Better SUSE than Oracle I guess so we will see how this works out. But in general it is good (and even in Red Hat’s interest) if more people invest into the development of a stable enterprise Linux release instead of leaching off Red Hat’s contributions.
This isnt good for Red hat. Its a hard fork that will be compatible with rhel, basically a new Centos, with SUSE marketing and branding all over it. Even the announcement mentions 5 other SUSE products for the enterprise while offering an alternative to rhel.
I think maybe to point out that SUSE is already the second largest enterprise Linux provider in the market. They already studied RHEL code, this would have been a gentleman’s agreement broken not to outright copy each other. RHEL will easily copy SLES improvements and incorporate it into their own code, but SUSE will gain marketshare.
Just because they said that they don’t think RHEL clones contribute to the RHEL ecosystem doesn’t mean that it is entirely true. Are you new to PR speak?
Yet they consistently say that other contributions to Linux are very welcome and help RHEL, CentOS stream and everyone else. I think you have a strong case of selective memory and reading comprehension that only sees what fits into your pre-determined world-view 😜
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<span style="color:#323232;">About fifteen years ago, Microsoft felt threatened by Linux’s growing market share, and decided to team up with/outright buy patent trolls and use the new portfolio of around 230 patents to claim that the Linux distributions were infringing on Microsoft’s intellectual property and potentially sue them.
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</span><span style="color:#323232;">As Red Hat and other FOSS companies entrenched in their positions and geared up for a long and expensive legal fight, SuSE saw an opportunity to displace Red Hat, and threw everybody under the bus by saying something like, “Yes, Linux absolutely infringes on Microsoft patents. We will pay you for using your IP if you shield us from litigation.”
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">So that threw out the entire argument that Linux did not infringe on Microsoft patents because you had the second biggest Linux company saying it was true and the right thing to do was to pay Microsoft for all of their wonderful contributions. So Microsoft did this kind of mobster thing where they let SuSE pay them for “protection” from lawsuit, and then used this as precedent that the other Linux distributors weren’t playing fairly unless they also paid for patent use. And SuSE hoped that this would result in only Novell/SuSE being the legal Linux to buy in the market and everybody would run to them with open arms. Kind of a dick move.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">This emboldened Microsoft, and resulted in lawsuits from Microsoft over things like, accessing the FAT filesystem from a Linux device (TomTom, at the time GPS device company) and is historically the reason that Nexus phones (which became Google Pixel phones) never came with SD card expansion (so they wouldn’t be accessing a FAT filesystem from Linux). So for the next half decade or so, Microsoft decided to just start suing everybody over patent infringement, and this is how the smartphone era was born and why it is really difficult to do things that would be obvious on a computer – smartphone designers had to invent new ways, even if obtuse, to get around patents.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">In 2018 Microsoft decided that they needed Linux, and ended hostilities by giving the patent portfolio (now up to 60000+ patents) to a consortium of companies called Open Innovation or something like that, that was originally designed to share patents freely without litigation in response to Microsoft’s aggressive behavior a decade earlier.
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It’s good history, I don’t think it really has any bearing today though.
Novell purchased SuSE Linux AG. Novell signed the agreements, and they were very controversial at the time. Novell was much more involved in the day to day than IBM is at Red Hat, SUSE was not an independent business they were a big part of Novell (the SuSE founder left at one point because of how they ran things, he did eventually return). Novell was later purchased by Attachmate, which made SUSE an independent business unit, both were acquired by Micro Focus. It was sold to EQT Partners in 2018 and operates as an independent business today.
Novell and today’s company are not the same, they’ve gone through significant changes multiple times, which is maybe a better reason to at least put in some thought.
(The end was not very clear, but I was merely pointing out that the changes in ownership might be a reason not to go with SUSE)
Around that 15 year mark Novell was also in a lawsuit with SCO regarding ownership of Unix copyrights, their success is the primary reason that SCO disappeared. I think this was a much larger deal than the maneuvering Microsoft was doing (except when Microsoft was giving money to SCO).
I’d almost forgotten about the story and this reminded me that I ditched SuSE Linux at that time because after that decision they brought out versions of their OS with so many missing features it was almost unusable compared to previous versions. This was around version 4 thru 8 that I was using it as my only OS. When I found I could no longer use it as an effective desktop alternative, and I refused to put MS anything in my machine, and it was due replacement anyway, I went over to Macs. Note that I have some ancient iMacs that can’t run anything remotely current in their own OS, I’ve turned back to Linux to get them used. Unbuntu works but I’d be interested to try SuSE again if it’s any good again.
