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The model reviewed by the article is just one of several types of Linux laptops sold by R Cubed Technologies, ranging in price from $999 to $1,454. I really think you're getting a better buying one of these Linux laptops than buying a Dell laptop where you have to pay the Micro$oft tax or one of those exhorbitantly expensive Apple laptops.

The R Cubed Linux laptops have Intel integrated graphics cards for which Intel has released 2D and 3D-accelerated open source graphics drivers that are capable of transparent windows and drop shadows with EXA as well as rotating cubes and wobbly windows with XGL and Compiz! Way to go Intel!

Try openSUSE ( http://www.opensuse.org/ ) with XGL ( http://en.opensuse.org/Xgl ) enabled. I got it running within about 10 minutes following this howto ( http://www.novell.com/coolsolutions/feature/17174. html ) on my HP dv8230ca laptop.

I can scale entire apps, make them transparent, wobbly windows are cool and not to mention the cube...

Try openSUSE ( http://www.opensuse.org/ ) with XGL ( http://en.opensuse.org/Xgl ) enabled. I got it running within about 10 minutes following this howto ( http://www.novell.com/coolsolutions/feature/17174. html ) on my HP dv8230ca laptop.

I can scale entire apps, make them transparent, wobbly windows are cool and not to mention the cube...

You can download SUSE Linux 10.2 Alpha 1 here.

SUSE has several Non official SUSE Linux versions

It is said that you can do this. The only thing you need is to remove the Novell opyrighted stuff. Unfortunatly it is not very clear what they are and what they are not. It is not just the README and such files and screens, but also e.g. the OOo customized popup screen.

With SUSE Linux 10.1, SUSE has integrated a new package manager resolver library called "libzypp".

libzypp is the integration of SUSE's yast2 Package manager and Ximian's libredcarpet. At Novell we used two solutions so far - Red Carpet and YaST package manager - and decided to merge both in a best of breed approach.

For some people this is a reason not to use SuSE - zealots have their place, and I would not want the strictly OSS distros to go away

For some people this is a reason not to use SuSE - zealots have their place, and I would not want the strictly OSS distros to go away

I am far from a OpenSUSE expert but I was able to follow their documentation to do a network install of 10.1 with the files hosted on a RH WS4 computer.

I downloaded the OpenSUSE CDs and net boot image from here
I followed this item
Followed by this one
Then I did this
I then booted off of the cd made from the net boot image. I adjusted the mount points and exports to fit my local enviroment

On a side note: I did the X86_64 install to see how OpenSUSE got the Java plugin to work in Firefox. It was easy for them, they cheated. Their Firefox is a 32bit compiled version

:wq

I am far from a OpenSUSE expert but I was able to follow their documentation to do a network install of 10.1 with the files hosted on a RH WS4 computer.

I downloaded the OpenSUSE CDs and net boot image from here
I followed this item
Followed by this one
Then I did this
I then booted off of the cd made from the net boot image. I adjusted the mount points and exports to fit my local enviroment

On a side note: I did the X86_64 install to see how OpenSUSE got the Java plugin to work in Firefox. It was easy for them, they cheated. Their Firefox is a 32bit compiled version

:wq

I am far from a OpenSUSE expert but I was able to follow their documentation to do a network install of 10.1 with the files hosted on a RH WS4 computer.

I downloaded the OpenSUSE CDs and net boot image from here
I followed this item
Followed by this one
Then I did this
I then booted off of the cd made from the net boot image. I adjusted the mount points and exports to fit my local enviroment

On a side note: I did the X86_64 install to see how OpenSUSE got the Java plugin to work in Firefox. It was easy for them, they cheated. Their Firefox is a 32bit compiled version

:wq

I am far from a OpenSUSE expert but I was able to follow their documentation to do a network install of 10.1 with the files hosted on a RH WS4 computer.

