[WLUG] Free SLES Distro?

[Clif Flynt]

Hi,
  The main thing I'm disliking about the new Centos & SL is the GUI,
and how pervasive, non-intuitive and unavoidable it's becoming.

  For instance, my machines are in a physically secure environment. I
do *NOT* want to lock the screen when I leave it for a few minutes, and
I wanted to change the timeout period for screensavers and screen going
blank.

  These are controlled from the Menu System Tools/Settings.  I can get
along with that, but  turning off the screen-lock is under Privacy,
setting the screen timeout is under Power, and I forget where I found
screen saver settings.

  It wasn't that long ago that all of these things were grouped
together under "Display", where it made some sense to find the controls
for the display.

  BackInTheOldDays, there were a bunch of 'config' applications in
/usr/sbin that would let me do stuff remotely.  If I was doing something
new, I could "ls" that folder and find a clue for what application would
configure things.

  But most of those have vanished, and if I don't know the magic set of
buttons and menus to find something, I need to hit the net, and as
often as not discover that the docco hasn't been updated to reflect the
new menus and panels.

  My preference for Scientific Linux over Centos was based on the
larger crop of available applications, but things like FVWM or even
LXDE aren't available for SL-7.

  Someday, I will embrace Gnome and KDE, but the developers seem to 
think they are writing emacs and everything should be a WM/DE
application that can only be run when you sit in front of the computer.

  I'm not thrilled with systemd.  It seems like an obtuse and less
flexible solution to the problem of obtuse and inflexible .rc files.

  But I can live with it.
  
  But, it's not fully integrated (yet) in SL/7. Sendmail is still
controlled with init.d.  This might be that RH is moving away from 
sendmail.  I'll concede that sendmail is a bear to configure, but last
time I looked at postfix it couldn't do the envelope rewriting I need.

  My joy with OpenSuSE has been that everything under the sun is
available from the repositories and I don't always have to compile my
tools from scratch.

  I was hoping for something similar with OpenSLE, but apparently that
project is dead.  Lots of folks thought it would be a good idea, but only
one guy was willing to work on it, and he's had health issues.

  I use Ubuntu for a few projects, but it's worse than RedHat for silly
GUI rework of the week.  (The version of UbuntuStudio with black screen
background, black window borders, black windows and blue lettering was
cool-as-heck to look at, but utterly unusable.  And that was the "good"
theme.)

  I think I'll look at Debian Stable and see what they've done to
compete with Windows 8 for bad usability.

  And, yeah, a bunch of this is an old codger shouting at the kids to
"get off my lan".  But my clients pay me to develop applications,  not
spend time learning where functionality is hidden today, what new
applications have replaced older perfectly functional ones, etc.

  And, I wish that "Software Tools" was force fed to these developers
who keep putting everything, including the kitchen sink into one room.

Clif

On Thu, Feb 12, 2015 at 07:16:56AM -0500, Carl T. Miller wrote:
> Hey Clif,
> 
> I don't have any suggestions about SuSE, but you did
> get me curious about Scientific Linux.  I use Centos
> 6 on a lot of servers and Centos 7 on my laptop.  I'm
> completely happy with Centos.  What is it about SL7
> that you don't like?
> 
> c
> 
> 
> Clif Flynt wrote:
> > I normally use OpenSuse for my work systems and Centos or Scientific
> > Linux for my servers.
> >
> > I'm becoming disenchanted with Scientific Linux 7.
> >
> > Is there a Centos/SL equivalent for Suse Enterprise?  Something
> > that uses the for-pay, stable, sources and builds a free distro?
> >
> > I found references to OpenSLE, but that appears dead.
> >
> > Other suggestions?
> >
> > Clif
> >
> > --
> > ... Clif Flynt ... http://www.cwflynt.com ... clif at cflynt.com ...
> > .. Tcl/Tk: A Developer's Guide (3'd edition) - Morgan Kauffman ..
> > ...22'nd Tcl/Tk Conference: Oct 19-23, 2015 - Northern VA, USA...
> > .............  http://www.tcl.tk/community/tcl2015/  ............
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
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> >
> 
> 
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-- 
... Clif Flynt ... http://www.cwflynt.com ... clif at cflynt.com ...
.. Tcl/Tk: A Developer's Guide (3'd edition) - Morgan Kauffman ..
...22'nd Tcl/Tk Conference: Oct 19-23, 2015 - Northern VA, USA...
.............  http://www.tcl.tk/community/tcl2015/  ............