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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. :-) )"
I'm still very impressed with the automaticity of the installation of my 7.3. Almost everything worked out of the box, without one glitch. I'm certain I'll be the first to buy me the 8.0 box when it's in de shops here in Europe.
This must be the first distro shipping KDE3, or am I mistaken?
So, unlike RedHat, they have a legitimate reason for a major version increment?
SPAM
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....
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
I'm running SuSE 7.3 and have bought their distros since 6.1.
I really like the way that SuSE comes with so many applications that you can install. With large disks, there's little reason to be without any of the many open source applications out there.
Yes, once in a while you can see the European origins of this distribution, like in the A4 bias for default paper sizes, but generally they're pretty good about providing "en" language users a good interface.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
SuSe has always been a bit bloated but they have made huge efforts to allow the user to select what they want to install and later on to install/upgrade new packages. I have used RedHat and SuSe for several years and if anyone asks me what distro to go for I say try SuSe bacause I have so much respect for the install process.
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.
I run SuSE 7.3 SPARC at the moment and its really good...is the new 8.0 release for i386 only? or do they have a sparc port on the way? i hope they dont kill it off like Red Hat did, they have done a really good job with 7.3 :-)
chris
.sig : bad command or file name
I *just* bought 7.3...does SuSE offer upgrade discounts?
The basic differences are:
Suse is by fat, sausage scoffing crauts.
Mandrake is by irritating, garlic loving frogs.
Red Hat is by noisy, burger munching Yankees.
Take your pick.
They announced it yesterday - it includes StarOffice 6.0 for ProSuite & PowerPack Editions. The announce is here.
Does SuSE 8.0 include StarOffice 6.0 as well?
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
It's amazing how fast the numbers go up in distributions compared to that of the packages within...
;)
Maybe companies should be forced to number their distros based on the average version number of the packages within; that'd cause an interesting non-linear numbering scheme.
jh
jh
Any affiliation with MS? Just wondering, cause I saw this at the bottom:
Lycoris and Desktop/LX are Trademarks of Redmond Linux Corp. © 2001, 2002 Lycoris All Rights Reserved
Still I'm not sure if that's worse or better than frogs, wops or dagoes (French, Italian and Spanish respectively, but not respectfully).
> 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...among other packages that have been upgraded or added.
7.3 + 3.0 + 2.4.18 = 8.0 ???
Maybe some of those other packages had negative version numbers.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
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
In the past, SuSE hasn't provided distros - you have a folder with 7 CD-Roms and a DVD. All the packages are online, however, and a ftp or "download 'em and install" is possible, however, you then say...
I tried SuSe before, and it was really cool, but it's gonna have a hardtime beating debian as my desktop OS of choice.
You can apt-get it. No, really. Although I don't know how much of a stub of a SuSE install you need (and I *seriously* doubt you can go from debian to SuSE without much anguish). Technically, apt-get is for upgrades, and the repository base, or whatever you call it is on ftp://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/suse/apt/, and you need apt4rpm at http://apt4rpm.sourceforge.net/. 7.3 and 8.0 are unofficially supported, but are reputed to work find, and that's an offical SuSE mirror site as well.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
"The good die first." "Most of us are morally ambiguous, which explains our random dying patterns." --- MST3K
I was hoping to wait for RH7.3, but perhaps this is a better option.
My real question is how hard will I have to work to move accross all my configs? There's samba/printers/sendmail/etc/etc. Anyone know of a good way of doing RH->Suse without any pain?
DWR is Ajax for Java
Actually I regret posting this now. I have a lot of respect for the Germans and the Americans.
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.
Thing is, I could never get these parameters set exactly right. It was always tempting to bypass this procedure and configure the system the old-fashioned way.
So here's my question: does SuSE still do things this way? And if so, do people really use these parameters, or do they just blow it off and edit the scripts?
Recieved my copy yesterday, the 22nd. Precisely on time. Like Lord of the Rings, people in Europe have been getting theirs before the US.
