openSUSE Leap vs. Ubuntu

OpenSUSE Leap is well suited for just about any Linux task. Especially I like to use it as Docker base image for my software deployments, because it has a wide variety of software packages available already precompiled and packages are well maintained - vulnerable software versions are patched in reasonable time. OpenSUSE Leap is rpm based system, and it wouldn't install Debian or other systems packages. If your software is not an rpm package then OpenSUSE Leap would not be suitable for your system.

If somebody whishes to be an IT professional, learning the basics of Linux is amust. Ubuntu [Linux] is one of the most beginner-friendly, widely supported, easy-to-use-relative-to-the-fact-that-its-still-linux OS on the market. As somebody who learned the basics of UNIX/LINUX on Ubuntu, it was a very good experience. It is customizable, has a lot of improvements over the years, and live up to be a viable alternative to any modern OS in 2021 as well.

Incentivized

• Maintenance of software packages using YAST
• Availability of patches when a vulnerability is discovered
• Distribution upgrades

• PACKAGE MANAGEMENT. You can update everything - OS installed software, you name it with either a few clicks in a GUI or a single command.
• No bloatware.
• No need for antivirus software.
• Certainly the price is right.
• My 83 year old grandmother has been using it - and because of this I rarely need to provide tech support. But I still visit my grandmother.
• You can choose from a variety of user interfaces or rock it in the terminal.
• Generally speaking, Ubuntu is as polished an OS as any you might pay for.

Incentivized

• Commercial packages not always available
• Stable packages sometimes lag behind the latest releases

Incentivized

• The repository system could be a little better, as some of the software needed is not easily available there.
• Ubuntu sometimes does not play nicely or easily with some modern firmwares.
• Some people report slow responses with newer versions of Ubuntu, although we have not experienced any.

Incentivized

Experience with other Distributions.

We did not use the managed commercial support, but instead relied on community forums and official documentation. Ubuntu is very well documented across both instructional documentation from the developers themselves as well as informal support forums [ServerFault, YCombinator, Reddit]. It's easy enough to find an answer to any question you may have

Incentivized

openSUSE Leap has wide variety of already precompiled software packages in default repositories. It even has some specific packages in official repositories that are not available in other Linux distribution repositories. It is also very stable and reliable distro - we can predict when new versions will be released and when we should make system upgrades.

Windows 10: Expensive, with more security problems, more difficult to keep updated and less variety of free / open source applications. Its use encourages bad information security practices. OpenSuse Linux: A different distribution at source (Suse Linux), use of rpm packages (with fewer repositories and incompatible with Ubuntu Linux dpkg packages), and whose main objective is to be a "testing ground" for its paid version / professional, SUSE enterprise Linux.

Incentivized

• More effective maintenance means a smaller headcount needed for running the production servers.
• The easiness of deployment means more time we can spend on software development of company-specific applications.
• Great community support and overlap with other Linux systems mean that an answer to nearly any problem is usually one google query away.

• Systems administration with Ubuntu is easy with little deep knowledge about it. Docs and community publications are great resources for any task you need to perform on any Ubuntu server and the organization can save several salaries of specialized sys admins in favor of more active roles.
• Having been an Ubuntu user for many years personally, setting up new Ubuntu servers on my organization came with zero cost for me. I just deployed one instance from my hosting/cloud provider and started working right after it was running, no need to ask support or hire new staff for these tasks.
• Replacing paid options with Ubuntu have also saved thousands of dollars on Windows Server licenses. I've migrated Windows/SQL Server based systems to Ubuntu/MySQL/PostgreSQL several times during my career and saved about USD 5000/year in licenses to many of them.

Incentivized