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SuSE 8.0 Now Shipping
MobyTurbo writes "Well, it's technically a day late, but SuSE Linux 8.0 is now shipping. The increase from 7.3 to 8.0 is due to the inclusion of KDE 3.0, a SuSE-modified kernel version 2.4.18 (with Andre's VM), an improved firewall, among other packages that have been upgraded or added. (Including a couple of new games. :-) )"
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=6015 If you are looking for a review before you just go out and buy software based on free code. Any readers actually have the product yet. Impressions....
There are no officially available ISOs of SuSE distributions. You can wait for the setup files to show up on the SuSE ftp server and do an online installation or try the (also not-yet-released) evaluation version, which is a system configured to run directly from CD.
Sun's Grid Engine is included in SuSE 8.0... I think that's a significant addition, as grid computing becomes the "hot" topic amongst CS researchers nowadays. Good to see Linux on the cutting edge.
"Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." -- Linus Torvalds
SuSE 8.0 also includes:
/etc/rc.config and into a Red Hat-style /etc/sysconfig. It is still managed by YaST2, just stored in a different place.
Sun's grid engine software
Star Office 5.2 and Open Office 641c
Updated YaST2 and much improved YaST2 console mode
X 4.2
Alsa 0.9
One of the best firewall scripts anywhere
Fairly major changes in how admin settings are saved, with a lot of stuff moving out of
It is polished and solid, and as always, stuffed with so much software, you could not absorb it all in several years. The upside is that almost everything you might want is in there already. SuSE may not be perfect, but they contribute huge chunks of code to the kernel, KDE, Alsa, Xfree, and NIS projects and that's good for everyone.
Some updates to KDE3 and other packages are already posted to their ftp site, so fire up the YaST Online Update right after the install to get the new goodies.
- YAST has gone, just YAST2 is left (as text and as X version). BTW: The text version is awfull to use
- rc.config is away, now s
- Boot disks aren't shipped anymore
- Changing the dummy NVidia driver to the original one crashes X when you don't adjust it manually
There have been a lot of other negative voices on alt.linux.suse, it seems like SuSE is doing the "buy our box and become our beta testers" like M$And, especially when you are doing an update from 7.3 to 8 it can be tricky.
This must be the first distro shipping KDE3, or am I mistaken?
If you take the word "shipping" literally, maybe.
But I've been using KDE3 for a while on my laptop, running Gentoo 1.1, which, btw, is the best distro I've ever tried.
rmstar
The developers have already stated that they will skip the 8.0 release and release the next sparc at 8.1
They also claim that dropping 32-bit sparc support is probable....though I certainly hope not.
-=Mongr=-
Updates are available via FTP servers for free, and through their Red Hat Network channels it's free for the end user (1 free token per user account).
So what you're paying for is to be able to manage all your computers through one interface. SuSE's YOU last time I tried it (7.3) works like Ximian's Red Carpet, or Microsoft's Windows Update, in that all the work is done on the client's side.
Michel
Michel
Fedora Project Contribut
See subject - SuSE 8.0 has been shipping for a while, I've been seeing comments about it in german and swiss newsgroups. These comments range from rather critical to absolutely enthusiastic.
Unfortunately, it's been "in" for a while to bash the "Windows from Nürnberg". IMHO SuSE is very easy to setup for newbies and gurus alike (no time to waste on configuring stuff, leaving time for tinkering on the non-obvious things) and gives you all the power of linux in a nice package.
Can't wait to get my hands on this new version, the features list is quite impressive. I'll get around to it this weekend, probably...
(using SuSE, Debian, RedHat, IPCop, ... on x86,
UltraSparc, Alpha)
Well, it's technically a *week* late. I had my copy of SuSe 8.0 Personal Package in the mailbox (Germany) already at Friday the 12th. (Preordered directly from SuSe.de web site).
:).
Just one comment: Installation went flawlessly on the Gericom Webgine 1630 Notebook. All of the hardware (expect AMR Modem) automatically recognized and initialized
bb4now,
PMC
we-go-we-fly
No, they simply had to follow the market leader in their version numbering.
Small changes - and I don't see a KDE 3.0 as such a BiG change to justify a major version increment for the whole distro.
