OpenSUSE vs Ubuntu

EDIT ::
This comparison is between OpenSUSE 10.2 and Ubuntu 6.10.
I have written a similar comparison between OpenSUSE 10.3 and Ubuntu 7.10 ( Gutsy) and you may read it Here. However, please do read the comments in both of these comparisons as they provide views of many other users who have read this and are quiet interesting.

I have used Ubuntu for almost 2 years and was completely in love with Ubuntu. One fine day my UPS gave up and my lazy self never allowed me to buy another. The result, after 5-6 power offs, my root file system was corrupted. I had to do a manual “fsck -y” to bring it up. I thought all is normal now, but after the second normal reboot, the files system completely gave up and no amount of fsck would help. It clearly means a re-install. It should have been OK in normal circumstances, but I was in the middle of a release at office and had no time for even small configurations. Hence instead of using my favorite Automatix, I went ahead with Ubuntu Mint. Oh that was a changing point. Mint is Ubuntu modified and Mint'ified. I have KDE on my Arch Thinkpad, so the greenish theme of mint was a welcome change from the brown Ubuntu. Mint had installed almost all the required software and codecs for me and enjoyed Mint for one month. I thought now I have Ubuntu + all the codecs, without and configurations. What else could I ask for ?

But installing Mint had stirred the urge to try other distros. My criteria was simple, I should be able to install over Internet, the distro should be well polished, have huge number of applications, be very stable and configurations should be easy. In other words, I wanted another Ubuntu.

I already have Arch, so I tried the other famous ones. I began with Fedora -> Gentoo and then landed with OpenSUSE. Fedora was too sluggish and Arch is anytime better than Gentoo. OpenSUSE, however, is another story. I did a network install using instLinux and it took me a whooping 48 hours. Yes, I know 48 hours is too much by any standards but after the install , I have no regrets. SUSE is the most amazing distribution I have seen as yet. It appears as if it is designed keeping ease of use and stability in mind.

Now that I have used OpenSUSE for 2 months, here is a brief comparison between my experiences with Ubuntu and OpenSUSE. I will only take things which either come out of box, or have to be installed/configured on both of them.

Installation: Lets begin with the very beginning. I used instLinux for installing both of them. On Ubuntu it took me just 5-6 hours to get a shiny Gnome desktop. On OpenSUSE it took me 48 hours. I had to first install in text mode, ran into installation breakage, did some hacking to get a new root password and finally installed Gnome. Sometimes I feel, that if I did not had an alternate working thinkpad with Arch Linux, I would have quit halfway and installed Ubuntu.

Advantage :: Ubuntu

The initial Grub Screen: Ubuntu has a black brown screen, on the other hand SUSE has a bluish screen. Added to that sometimes SUSE displays a super cool Penguin themed grub boot screen. Now I know that is this nothing big and we can configure any boot screen, but on OpenSUSE it comes as default.

Advantage :: OpenSUSE

Boot Speed: OpenSUSE had installed too many applications, so I believed that it will take too much time to boot up and get a GUI login menu, however, it surprised me with a very quick boot time. Ubuntu on the other hand has upstart, which makes it boot really fast. Overall Ubuntu was the quicker of the two, though SUSE falls short by a small margin.

Advantage :: Ubuntu

GDM login Menu : Ubuntu has a human brown theme whereas SUSE has a blue theme. Its a matter of personal preference, in my case I like blue theme.

Advantage :: OpenSUSE

Gnome Menu: Ubuntu has an almost default Gnome menu. The menu is on the top starter bar and drops down. There is another bar at the bottom, which takes care of minimized applications. Its an arrangement I have been comfortable with since two years. People at OpenSUSE have taken pains to give a new look to the Gnome menu, they have made it very KDE like. There is a computer Icon on the left most side of the bottom panel – clicking it open a very neat and intuitive menu. This menu is getting good recognition from linux community, to the extent that the new versions of Mint have adopted it. I just hope that it becomes a default with most distros.

Advantage :: OpenSUSE

OpenOffice: Novell has made some changes to openoffice (VBA integration etc), which should be part of openSUSE. Though they are not very apparent. One thing is very clear, that openoffice loads very fast in SUSE, not sure why. Also the document recovery in openoffice really works very efficiently. It blends well with the overall theme. Its a little baffling, but this is the same system on which I had Ubuntu. In Ubuntu openoffice appears a big memory hog and is very slow but in SUSE openoffice flies.