Before they released openSUSE it was getting more and more locked out as they really wanted you to buy it. Seems pretty good today but I don’t know how well it works on Macs.
Even at the time Novell’s decision to pay out the protection money made sense from a business perspective. They could have been sued for liabilities that couldn’t even be guesstimated up front. Microsoft was being deliberately vague about which several hundred patents they claimed Linux was infringing. Even if Novell were in the right, it’s still generally the smartest idea for a company to stay out of court. Winning in court can still be extremely expensive. And they might not necessarily win even if they’re “right.”
And, as mentioned, SUSE had different ownership at the time, so it’s not terribly clear what bearing this history has on SUSE today.
Everyone freaked out at the time because it looked like it set a bad precedent that was going to ruin Linux, but it didn’t happen. It just didn’t. Steve Ballmer finally retired and Microsoft stopped acting like it was run by a sweaty gym coach and, like you said, MS eventually gave up the patent portfolio.
In the end, it turned out Red Hat were the bad guys because they eventually turned around and sold to IBM who are now actually trying to make their business model as proprietary as possible.
This notion that they didn’t batten down for a legal battle that could have conceivably destroyed the ability of Linux to be distributed at all and just paid the money was some kind of cOnSpiRaCy is just… systemd-hater level weird.
Recommended distribution coming from Windows: Linux Mint Cinnamon Edition. linuxmint.com Why? Very consistent over many versions, no experiments, comfortable, very classic Windows-like desktop. Actually amazingly designed and very helpful “welcome” tool after installation, to help new users set up the system well. The Mint team develops and maintains useful and cool applications. Based on Ubuntu, so most problems you can web-search for both Mint or Ubuntu and find solutions. It’s based on the long-term-support version of Ubuntu, so it gets 5 years of security updates for each version. It has Flatpak enabled by default, which is a modern, widely accepted software container format, so programs can run independently of the distribution. Flatpaks are more up to date than traditional packages from a distribution’s software repositories. With things like gaming, you want the latest software to benefit from new features, enhancements and compatibiliy, so make use of Flatpak for your applications where possible.
Easy tool to write a .ISO or .IMG file to a USB stick in order to boot Linux from it: Balena Etcher or Fedora Media Writer (it can write other images than Fedora too and lets you format / restore the USB stick with a single button, great tool).
Definitely back up all your files on at least a large USB stick, but better an external HDD or SSD (USB sticks might at some point become corrupt or break, they are not as reliable). Having your pictures, documents, videos, etc. always on an external disk means you can easily reinstall any OS and just copy your stuff over. Update this backup from time to time. This will give you the safety net to confidently discover and experiment.- If you have only one computer, prepare a Windows installation USB stick before your Linux adventures, just in case something breaks and you want to repair it or go back to Windows.- Dual boot can be annoying, and sometimes one OS may ruin the bootloader of another. I recommend a separate machine, or at the very least a separate physical SSD per OS.- Don’t try to make Windows applications work on Linux unless you absolutely have no other alternative and choice but to use them. Pretty much anything you may be used to is either available as a Flatpak, a traditional package in the distro’s repository or has great open source or Linux-compatible alternatives. Learn to web-search for those alternatives and install them from the software center app that comes with your distro. On Linux, you don’t have to go to websites and download setup files. Everything sits inside a giant software repository and gets updated along with your OS when you look for updates. A Linux Distribution has a repository for its own packages, and Flatpak containers come from a separate repository, most commonly flathub.org. On desktop-centric distributions, you get appstore-like graphical tools to search, install, remove and update everything from one place.- If you absolutely have to make a Windows app work on Linux, have a look at “Bottles”. It’s a UI that makes it a bit easier and more comfortable to work with the Windows compatibility layer called WINE.- Don’t try to search for driver setups on websites unless something really doesn’t work. Most common hardware is supported out of the box, as a ton of general purpose drivers are shipped with the distro as kernel modules already. If you have a Nvidia GPU, expect some issues and consider buying AMD graphics in the future. AMD drivers are inside the Linux kernel these days and open source, whereas Nvidia has a history of not cooperating with the open source crowd, so the open drivers are reverse-engineered, hacky, not-so-great solutions. Desktop-focused distributions like Ubuntu, Linux Mint or Pop! OS have built-in tools to easily enable / select proprietary Nvidia drivers. For gaming, they are pretty much required. On other distros that don’t offer this comfort, you’ll have to manually install the proprietary Nvidia drivers and that is a nightmare, likely to brick your system on your first few attempts. With AMD or Intel graphics, you don’t have to do anything, they just work.