I downloaded the OpenSUSE CDs and net boot image from here
I followed this item
Followed by this one
Then I did this
I then booted off of the cd made from the net boot image. I adjusted the mount points and exports to fit my local enviroment

On a side note: I did the X86_64 install to see how OpenSUSE got the Java plugin to work in Firefox. It was easy for them, they cheated. Their Firefox is a 32bit compiled version

:wq

I sort of agree with you. I'd like Novell to put out something like an official SLICK which would be optimized for GUI-less implementations and built to run in the smallest footprint possible (ie. less than 50M). If it was included as an option in the stock SuSE, then wow. Now, as for spending 2-3 hours running rpm -ev / yast pulling packages from SLES to make it usable, somehting isn't right there. First off, you should have setup a test server to determine your needs. Once that's done, create an AutoYast install script (think RH KickStart) to do your production installs (eg. yast2 autoyast). Second, even if unneeded pacakges are installed, you can easily disable the cruft services you don't need in Yast->System->Services, I'd guess in under 5 minutes start to finish.

http://en.opensuse.org/Welcome_to_openSUSE.org

Sorry. Couldn't resist. OK, start flaming now.

The Linux Documentation Project ( http://tldp.org/ ). The HOWTOs and FAQs are the most valuable resources. Caveat: some of the information may be outdated, look at the date of the last update. Beginners should always read the accompanying documentation of their distribution first. It is the easiest way to get started. Once you feel familiar with your distro, you can go on gaining deeper insight into the inner workings of Linux by reading the HOWTOs and the kernel documentation (part of the kernel sources). There are a lot of other documents already installed with almost every distro. The man and info pages are the place to go to learn about a specific command. Also look for directories called "doc", like /usr/doc. Another good source for info is the homepage of your distro. For example, if you use openSUSE, check out the SDB (support data base) at http://opensuse.org/SDB. In any case, when installing Linux for the first time, the first thing that you should get working is your internet connection and a web browser. That way you have access to all the online documentation as well as the discussion boards. Google Linux ( http://www.google.com/linux ) is another good place to find specific info. You can find lots of free information if you know where to look.

You need to compare two similar things. What, as always, is compared is a pre-installed system that you have experience with, with a non-pre-installed system that you are unfamiliar with.

Give Joe Sixpack an empty PC and Windows XP pro OEM and tell him you want to watch a DVD on it, listen to MP3's and write about it in Openoffice, so you can read it on your Linux machine.

Last time I installed Windows, I luckily had a friend available who could explain how things worked. The time before that was Windows 95.

So compare two pre-installed machines and/or two bare machines that you want to get funtional. I bet SUSE 10.1 in combination with an extra repository Packman where you then select MPlayer to install is much easier then installing your OEM, your Office, your dvdsoftware, your ...

And for sure it is cheaper, wich should be enough for Joe Sixpack. The money he saves he can use to buy music. (So ??AA, The reason you loose money is Microsoft. :-)

You need to compare two similar things. What, as always, is compared is a pre-installed system that you have experience with, with a non-pre-installed system that you are unfamiliar with.

Give Joe Sixpack an empty PC and Windows XP pro OEM and tell him you want to watch a DVD on it, listen to MP3's and write about it in Openoffice, so you can read it on your Linux machine.

Last time I installed Windows, I luckily had a friend available who could explain how things worked. The time before that was Windows 95.

So compare two pre-installed machines and/or two bare machines that you want to get funtional. I bet SUSE 10.1 in combination with an extra repository Packman where you then select MPlayer to install is much easier then installing your OEM, your Office, your dvdsoftware, your ...

And for sure it is cheaper, wich should be enough for Joe Sixpack. The money he saves he can use to buy music. (So ??AA, The reason you loose money is Microsoft. :-)

no DVD release, yet)
http://en.opensuse.org/Making_a_DVD_from_CDs
or directly download from https://sourceforge.net/projects/makesusedvd/

Mainly you put the 5 or 6 CD's in an empty directory , go to that directory and run makeSUSEdvd.

Here's the torrent for all 5 CDs (no DVD release, yet).
This release includes xgl support for KDE and gnome as well as several other nifty features!

