316 Part III . Choosing and (Make web site) Installing a
316 Part III . Choosing and Installing a Linux Distribution Understanding SUSE If you are looking for the stability and support required of a Linux system on which you can bet your business, SUSE offers impressive, stable Linux products backed by a company (Novell, Inc.) that has been selling enterprise solutions for a long time. SUSE s product offerings range from personal desktop systems to enterprisequality servers. SUSE began as a German version of Slackware in 1992, on 40 floppy disks, and was first officially released on CD (SUSE Linux 1.0) in 1994. Founded by Hubert Mantel, Burchard Steinbild, Roland Dyroff, and Thomas Fehr, SUSE set out as a separate distribution from Slackware to enhance the software in the areas of installation and administration. Although SUSE had success and respect with its Linux distribution, it was not profitable, and Novell s $210 million offer for SUSE was seen as a good thing both for SUSE and for Linux in general. SUSE was running short on cash, and Novell was looking for a way to regain its stature as a growth company in the enterprise and network computing arena. In the 1980s and early 1990s, Novell was the world s number-one computer networking company. Before the Internet took hold, Novell s NetWare servers and IPX/SPX protocols were the most popular ways of connecting PCs together on LANs. International training, support, and sales teams brought Novell products to businesses and organizations around the world. Despite Novell s huge lead in the network computing market, file and printer sharing features in Windows and late entry into the TCP/IP (Internet) arena caused Novell to lose its market dominance in the 1990s. Although its NetWare products contained excellent features for directory services and managing network resources, Novell didn t have end-to-end computing solutions. NetWare relied on Windows for client computers and lacked high-end server products. Novell s association with the UNIX operating system in the early 1990s makes an interesting footnote in the history of Linux. Novell purchased UNIX System V source code from AT&T and set out to make its resulting UnixWare product (a UNIX desktop product for x86 processors) a competitor to Microsoft s growing dominance on the desktop. The effort was half-hearted, and Novell soon gave the UNIX trademark to the Open Group and sold the UNIX source code to SCO. Novell s purchase of SUSE marks its second major attempt to fill in its product line with a UNIX-like desktop and server product. From the early returns, it appears that Novell is doing a better job with Linux than it did with UNIX.
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