Appearantly, they focused their efforts lately on 8.0 polishing, hence I feel it's better than 7.3. After all, the new kernel is worth the upgrade for my taste (that is if you don't go for Red Hat).
KDE 3.0 is as stable as the old version (ahem). And the installation speed is said to have improved (according to SuSE's advertisments). The latter I don't know much about, because I had to go for a coffee, and a snack and make some telefon calls until the installer gave me the obligatory error messages about some packages which I had to reinstall later by hand etc. (I mean after having tried the whole game 3 times in vain, with deinstalling and reinstalling via the cludgy YAST installer.
I should've stayed with Red Hat, but that could as well be my illusion, that the grass on the other side of my reality-fence is allways greener.
After one month (and 4 servers) experience I'd say:
You can use it, but you mustn't. If you allready have a SuSE, it's OK to upgrade. Especially if your servers are in Europe, the support for local ISDN and DSL services and hardware is probably (or should I say slightly) better than from US distros.
Acceptable.
I am using it since 14 days now (live in Germany and subscribed it). It's ok, not many noticable improvements over 7.3 beside KDE 3.0. But what really annoys me is that the kernel is not very stable, at least for some activities. When trying to rip a CD my system freezes after a few minutes. I ripped several dozen CDs with 7.3 without a single problem. Another good way to crash the kernel is to listen to audio using an USB audio device. Sometimes it crashes after 5 minutes, sometimes after 60 minutes, but it will always crash. Since 7.3's had a bug that prevented USB audio from working it's still an improvement, but not a very good one. Playing Tribes 2 with the Nvidia drivers is better, it only crashes after several hours, and I had the same problems with Suse 7.3 as well, at least after the last driver update.
You'll be able to do an FTP install in about 3 weeks to 4 weeks.
They do have an eval CD that is an ISO though.
I've been updating my SuSE 7.3 to 8.0 10 days ago. The update changed some settings, for example it activated netsettings received by a DHCP-Server. I did not use a DHCP-Server before. But when I switched off the DHCP-Option, it showed all the previous Network-Settings - except the own local IP-Adress. Some Links in the kicker did not work anymore. Worst is that Ximian Evolution 1.0.3 does not work anymore. When trying to run it tells me, that it does not find the configuration database anymore. I had no time to fix that (to be more exact: I don't know anymore when I will have time to try to fix that, because Evolution is my PIM (-: ). During the Update I had a good feeling, because the update routine asked for every single file I expected it to ask for, because I did not install them via YAST2. The update is not reversible. Some other small things are broken, too. The KDE-Start-Menu was in german before the update and is now in English, for example. Mozilla 0.9.8 crashes very, very often and often crashes while booting, when it crashed before, till the X-Server is restarted. Before the update Mozilla 0.9.8 crashed maybe once a week. When installing the available Patches it did not find a patch (menu_fix-1) it recommended for update. But on the other side, there are no hardware problems, KDE 3 runs really fast and I feel some performance improvements. YAST2 is better than before, but I miss some features from YAST1 (which is not available anymore) or did not find them till now. I also installed SuSE 8.0 on a new machine and that worked absolutely great - all modern hardware was recognized and worked. Simply worked, without additional drivers as necesary in Windows XP in the same configuration. I was very impressed by that. Bye Kuesschen
That's exactly what 8.0 changed. They now have several config files, one for every package. Hack away!
It's quite a shame that SuSE doesn't provide ISO images on their ftp. I understand they are merely trying to make some money off of their efforts, but they're turning away a significant portion of their potential customer base.
SuSE was my first experience with linux (i actually purchased it), and I would like to give it another shot, but there is no way I am going out to drop cash on the whole package without trying it. I would be delighted if they even released a minimal base install ISO for download, and I'm sure many other people would agree. If I could try out a base install of the new system I would gladly go out and buy all of the additional CD's for a complete system. Unfortunately this isn't the case.
I'm writing from a SuSE 8. I brought yesterday a box of "SuSE 8.0 Professional"
It's an awensome distro. SuSE did an incredible work from 7.3:
And many more.. gimme some time to discover everything... :-)
Pila
---Pila---
SuSE DOES provide ISOs. Just not for i386 CPUs. You can get them for PPC, SPARC, and Alpha though. :-)
The ability to monopolize an industry is insignificant, next to the power of the source.