Doesn't matter, most of us at work can't start until we go home anyway, it'll be prime tonight.

Oh yeah...

i386
x86_64
Everything Else

Doesn't matter, most of us at work can't start until we go home anyway, it'll be prime tonight.

Oh yeah...

i386
x86_64
Everything Else

Doesn't matter, most of us at work can't start until we go home anyway, it'll be prime tonight.

Oh yeah...

i386
x86_64
Everything Else

howabout here... or here... or even here!

KDE is broken in the latest Fedora release, which doesn't really surprise me given the fact that Red Hat has always had abyssmal support for KDE.

I think applications like Konqueror File Manager, K3B for burning CDs and DVDs, AmaroK for listening to music, Kaffeine for watching movies, etc are a must for a desktop computer. It's a shame that Red Hat doesn't put more resources into ensuring KDE is usable on their systems.

Anyway, I'll stick with ArkLinux, Kubuntu and openSUSE since KDE actually works on those distros.

Several distributions already have Java bundled. SUSE has it on the boxed set. If you do not have the boxed set, it is very easy to add as an installation source.

10.1 will have it on the DVD as well as on a seperate CD, where also other non-OSS stuff is, like Opera and Realplayer.

http://en.opensuse.org/Media_layout

Not being OSS does not mean it is not distributable. Oh and 10.1 will be out May 11th.

What they could do is find a code that puts things in alphabetical order, regardless of upper or lower case, so that openSUSE does not come after Xorg (and YES, it is openSUSE, not OpenSuSE)

openSUSE is not a community distro. It is the community it self. The distribution is still called SUSE.

Hasn't that already happened?

Maybe you could try aquiring a copy of Norton Ghost to backup your windows. As for linux, we'll i'm kinda of a noob myself. However, I do prefer SuSe 10.0. 10.1 should be finished by the end of April. http://www.opensuse.org/

Easy to use/install
Knoppix
SLAX
OpenSuSE

First Time User Tips
The first thing a Windows User should do is find a BootDisk and boot to a Command Prompt. (This the screen is all black and the mouse doesn't work.) You'll need to use that big piece of plastic that came with your computer called a "Key-Board". Type in word 'fdisk' , then hit the enter button and the follow the instructions to 'clean' your hard-drive. Doing this will clean up all of the extra files that computer doesn't need.
OR
Before you start the computer open the cd tray and place the OpenSuSE cd in it. Feel free to use any tools you can find to pry the cd try open. Close the tray and start the computer. Once the application starts it will guide you through Updating the Operating System (The Windows).
Good Luck.

I couldn't agree more. For anyone who hasn't tried out AppArmor I highly recommend giving it a try with the distro of your choice or trying OpenSUSE as all of the newer SUSE products (SLES/NLD 9 sp3+, OpenSUSE 10+, OES sp2+) have it integrated with a stupid simple YAST interface for using it. I'm definitely biased as I've been friends with the Immunix crew for quite some time and work closely with Novell but having used a variety of MAC products (Argus Pitbull, SELinux, and AppArmor) I can say that AppArmor is the only tool that doesn't require weeks to configure. People who say MAC is difficult just haven't tried AppArmor yet. It's really quite easy to get a very high level of security by profiling the few applications of concern (anything running as root, anything that talks on the network, user apps like Firefox, Evolution, Kmail, Konqueror, GAIM, etc....).

Simple QA at best is all you can hope for, not a year of open beta.

No, you surely can't

And there I was hoping for worm that installs Linux/Thunderbird/Firefox complete with link to a fake F-Secure page. Still, it's better than http://en.opensuse.org/Time_machine.

>>They should have taken the SuSE propduct they were selling and offered a "home edition" for 100% free to home users and non-profit companies.

