"openSUSE 11.1, the latest community edition of Novell
SUSE Linux, was released just in time for Christmas, to largely
favourable reviews. openSUSE remains one of the market leaders, and
features the latest and greatest stable releases of most of the
important packages that make a classic GNU/Linux distribution, but
it has had its troubles during recent years.
"There is no easy way to estimate the number of users of any
particular distribution, as the software is freely available from
download sites, magazine cover discs, OEMs, mirrors, and
peer-to-peer sources. One indicator that is often used is the page
hit ranking at DistroWatch, and this usually ranks openSUSE within
the top two or three. Over the past year DistroWatch shows SUSE in
second place with roughly 20 per cent fewer hits than Ubuntu.
"SUSE is one of the older Linux distributions, and traditionally
one of the more inclusive. Where Ubuntu comes on a live CD,
openSUSE fills a DVD, and comes with the option of an extra CD or
two, reflecting the philosophy of the older SuSE Linux
distributions that came on 40 floppies, or 6 CDs, and contained an
endless array of options with an all-encompassing entreaty that
implored you to "Have fun". Of course with today's faster internet
links the lack of software on the distribution disc or discs is
perhaps not so much of a drawback."