StarTux
The start variables in rc.config are no longer needed, as they now match run levels much more closely (basically they are deprecating rc.config). You will find individual scripts under /etc/sysconfig.
Also noticed a SuSe hardware boot time hardware detection utility, similer to that of Redhat's.
Gnome 1.4.1 is included too.
Promise IDE Raid controllers are fully supported.
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
I am a SuSE user. I chose it over other distros, because I read a number of favourable reviews. One memorably refereed to it as "The Mercedes-Benz of Linux Distros".
I would say this is correct, but not necessary in a good way.
Like the car, It works very well when new, but anyone who tries to tweak of modify anything is liable to break it.
I have concluded that this would probably make a good distro for my Dad, who just wants a reliable set-up, and won't try to install the latest hot thing of the net, but for myself, I intend to switch to a more hacker friendly distro, probably Debian.
You really ought to get DSL or something if it takes that long
What's a sig?
yes.
Moon Macrosystems. Sun's biggest competitor.
It's great that Suse's finished work on 8.0 and will sell me it for $40-80...but are they putting it on ftp sites yet for download in the spirit of Linux distros?
.iso files with 8.0 to make a truly easy install.
I've always had a bit of a pain downloading 7.3 and it'd be great if they included some
-Barkeep, a draft of your most hazardous brew, for the world is slowly stepping into focus, and I don't like what I see.
That's exactly what 8.0 changed. They now have several config files, one for every package. Hack away!
I use it on all my servers, you're probably right, Debian is the better tweakable linux.
SuSE is really good for those of us that are starting because it comes with a NICELY documented book(s) explaining a lot of the basics and the medium difficulty stuff.
They also usually have a tech in their IRC room who will answer questions for you.
In the end I really like SuSE. It's done everything I've required and more. I usually use it as a server without a graphical front end, but even on my two workstations with the graphics, it installed nicely and didn't require me to know more than I need to know to use the systems. And one of them was a laptop.
Two thumbs up!
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
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.
suse modified kernel version 2.4.18 (with Andre's VM)
Ok, whats modified? Wheres the changelog? Is Andre's VM not included in 2.4.18?
Currently I am using 2.4.19-pre7 with preempt-kernel-rml-2.4.19-pre7-1.patch. Im very happy, stable as hell, smooth desktop now. Really would like to know what Suse has modified.
Never, ever do an update. I've never, ever had one go well. SuSE especially. Do like Packard Bell tech support always recommended. . . format & reinstall, and avoid problems.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Nope, Red Hat is by barbeque-munchin', Confederate flag-wavin', NASCAR-lovin' rednecks.
You got the noisy part right tho :).
YAST has gone, just YAST2 is left (as text and as X version). BTW: The text version is awfull to use
And gone am I as a SuSE user.
YAST1 had that KISS touch that YAST2 has not.
Guvf vf abg n EBG zrffntr
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.
I'd have to go digging through my old CDs, but there was a RedHat release that had "Redneck" as an install language choice. It was a hoot!
and it has a couple of problems. they still haven't fixed the memory resource allocator driver ide problem from 6.2.34. also, my pcmcia universal drive-part table is unsupported.
.1 releases really seam to be QA releases with a few new features.
.0 releases.
Repeat after me. dot-zero releases are buggy Linux distros. The basic attitude (and perhaps justifiable) is that these releases are showcase distributions and the
I remember 7.0 which handily would have metadata corruption with Raiserfs-- fixed in 7.1.
Don't even get me started on Red Hat's or Conectiva's
I will personally wait until 8.1 before upgrading.
I only use dot-zero releases when I have little other choice.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Miss it too, just wish I could update RPM's as quickly as one did with yast1.
StarTux
Why don't we just switch over to metric like the rest of the planet?
:)
Assuming the the "we" equates to the US it's probably to do with the US like to doing things differently from the rest of the planet. An extreme case of NIH (Not Invented Here) syndrome.
The US did actually sign the "Treaty of the metre", but since when did the US signing a treaty actually mean anything