 openSUSE Ankündigung Releasezyklus

References

External links

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