Novell Renames Consumer Linux Distro

Novell said Thursday it was rebranding the consumer version of SUSE Linux in an effort to spotlight its open source roots. The product has been renamed "openSUSE," which echoes the name of the open-source Linux project the company sponsors. The current version of the product is 10.1, with 10.2 due to ship later this year. Additionally, the new branding separates Novell's free community-based product from its standard enterprise distribution.

The openSUSE.org project has about 30,000 members, and version 10.1 recently passed 350,000 verified installations, Novell said. "The spotlight is shining on Novell's Linux offerings, as shown by the great success of the year-old openSUSE project and the tremendous reviews received by our SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 products," Novell chief marketing officer and senior vice president John Dragoon remarked.