Advantage :: OpenSUSE

Theme: This brings me to overall theme. In Ubuntu the theme is human brown and is pleasing to eyes, however, not all applications fully follow the theme and many look out of the context. It appears the Ubuntu developers missed blending all the default applications with the human theme. OpenSUSE has a blue theme, which is good to look, but the best part is that this theme is integrated into all the applications. Be it firefox, Banshee, Fspot or openoffice the same theme is there. This results in a more similar looking desktop.

Advantage :: OpenSUSE.

Default Applications: The default applications in the Gnome menu of SUSE includes Banshee and Fspot. Likewise tomboy is there on the starter bar itself. These are next generation applications using Mono library. Ok I agree that mono is promoted by Novell, none the less, these applications are really useful. What more they are installed by default. I am not merely saying that SUSE installs more applications, yes it does. Here I am referring to the default music, photo and notes taking applications. I used the term next generation applications, to substantiate that, lets look at Banshee. Banshee can play and import audio CDs and play and synchronize music with iPods, as well as Creative Zen players. I can easily sync with my iPod and export my playlist to last.fm. Here I would like to mention that applications in OpenSUSE are not to their latest version ( it came in December), but they use good applications as default.

Advantage :: OpenSUSE

Stability: I use Firefox, Totem, OpenOffice and Gaim 2.0. On Ubuntu Gaim and openoffice crashed once in a week, OpenSUSE, yet to happen.

Why just these applications, I never had a single application crash and yes I have installed some beta appilcations like Gaim 2.0 also.

Advantage :: OpenSUSE

Installing Java, Codecs etc: Automatix is my friend. Just fire it up and it added the required repository and installed all the apps. On SUSE each single application is to be installed separately and takes a huge time. (I found konvinientSUSE very late and thats a KDE application.)

Advantage :: Ubuntu

Package management:

Ubuntu --- deb, apptitude and the state of art Synaptic make a rare combination, making package management a breeze. Its very easy to restrict the version of installed application.

OpenSUSE --- package management, do you mean you want to install a new application. Does SUSE not install enough already. SUSE really does not believe in package management. Yast is at least 4 generations inferior to Synaptic. I also tried smart package manager, its better than Yast, but still not as polished or informative as Synaptic.

Advantage :: Ubuntu

System configurations:

Ubuntu has good GUI tools for system configurations. They are intuitive and all are under the system menu. It has too many tools and I can perform system administration and change configurations easily. However, there is no distro specific tool.

OpenSUSE :: just one word – Yast. Yast is capable of doing all the system admin work and much more. I could hardly believe that such an integrated tool exists. Though Ubuntu provides good tools, but Yast is un-paralled.

Advantage :: OpenSUSE

Security: Though I believe that Linux is secure by default, adding a little more security always helps. Redhat has SELinux in their enterprise offering and SUSE has the much acclaimed AppArmor - a security pack focusing on “mandatory access control for programs, protecting against the exploitation of software flaws and compromised systems”. Sadly no such security pack is installed by default in Ubuntu. I think like me Ubuntu developers also do not see any need for adding more security to Linux.

Advantage :: OpenSUSE

Fonts: In both the distributions, I had to install MS and Apple fonts. I thought as on both the distros the fonts are same so they will look similar. However, the fonts on SUSE appear much better than those on Ubuntu. Reason, yet unknown to me.

Advantage :: OpenSUSE

Community Support: SUSE is a very mature distribution and enjoys a good community support, however, that dwarfs in comparison to Ubuntu community. If you post a single thread to Ubuntu forums, there will be multiple instant replies. The Ubuntu community is huge and very active. Best part is that they are very helpful. The Ubuntu forums are full of HOWTOs and various tips and tricks. In terms of technical knowledge Ubuntu forums can easily rival Gentoo forums.

Advantage :: Ubuntu

Conclusion: I must say that both of these distros have pleased me a lot and completely suffice my requirement of a home desktop system. Both automatically detected all my hardware and had installed the drivers required. However, when it comes to comparing the two, I get a little biased towards the more polished distro -OpenSUSE. SUSE shines as desktop OS. Like my above article demonstrates, SUSE wins the battle 11-3. Though package management is a very big factor, where OpenSUSE requires modification, at the same time the system stability, system responsiveness and the overall performance also play a big role in I just hope that Ubuntu devs take this as a positive criticism and try to improve upon the mentioned grey areas. SUSE simply shines in comparison. It feels like a desktop ready distro, while Ubuntu merely strives to be a desktop oriented distribution. I just wish that OpenSUSE improves their package management, then it can easily become the best desktop Linux distribution.