If you’re a German reader, you’re in luck. There is an amazing, free online book if you really want to dive deep into Linux: openbook.rheinwerk-verlag.de/linux/Unfortunately, I don’t know an english equivalent, if you know one, please link it to me.
In case you might be a PC gamer, you’ll likely have a Steam account. Valve does an amazing job, they take the Windows compatibility layer WINE, add some magic to it, the result is called Proton. To enable it, you just have to go to the Steam settings - Compatibility - Enable Steam Play for all other titles. You can now simply install and run Windows games, thousands of them just work and the list grows continously. See protondb.com to check which game works or might have issues and how to fix them. For other places like GOG, Epic, Ubisoft, etc. check out Lutris. It’s a very cool launcher that helps you set up all these accounts in one place. Advanced tip: a guy called Glorious Eggroll patches things into Proton that Valve can’t add for licensing reasons and offers improved, unofficial Proton versions called GE-Proton. If you have issues getting a game to run with the normal Proton versions, GE-Proton might make a difference. A neat little tool to install GE-Proton is “ProtonUp-Qt”: flathub.org/de/apps/net.davidotek.pupgui2
Epic post, really good advice, MInt is the way to go IMO as well, the Xfce version is perfect for my needs and really stable, indeed having dabbled with linux for years this is the only version I have used for more than a year, actually just checked and I have been on mint now since 2020 with just the one upgraded installation. I actually duel boot but never actually boot into window for anything other than occasional work needs.
I forgot to mention in the “Why Mint” section that they also are very clever and maintain Linux Mint Debian Edition. It’s the same thing, just based on Debian, which is the foundation that Ubuntu is built on. So in case anything happens with Ubuntu as their technological foundation, (and let’s be honest, Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu has had some bad moments in the past) there still is a nearly identical Linux Mint, unaffected, based on Debian. So it’s an additional safety, that you don’t have to learn and migrate to something new again. Even if Ubuntu would fail and completely vanish over night, people still have Linux Mint as they know and love it.
Yes, Ubuntu as a foundation offers a few advantages. It’s nothing you can’t live without, but useful details that make it a bit more flexible and suited for a wider audience. I found an already pretty great answer, so let me just link it to you: forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?p=2297907#p229…
Apparently ChatGPT is really good as a personal tutor. You can ask it specific questions and it will answer with detailed tutorials and step-by-step guides.
I didn’t see this mentioned, but by far the thing I depend on tmux for the most is being able to quickly copy and paste text from the terminal. e.g. grabbing a file name from the output of git diff. How does everyone else do this?
Another cool one is being able to attach to a session on my phone to check on something, and have it automatically resize without disconnecting my desktop.
I suspect what they meant was copy and paste from the console and not a terminal.
I don’t know how else somebody could do copy and paste at the console. And I don’t necessarily know that tmux can do this (I still haven’t graduated from ‘screen’), but this interpretation makes the most sense.
If it can do this, presumably with just the keyboard, that’s a pretty decent feature.
I’m not familiar with the terminology. What’s the distinction between a terminal and a console?
Tmux does let you copy from a shell to your system clipboard using the keyboard, which is nice. But many terminal emulators like mobaxterm on windows let you copy as well.
The console is the virtual terminal (VT) seen initially at boot before the desktop login starts up, or where you land if there is no desktop, and where the kernel spits its raw output. It could even be configured to be a physical serial port.
I’m using the term in a similar manner to describe the virtual terminals spawned at boot (typically 7 of them) and occupied either by a login prompt (getty) or the desktop session, and switchable with Alt-Left/Right or using the chvt command. These are analogous to the real terminals of old such as VT100 or even typewriters.
This is in contrast to what we normally call a terminal like xterm or Konsole which runs in the GUI where it is resizable, zoomable, etc. The console, and virtual terminals, are pretty limited in the interactivity they have. For instance, there’s no mouse interaction or copy-paste functionality, at least not without some exotic setup.
Yeah, doing it with the keyboard is key. I know some terminals have a way to do it, but it’s so ingrained in my muscle memory that I struggle without it, and having something that works everywhere (including try) is nice.
If you can, find another old computer that still works, maybe replace the mechanical hard drive with a solid state drive and install Linux Mint or even the new Debian 12. I have Debian running on an old computer with an Intel i5-2500k processor and it is rock solid. As far as learning linux, I recommend www.learnlinux.tv as a starting point. Jay is very good at explaining.
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