openSUSE vs Ubuntu Package Management
Ok, this isn’t about RPM vs DEB this is about repositories and openSUSE’s build service.
I recently installed Ubuntu on a test box to play around a bit, and was perplexed when there was no great structure of repositories like the openSUSE Build Service.
I think this is one thing that is GRAVELY over-looked and undervalued by new linux users, or linux users that want to keep up with “bleeding edge”.
There’s many instances where you’d want to install newer package like:
GNOME versions, Firefox Releases, VirtualBox releases and these are just not available at a single central location with Ubuntu as they are with openSUSE..
Guess this is just another “props” to the openSUSE team for keeping up with the jonses and keeping the distribution one of, if not THE BEST.
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Ubuntu has PPAs which are the build service equivalent. More importantly, Ubuntu users install packages via ‘Applications -> Add / Remove’ which ranks packages based on popularity.
This system works better than OpenSUSE and is easier to navigate for regular users. Hence why Ubuntu has several orders of magnitude more users.
VirtualBox provides .debs, and Firefox can be obtained through a PPA. If you want the latest gnome, you can run Karmic, which is Ubuntu’s equivalent to Factory.
openSUSE also has Add / Remove Software, and it can be accessed several ways (just like Ubuntu, or through YaST).
I do agree that listing via popularity is a nice way to do things.
Zypper has come a long way, and has much more to grow, and I think its strengths will provide openSUSE front ends much more versatility in near versions. I think the reason Ubuntu has the market share it does is because of the lack of choices you have when you install. No package choices, no LVM choices (unless you use the command line installer) and many other options suppressed to make a more simplistic installation.
VirtualBox provides .deb’s for the closed source version, not the OSE.
FF PPA is a daily build, and believe it still installs as Minefield.. if I’m mistaken please let me know as I’d like to see the upgrade process using the PPA instead of just using the download I got from firefox.com
Upgarding to an unstable “factory” version of an OS just to get the newest (dev or stable) Desktop environment doesn’t sound like the best of things to do. Things like the kernel etc etc will get upgraded, not just the required GNOME / KDE packages, this is a great luxury with openSUSE.
I don’t really know the PPA so well as I know the the OBS, but I wouldn’t say the PPA is “equivalent”.
It looks like a lot of unrelated personal repositories, I miss some order. Probably it could be fixed just putting all really personal PPA in a subdirectory (home: in OBS), showing only important repositories (as kubuntu-ppa) directly in http://ppa.launchpad.net/
Still, you can upgrade to the latest KDE from http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-ppa/... I suppose there is something similar for Gnome. So, from an user POV probably there isn’t so much difference.
I would say the most important difference from an user POV is that perhaps you can find the latest version of a game (or anything else) in a PPA, but probably that package was created by someone unrelated to Ubuntu. The “games” (and any other) repository in the OBS is part of the main openSUSE development process… I trust those packages a lot because I know they are the same ones that will be available in the next stable openSUSE release… just compiled (perhaps with some minor fixes) for the current supported versions. They are backports, not an updated package made by “someone” in five minutes.
Also, when I create a package in the BS I do it for openSUSE 10.3, 11.0 and 11.1 (and perhaps Fedora…). The packages from http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-ppa/ are only available for the latest stable version. That’s because the BS has a lot of build power and because it makes it really easy to me to create the packages for older versions.
Then the official Ubuntu/Debian repo is a lot bigger, and even if isn’t updated it has packages of a great quality. There is a lot of attention to details, like writing man pages if upstream doesn’t provides one, that simply isn’t in openSUSE (not that openSUSE packages are bad, but Debian ones are *really* good). I often take patches from Debian when creating an openSUSE package… then Debian/Ubuntu probably should take openSUSE patches for Funguloids, openSUSE also has some packages that are better than the Debian/Ubuntu equivalents
An user probably could be happy with both systems… even if I think openSUSE has an slight advantage if the user considers *very* important having the latest versions of apps.
Besides the regular repositories and PPAs, We also have Ubuntu-TWeak that will help us to install additional packages: http://ubuntu-tweak.com/screenshots
Not to mention the GETDEB and APPNR packages on the web.
@Me
PPA packages can be built for any supported Ubuntu release + the development release. You can also have PPAs that depend on other PPAs. Many Ubuntu developers and development teams use PPAs just as the openSUSE developers use OBS. The only real advantage that I see for OBS is that it seems quite flexible (it can build for many distros).
@Reality
The system itself isn’t orders of magnitude easier though, regardless of the user count. “one-click installs” and “one-click repository additions” make it easy to add new repositories.
Also, (for power users) package management is superior with OpenSuSE’s YaST (using zypper as a backend). You can choose per-package via the GUI which repo you want a package to come from and updates will always come from that repo (with exception to SuSE-OSS->SuSE-Update as they’re associated). Priorities allow users to also prioritize which repo a package comes from by default too…