It's called openSUSE

Get a copy of Suse. Either OpenSuse http://en.opensuse.org/Released_Version#HTTP_or_FT P currently v10.0, v10.1 due end of April, 10.2 due end of year. Or buy Novell Suse professional with a support contract (s/b under $100 for the box, not sure of the support pricing). The purchased version has additional non-GPL content, like java, integrated. See http://www.thejemreport.com/mambo/content/view/178 /42/ for how to add the missing bits.
The install will recognise your existing Windoze partitions and will walk you through upgrading to a dual boot and the linux side has read-only access to the your NTFS partitions. Very Oeei-GUI interface, very little command line savvy needed. There is a LiveCD you can just boot to check it out. The "eval" DVD is the actual install.
On top of that VMware will be releasing a free VMserver so you can run your legacy Windoze inside the linux. Alternatively, if you are impatient or want a linux other than suse, you can download one of the free VMware appliances http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/ and run it in your Windoze environment
HTH

http://en.opensuse.org/Xgl http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_XGL#Prerequisites

Man, I used to report bugs (and fixing) but no more!! To understand HOW lost they are look at : Annoying Bugs , the filesystem f_up is NOT a joke!! I was bitten BADLY!! Stupid of me to have an beta on my ordinary desktop, but I thought that since there was a late beta one could be safe... MAN .. the stuff they shoehorn into this late beta... god grief!! its like ... whats the name... eh "the so called belgian beer" (internal joke... hihi). Seriously.. I had "invested" my time in Suse.. and came to the conclusion that I better cut here... there is a saying (chinese??) "Don't throw good money after bad" s/money/time/ ... anyhow... sorry to spread FUD here but... PLS, take a good look at the open bugs before "investing" your time on this...

For me this is really sad, I don't "know" any other distro... I installed Mandriva on my wiped (thanks) box, so here we start from scratch again...

I think you're aiming for the new Xgl goodness.
But to squeeze the most out of gnome you can better forget using xcompmgr and start using Compiz.

I think you're aiming for the new Xgl goodness.
But to squeeze the most out of gnome you can better forget using xcompmgr and start using Compiz.

Check out Xgl, it really rocks! http://en.opensuse.org/Xgl

• iFolder - http://www.ifolder.com/
• openSUSE - http://www.opensuse.org/
• Mono - http://www.mono-project.com/
• Hula - http://www.hula-project.org/
• Diva - http://www.diva-project.org/
• Tango - http://www.tango-project.org/
• Beagle - http://www.beaglewiki.org/
• Better Desktop - http://www.betterdesktop.org/

You do not have to "wait for all the apps to catch up." Anyone can create a profile for an application, all you need is a decent use case for the application. You do not need to modify the application at all.

IMHO, it is not so strange that the security policy for an application comse from the provider of the application. Consider that without AppArmor, you are completely trusting the application provider, because the application can do absolutely anything the invoking user can do. Providing an AppArmor profile means that you have an explicit declaration of what the application is permitted to do.

You can even edit it to suit your taste, if you like. For instance, it annoys the crap out of me that Adobe Acrobat actually supports embedded Javascript inside PDF documents. This annoys me because vendors embed Javascript inside documents that act like web-bugs, reporting back to the vendor each time you open the document! Eww! So the Acrobat profile on my personal workstation has been hacked to not provide access to Javascript libraries to the Acrobat program, thus depriving spyware PDF files of the opportunity to execute and squeel on me.

Crispin

Just download the SUSE 10.0 delete all the packages you do not like, add the ones you DO like, as for example libdvdcss and MPlayer. Next you can look her on how to make your own CD or DVD and read up on the my.sel information.

Several different distro's have been made. SUPER will be the best known. Somebody also made a pure Spanish one and I know of a person who was writing a book and wanted to add its own version.

How much changes you do later is up to you. Some experience with RPM building would be very handy.

but they were slow in getting 10.0 out the door.

Slow? They were on time as scheduled. http://www.opensuse.org/Roadmap will tell you the future dates. Oh and nowadays it is SUSE (and the comunity openSUSE) not SuSE anymore. It used to mean something and now it officially means nothing anymore.

