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Taking a look at the ChangeLog, it looks like this is mostly incremental bug fixes. Anything major new here? What should I be on the look out for, when I try to impress my date with this hot new distro?

http://www.suse.com/PressReleases/PPCp r.html

There are several other linux ppc distributions under way including:

Debian Linux
Rock Linux

Turbo Linux
APUS Linux for Power Up Amigas
Yellow Dog Linux (Based on RedHat)

All software should be open under a GPL or simpler license.

For the student, geeks and computer sciences that have to actucally work with the source code/software it is 100 times easier if the code is freely (as in speech) avaiable.

For the commerical blood suckers they should fight and make money on terms of good software/support and not on marketing and a huge amount of lawyers.

I am sorry, but I don't see ANY reason that software should be closed. What vaule does closed software have? less than nothing

Just because closed software has the ability to make immoral and unethical money though slezzy business practices, doesn't mean it is right. Business can make money though open source software and services, but the companies will have to work 100 times as hard, and compete based on product/service rather than lawyers/marketing.

Ohh you can see the rant building up in his eyes, lets get out of here, it is about to go off

Wonder if it it'll work on Mac clones like my Umax S900. According to this (related) page

http://www.suse.com/ppc/beta_en-2.html

it seems like as long as the box is PCI, it's cool. Hope so...

They generaly dont put it on there ftp site for a few weeks after they start selling it. You can buy it on both cdrom and dvd from there webpage. Again it goes back to the point of SuSE trying to force you to pay for there cdroms.

It's not slackware, but Debian also runs on powerpc. It's even going to be part of the next official release.

As to your other questions:

The BSD that runs on MacPPC is NetBSD OFPPC.

And SUSE has a page on installing SUSE for ppc.

For laptop installation hints, look at the archives for the LinuxPPC Mailing List. If your laptop is a pismo (the ones with firewire) support might not be 100% there yet; best bet is to post to the mailing list, several of the LinuxPPC kernel developers subscribe, as well as the author of the LinuxPPC booters (miBoot, yaboot, and BootX).

The same kernel and booter(s) are used for all LinuxPPC distros, so questions about booting and installing are appropriate on that list, because many list members have experience with those issues.

even with the problems you are having, SuSE may be your best bet for a fix. The SuSE developers do hang out on the mailing lists and you may get a quick fix there as a SuSE user that should be your first option as you do get 30 days of support. Also the development team members contribute a lot to the XFree project and often release custom X servers for various cards. I was having problems with an SiS chipset and received multiple replies from developers and users alike. Soon they had their own XSiS server for public consumption and its now part of XFree. Hope this helps.

Yes, you can do an FTP install, the bootdisks are all on the FTP site
(ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/6.3/disks/
for 6.3 - sure you can work out where for 6.4).

As for burning a CD, I'm not sure whether you can or not - the problem being that YaST (The SuSE set up tool family) is not GPL. Info on this at
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i38 6/6.3/COPYRIGHT.yast

--

Yes, you can do an FTP install, the bootdisks are all on the FTP site
(ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/6.3/disks/
for 6.3 - sure you can work out where for 6.4).

As for burning a CD, I'm not sure whether you can or not - the problem being that YaST (The SuSE set up tool family) is not GPL. Info on this at
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i38 6/6.3/COPYRIGHT.yast

--

First, this is not a web-only service. We do like to provide web interfaces to as much as possible, but we do realize that for some things, program compliation and testing included, nothing can substitute for shell access.

A lot of people are asking about other hardware architectures and OS's. For now, the Compile Farm is i386 based, and contains several Linux distributions and FreeBSD. This does not mean that we have ruled out other possibilities. This is just another step in what we hope can be an expanding feature set for Open Source developers on SourceForge.

There is a lot of setup involved in something like this Compile Farm, not the least of which is having thousands of skilled Open Source developers with shell accounts on a set of boxes. We're attempting to keep things as secure as possible while also offering enough features to make this thing useful. One reason for the limited number of distributions/architectures/OS's now is the limitation of variables in a very complex system. Hopefully, we can work out the kinks in this system soon so that it can become a valuable resource to developers who might not otherwise have the capability of getting their hands on so many different machines.

Please be patient as we test this new system. We're definately open to criticism, but please also be constructive with it so that we can continue to improve these services. Thanks to all of the SourceForge users who have contributed patches, criticism, and helpful suggestions. Every day my confidence in the Open Source model increases...

How do you pronounce SuSE?

It should be pronounced like "Soose". The "U" sounds like the "oo" in "moose", the last "e" is spoken like the "a" in "at". But in general it is not very important to pronounce it correctly, as long as it is clear what you are talking about.

Notably SuSE just released a beta of their 6.3 distribution for PPC. It's for Apple and IBM machines. They also have a release version for Alpha.
I posted this a week ago and haven't seen it on the page.
OpenBSD also runs quite nicely on older 68K Macs.

What else is new? See here (German) and here (English). Duh.

Does anybody know what the educational policy from other distributions in Europe is? For instance, I believe SuSe (located in Germany) is pretty strong. I wonder whether this is a strategic move to get market share from other distributions... any thoughts?

