Roy Schestowitz wrote:
__/ [ John KLoosterman <JClosed_AD_netscape_DOT_n-e-t> ] on Monday 24 July
2006 07:51 \__
IOANNIS MANOLOUDIS wrote:
Novell is charging SLED 50$/year.
That costs 250$ for 5 years.
Isn't that expensive?
First - it's a enterprise system. You automatically granted
to use the Costumer center. With that you can centrally
manage updates and subscriptions. If you ever worked in a
enterprise environment you sure know what a pain it can be
to keep all update/subscription information up-to-date.
Secondly - you are also entitled to get support from novell..
If the OP is not a business customer, then I'd suggest just using SUSE 10.2,
which will be merely identical once released. For now, SUSE 10.1 would do
just as well.
I absolutely agree. However - SLED 10 is not intended to be
used by a home user. And it was SLED 10 where IOANNIS was
asking questions about. Let's be clear about that... For a
home user 50$/year is expensive, but for a corporation it's
not. The Costumer center subsciption included with SLED 10
is not very interesting for the home user. However - for a
corporation it absolutely is.
The home user is better off using SUSE 10.1 and not SLED 10,
unless of course - he really want to use support from Novell
and the Costumer center subsciption...
Window$ XP PRO cost OEM 119$
This is only the bare OS without any consumer support.
Consumer support from Microsoft is VERY expensive. Updates
are for the OS only and not for the other applications
sitting on your computer (exept office), so any other
non-microsoft program you have to manage by hand. That can
really be a pain if you have a lot of workstations. With
Linux EVERY application installed can be automatically updated.
Yes. Windows comes with support from the next-door neighbour, at the expense
of his/her time. In return, you are often driven into make this reciprocal.
Updates are another cumbersome issue, not to mention protective software.
Again - a corporation cannot rely on "support from the
next-door neighbour", so - yes SLED 10 is relatively cheap
compared to Windows..
Of course SLED comes with Open Office and M$ office standard costs 399$
OEM. Then again it's free to download from the internet OO for Windows.
But still OO it is not automatically updated so you have to
manage that by hand on every desktop. To centrally manage
that you have to buy a (very) costly system like Tivoli or
something.
I understand that you need to pay 50$/year to Novell just to get the
updates and the security patches. Is that all?
No - see above..
Get the free version. There's OpenSuSE and I think you merely misled to
believe that Linux from Novell cannot be free of charge.
I think IOANNIS is perfectly well aware OpenSuSE is for
free. I just tried to make it clear to him what the benefits
of SLED 10 are if you are a corporation (or a small
business). I also tried to make clear it's not very
interesting for a home user..
What's in the box? Does this software has any non-free packages that
justify paying 250$?
Well - you get Adobe Acrobat Reader, Citrix client,
RealPlayer etc.
Why not installing openSUSE instead?
OpenSUSE is missing the enterprise integration packages, has
no consumer support from Novell, has no Costumer center
subscription (so centrally managing updates etc. is less
easy) and has no restricted packages.
That said - you can do this all by yourself, but it takes
more time. And time is money in the enterprise environment...
There are pages that explain to you how to do every, step-by-step. With a
fast connection, this should only take minutes or an hour at most. Here's
one such reference:
http://linux.wordpress.com/2006/05/20/hacking-suse-linux-101/
With SLED 10 you can "compose" a standard configuration
fitted for your company and save this configuration in a
file. You can then use that file together with the install
DVD to replicate the complete install, including all
necessary programs without connecting to the internet. You
don't have to use any website and download and configure
every machine you have to install. From a corporate point of
view this is very handy. For a home user this is not very
interesting, because he/she most times only use one computer...
So - as you can see - we don't really disagree. Its only...
I take the corporate point of view, and you are viewing
things from the home user side. Those two things are very
different.
To be just short:
If you are a company/small business - use SLED 10 and pay
the price. You won't regret it...
If you are a home user - use OpenSuSE and pay nothing. You
won't regret it either..
Best wishes and good luck,
Same here ;-)
Roy
John..
|
|