Performance is something they are working very hard on and a noticable difference has been seen in 10.0 Also look at http://www.opensuse.org/SUPER

but they were slow in getting 10.0 out the door.

Slow? They were on time as scheduled. http://www.opensuse.org/Roadmap will tell you the future dates. Oh and nowadays it is SUSE (and the comunity openSUSE) not SuSE anymore. It used to mean something and now it officially means nothing anymore.

Performance is something they are working very hard on and a noticable difference has been seen in 10.0 Also look at http://www.opensuse.org/SUPER

Im updating right now my SuSE 10 with apt to the new KDE. But check this list of additional yast repositories for more things to install, including updated KDE.

but it would be nice to know the free edition is going to be around forever.

Not sure if SUSE will be free. SUSE OSS will certainly be free. It is the OS that is made by the community on http://opensuse.org/

ehh? Ubuntu? I think they should have used Suse.

ehh? Suse? I think they should have used Debian.

ehh? Debian? I think they should have used Manriva.

ehh? Mandriva? I think they should have used Fedora.

What the f*ck is your point? Go figure.

Case in point: OpenSUSE's SUPER and SLICK editions are totally KDE-centric, performance optimized (incl. Con Kolivas' kernel optimizations) releases with a 1-CD install available and access to SUSE's repositories for additional (KDE) apps. The KDE and Minimal versions have been GA for a long time already, but their GNOME version is still stuck at -RC1, out over 2 months ago.

So to revenge Novell the now-reversed plan to make GNOME the default desktop on the Novell-branded enterprise stuff (which the KDE fans never cared about anyway), they're now dumping the massively KDE-centric SUSE en masse, in favour of... KDE on Kubuntu, which is based on the GNOME-centric Ubuntu which in turn is based on the GNOME-centric Debian...? Sometimes this stuff works in mysterious ways. :-)

Even if KDE eventually gained parity with GNOME under Ubuntu, I can't quite see it becoming a "preferred" choice there anytime soon, if ever. Likewise I can't see SUSE, the KDE-centric consumer release from Novell, giving GNOME anywhere near parity, let alone preferred position, on that platform.

If SUSE's KDE efforts aren't sufficient to the hardcore KDE fans, perhaps their best alternatives would be to invest all their time and money into an upstart totally KDE-only distro, or perhaps they could persuade the other KDE-centric major distro, Mandriva, to drop all their GNOME and Xfce (GTK is bad, right?) support? Having recently gotten out of bankruptcy protection, Mandriva would probably welcome the huge buying power of the KDE-only fans with open arms.

Case in point: OpenSUSE's SUPER and SLICK editions are totally KDE-centric, performance optimized (incl. Con Kolivas' kernel optimizations) releases with a 1-CD install available and access to SUSE's repositories for additional (KDE) apps. The KDE and Minimal versions have been GA for a long time already, but their GNOME version is still stuck at -RC1, out over 2 months ago.

So to revenge Novell the now-reversed plan to make GNOME the default desktop on the Novell-branded enterprise stuff (which the KDE fans never cared about anyway), they're now dumping the massively KDE-centric SUSE en masse, in favour of... KDE on Kubuntu, which is based on the GNOME-centric Ubuntu which in turn is based on the GNOME-centric Debian...? Sometimes this stuff works in mysterious ways. :-)

Even if KDE eventually gained parity with GNOME under Ubuntu, I can't quite see it becoming a "preferred" choice there anytime soon, if ever. Likewise I can't see SUSE, the KDE-centric consumer release from Novell, giving GNOME anywhere near parity, let alone preferred position, on that platform.

If SUSE's KDE efforts aren't sufficient to the hardcore KDE fans, perhaps their best alternatives would be to invest all their time and money into an upstart totally KDE-only distro, or perhaps they could persuade the other KDE-centric major distro, Mandriva, to drop all their GNOME and Xfce (GTK is bad, right?) support? Having recently gotten out of bankruptcy protection, Mandriva would probably welcome the huge buying power of the KDE-only fans with open arms.