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Why are there no mainstream forks of OpenSuse?
(slrpnk.net)
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this post was submitted on 22 Sep 2024
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OpenSUSE itself could be seen as a fork of Fedora though it is from long enough ago that perhaps that is not fair.
In the beginning there was Slackware ( well, maybe SLS but it is gone now ). Slackware has no packaging system. Most distros want one. Debian is not really a Slackware fork but it was a response to it.
The first two distributions to bring true package management were Debian and Fedora ( well pre enterprise Red Hat really - before Fedora ). So Fedora and Debian are the classic bases for other distros.
Red Hat created the first, and most successful, “enterprise” distribution so lots of people want to clone that.
Ubuntu was the first distro to really succeed at a “mainstream” desktop experience. Ubuntu is itself a fork of Debian but, because of its early success, there are probably more forks of Ubuntu than anything else.
Arch was the next really successful attempt at a new packaging system and a distro for more technical users ( that still wanted a binary package distribution system ). There are forks of Arch but, as the repos are Arch’s biggest strength, few of them deviate too much beyond the installer and default configuration.
If you are going to create a distro based off another one, it is typical to start with the base distro that is how to the package format of your choice.
There are now other distros with their own packaging systems ( eg. Alpine and Void ) but they have not been around as long.
Importantly I think, OpenSUSE is European base and, for a lot of the history of Linux, it was largely an American phenomenon ( yes, I know it was invented in Finland — how long did Linus stay there? ).
Finally, “forking” is often a little more sophisticated now. In the past, you started with some other distro that you liked and changed a few small things that you didn’t. A lot of that is taken care of with repos and spins these days so you so fewer unique distros start life this way. The exception is maybe init systems.
As an example, you could consider Chimera Linux as a successor to Void but it is not really a fork. It uses a different package manager, userland, and init system for example.
OpenSUSE itself has multiple versions. One of them is likely to be close enough for fans that they do not need to splinter off.
Opensuse and fedora have no common history though? Just because it uses rpm doesn’t make it a red hat derivative.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Linux_Distribution_Timeline.svg
Your infographic shows that suse was rebased off jurix and redhat after it stopped being Slackware based.
That’s rpm, suse Linux 1.0 was never built off the same source or installer that Redhat Linux was.
Do you have a historical example where any suse distribution used redhat based source? As opensuse as I said only used the rpm package manager, it never used any other components of a redhat derived install.
Source: I work there and can find zero redhat strings in any old source code from that era, the old greybeards took offense to the implication that suse was ever based on redhat other than using rpm which at the time was about it for packaging.
All they did was start to use rpm instead of tar for packaging.
I will just say that SUSE 4.2 was not built off the same base as SUSE 1.0 either. It is not going to be as clear cut as finding a cloned Red Hat source code repository.
SUSE 4.2 was really version 1.0 of the distribution we call OpenSuse today ). It was a reboot. This version was no longer based on Slackware and it was the first version using RPM.
Debian introduced packages in 1995 ( before Debian 1.0 ). RPM did not appear until Red Hat Linux 2.0 in the fall. SUSE 4.2 came out in 1996 and could have used either one.
I was not trying to cause any offence. Mad respect for SUSE. As I hinted, I was simplifying. It is hard to talk about this stuff both accurately and concisely.
SUSE is certainly not a Fedora “fork” as Fedora Core was not even conceived until considerably later. Neither was OpenSUSE really. So you cannot take my first comment too literally.
Let’s remember how early SUSE was in the Linux timeline. Back then, everybody was downloading their software from the same FTP sites. A huge component of what made a Linux distribution different from an FTP repo was the package manager and those came from Red Hat or Debian.
The provenance of SUSE is also a bit complicated as the first versions were explicitly based on Slackware. Starting with 4.2 ( a made up version number meant as a nod to Douglas Adam’s I think ), SUSE became Jurix + RPM. So it is a Jurix fork in that sense. However, I cannot imagine more than a handful of people ever used Jurix. I would be interested to know the numbers. In contrast, in terms of both users and industry awareness, Red Hat was THE Linux distro back then.
Red Hat was certainly an influence on SUSE beyond the source code. Red Hat and SUSE were not just communities or collections of code. Red Hat and SUSE were two of the earliest company backed distros. Both had clear commercial ambition. It is no accident that they both evolved into explicitly “enterprise” subscription products flanked by explicitly community distros. SUSE and Red Hat were more like each other than they were like other Linux players ( especially in the days before Ubuntu ). It is not far wrong I think to think of SUSE as the Red Hat of Europe with Red Hat attracting American infrastructure giants like Oracle and SUSE becoming the platform for big European players like SAP.
SUSE is not a fork in the sense that we are going to find an import into the source code version control system from Red Hat ( other than RPM itself of course ). Again though, we should note that this is not how stuff worked back then ( see comment about FTP sites ).
RPM could have been a purely technical choice for SUSE but, in my view, they had a clear desire to use Red Hat as a template more broadly. That is what I meant by saying SUSE could be seen as a fork while also acknowledging that the statement is not quite fair ( or perhaps more that it is not technically accurate in the strictest sense of what the work fork means even if it instructive as a historical perspective ).