Last I heard Dirk was still working for SuSE. At least, that's what it says here.

Chris

I just noticed the same thing. The top of their web page ( www.suse.com ) said it would available on December 1 (it said that last night, and I believe it even said that earlier today). Now the site says "first week of December." I guess they had some sort of delay. I have been checking the FTP site all day watching for it. Guess I'll have to wait a while more. The funny thing is that there are already many files listed under the updates for 6.3.

I just noticed the same thing. The top of their web page ( www.suse.com ) said it would available on December 1 (it said that last night, and I believe it even said that earlier today). Now the site says "first week of December." I guess they had some sort of delay. I have been checking the FTP site all day watching for it. Guess I'll have to wait a while more. The funny thing is that there are already many files listed under the updates for 6.3.

beware: that's a lot of stuff (ca. 3 gigs) , but u could skip the suse/zq1-directory, all source-code-rpms reside here

I can confirm this. They made more money and they even have some winnings, unlike Red Hat.
See here their numbers

ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/6.1/
SuSE's FTP server in Germany (SuSE 6.1)

Otherwise look at http://www.suse.de/e/ftp.html for mirrors, etc.

Enjoy. :-)

Ye Olde Webdesigner

Huh.

Maybe rpm-based distro's aren't dead after all.
:P

Nah, seriously, good for them.

Along with a $29.95 Best Buy price, SuSE - pronunciation here may be worth a look for the office types around this place. At least they don't start you off with that lame win95/98 look alike desktop.

How's the English in the 6.1 manual?

SuSE isdn-kernel drivers, can be found at ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/isdn4linu x/v2.2/isdn.tar.gz

SuSE isdn-utilities, can be found at ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/i sdn4linux/v2.2/isdn4k-utils.tar.gz

Some scripts, I pulled mine from http://sites.inka.de/picard/rh52_isdn.tgz

Untar the ISDN-kernel drivers, run the std2kern-script included to put them into your kernel directory; then recompile your kernel.

Untar the ISDN-utils, run make menuconfig and make install when you are satisfied

Last, check if the RedHat scripts like your Debian scripts, if so, use them, else you can use those scripts as a starting point for your work.

Should be enough to keep you busy this weekend, success!

SuSE isdn-kernel drivers, can be found at ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/isdn4linu x/v2.2/isdn.tar.gz

SuSE isdn-utilities, can be found at ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/i sdn4linux/v2.2/isdn4k-utils.tar.gz

Some scripts, I pulled mine from http://sites.inka.de/picard/rh52_isdn.tgz

Untar the ISDN-kernel drivers, run the std2kern-script included to put them into your kernel directory; then recompile your kernel.

Untar the ISDN-utils, run make menuconfig and make install when you are satisfied

Last, check if the RedHat scripts like your Debian scripts, if so, use them, else you can use those scripts as a starting point for your work.

Should be enough to keep you busy this weekend, success!

I have had some of the same problems with SuSE. I ordered 6.1 about 3 weeks ago and still have not received it. A statement on their web site simply says there are too many orders to fill and they are working as fast as they can. I tried to call them but have only received their answering service. Their web site also has dead links and outdated pages floating around.

I know that SuSE, as well as RedHat and other vendors, are committed to providing a quality product to their users. However, they are also committed to making a profit for their companies. I hope that these companies know what they're getting themselves into when they start heavily advertising their products.

I will continue to support SuSE the same way Stuart will continue to support RedHat. I hope that the business end of their operation improves however.

Have people experienced anything like this with other vendors?

> S.U.S.E. uses a large part of RH code base with out any support.

Where did you find this information? I'd like to see some facts about this statement. SuSE started business in 1992 and developed it's distribution on the base of the Jurix distribution. The only "code base" that has been taken is the RPM package manager.

Check the SuSE FAQ for further info.

You are wrong. Why are you giving english words for a German distribution?

SuSe is mixed capitalization, because it is an Acronym for "Gesellschaft für Software- und Systementwicklung mbH" which roughly translates to (You were close though) "Company for Software- and System-Development"

This was taken from the Suse FAQ (english version) found at The Suse FAQ Page.

Your meaning does make sense, if Suse were an english speaking company....


--Jason Bell

Linux is a desktop operating system; ask Linus, or any of your other advocates. What you need is a server operating system.

You mean one of these? Oh, wait... that's Linux. Maybe I was thinking of this one. No, I guess that's Linux too, ain't it?

Actually, all it demonstrates is that Linux 2.0 is slower than 2.2. Which is what everyone's been saying all along.

Like this.

Isn't that one of them arcane UNIX(tm) things? Didn't they go out of style in the 80s? I think something a little more modern is in order.

That's all I read when ever I see ANYTHING remotely connected with Linux or OSS.
Why is that?
Where's Slackware or SuSE?

although i think Debian's the bet distribution, at work for some reason Slackware was the only one out of RH, Debian, and SW to recognize a really old and junky NE2000 clone network card...

Just because you can download the source code doesn't meen it's Free Software.