What's growing at SUSEroot?

SUSE root is a nice evangelist-type site about Novell's SUSE -- specifically openSUSE, that tries to answer the questions that could be asked by a potential user of this extremely popular distro.

Looking at The Distrowatch top 100 distributions, there's Ubuntu at No. 1, followed by openSUSE and Fedora. I'm thinking of trying openSUSE because it's so darn popular, is meant for business use -- and I just want to see how it runs.

I know there's the whole Novell-Microsoft controversy over the two companies partnering and MS' subsequent patent-violation accusation against the entire rest of the Linux community, but sometiimes you've just got to see how the big dogs run, right?

Back to SUSEroot ... Here's their answer to "Should I try SUSE Linux?" Not exactly a ringing endorsement, but it may be more honest:

There are a lot of things being said about Linux that are not true. Some well-intentioned Linux fans sometimes try to paint Linux as perfect for everyone and that it will solve all your computing problems; this is a disservice to people considering Linux and to the Linux community because people may try Linux with unrealistic expectations and give up on it when they find out so many things they were told by "Linux Superfans" were untrue or misleading.

I guess that if I'd never tried Linux before and knew very little about it, SUSEroot might just make me say, "Why?" Here's their outro:

Hopefully this has helped someone decide if switching to SUSE Linux and indeed Linux itself, is something they want to do. SUSE and Linux aren't for everyone. If you do decide to try SUSE or another Linux distribution, do some research to find out which one is right for you, make sure your hardaware is compatible, switch with realistic expectations, and realize that there will be a phase where you will be confused and frustrated a lot of the time. SUSE and Linux are evolving very quickly, if you do try Linux and find that you don't like it, give it another try later on, you may find that it has become easier for you or the feature you needed has been incorporated.

Again, if anything, it's reasoned and realistic. In a way, it supports my contention that Windows XP is a very good, stable system, and you have to look inward (oy, that sounds weird) for why you want to run Linux. The site does mention the cost factor -- buying a copy of Windows for every box, and updates, being very expensive. But there's no MS-bashing going on.

The site should pimp this page more, which tells how to install Fluxbox, the lightweight window manager that can make a slower system work better -- way better than with Win XP.

Here's SUSEroot's take on SUSE's place in the Linux pantheon:

As far as "cool factor" goes, a SUSE user is not mocked as much as a Mandrake or Linspire (Lindows) user, but we're aparently inferior to Debian or Slackware users (and certainly subordinate to the guys who shun distributions all together and build their own package). So if you're the kind of person who thinks your operating system says something about you, there you go.

I'm left feeling nonplussed. I guess I want to see some passion, you know? Why are you running SUSE?

Maybe Fedora's fans are more forceful ... maybe not. You sure can't beat the Ubuntu people when it comes to pimping their OS.