Slashdot Mirror
Review of SuSE 8.1 Professional
Gentu writes "SuSE 8.1 is out and it seems to be the main competitor of Red Hat 8. OSNews has the review of its Professional version. The new SuSE 8.1 seems to be sleekier and more powerful than ever." Eugenia, as usual, isn't shy about saying what she doesn't like. There's a review on Linuxlookup.com as well.
It's odd that RH, SuSe and Mandrake compete with each other more than their common enemy.
--fetch daddy's blue fright wig, i must be handsome when i release my rage
To be honest, many of the recent "improved" install tools require the user to think exactly like the programmers did in order to use the installer properly. Otherwise, most of them require a bit of unnecessary trial and effort to get your install right.
Knowing that the new install tool is tricky, I'll still stick with SuSE. It's stable and intuitive without the use my way and like it that redhat tends towards or the I work great if I decide to work of mandrake.
If linux ever intends to become a mainstream (read: NON GEEK) OS, it needs to become dependable, easy to use and easy to install. For example, why did it take me almost 3 days to hack my way to using my qwest dsl connection without having to boot into windows? DSL is a standard technology now, you should be able to use it easily.
it should fit on a single floppy.
.*or* you can have the one with all the doodads. What's more, to get all the doodads you want you might even have to have *two* of big mothers, each for a special range of abilities.
Look, you can have the slim and sexy Swiss Army knife. .
That's just the way it is. I canna change the laws of physics Cap'n.
KFG
I think this Eugenia distros instalations chat irrelevant.
The OSes have more important aspects than installations. Anyway, the OS is installed ONE time, but used MANY times...
Why in hell she rates an OS by its installations process?
This is getting to be a real annoyance. I don't want to have to download (7x650) 4.550 GB of data just to try out the latest linux distro. Some people aren't even able because they're either on a modem or have capped broadband. Personally, I'd like to see all distros cut down to three:
1 CD to install the OS. This would be the only cd necessary to install the operating system. With just this one cd, the user would be able to install their chosen distro of GNU/Linux and get a graphical desktop with some very basic apps (I'm picturing basically everything on the accessories menu on windows).
Up to 2 cds of apps - an office suite, dev tools, games, whatever. After using the single OS install disc, the user would then be able to pop an apps cd into the system and choose what they want.
No source cds. I'm not saying that distro makers shouldn't provide source code to the binaries that they distribute (they should!) and I'm certainly not saying that source is useless (it's not!). I'm just saying that making ISOs of source packages available for download is a great way to waste bandwidth for users and mirror sites that don't bother to mark them as non-essential to the process of 'getting something working'. Windows doesn't have a loop device to check out isos before they're burned, so newbies from windows can't help but be confused. (Yes, I know about Daemon Tools. Does everyone else?)
It would eliminate bloated 2GB default installs and cd swapping. Sure, there wouldn't be a (start|hat|k|foot|swirl) menu that takes up 10MB of space on disk just for the items it contains, but that's probably a good thing.
I'm not bashing suse or RH or any of the other GNU/Linux distros. I'm just saying that the default install/CD bloat is way out of hand and this would be an easy way to solve it. The way I see it, it's a no-brainer like replacing "scary" printk's during kernel startup with a booting progress bar (by default).
Let's face it, friends:
Distros save you cooking the cuisine but therefore give you fastfood. You can't have both. And SuSE is the best darn distro I've ever seen - making the best job of offering a fastfood cuisine compromise.
It's that simple.
For instance: the documentation simply 0wnz RedHat and all the rest - and a dead tree is something good to hold on to when your box won't budge and you haven't been told the "man 'your one-word question here'" trick yet.
SuSEs YaST got me so far with me knowing nothin' 'bout Linux, I would have found it silly to give up again.
Shure this automatic stuff tends to be a pain a year later when your "/usr/lib/java ->jsdk1.4.1" gets changed to "/usr/lib/java ->jsdk1.1.2" every time you fire it up once again, but when you are ready to notice the fault in some distros config I guess you're ready for Debian.
I'm not buying SuSE anymore, as I am not buying any Distro anymore. I'm expierenced enough to get Gentoo or Debian rolling from scratch and if anything it's them getting a donation.
But for n00bs like I was one once, I know no better way to turn to Linux and *never* look back on Windows again than SuSE. This company has earned itself a solid reputation for a reference grade quality Linux distribution and every word of it is true. If you're thinking of giving Linux a try, try SuSE.
I can only recommend it.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
As other's have mentioned, they'll be downloadable shortly. But do remember, the RPM's are not GPL'd. The programs are GPL'd. That does not mean that you have any right to them, although, as I said, SuSE does make them available. It means that, should they be available, the source would also be available. I appreciate that SuSE, and most other distributions, are openly distributed. But it is also important to keep in mind that this is not a consequence of the GPL.
I've had this sig for three days.
- most of these packages are from third parties. It's not up to the distro people to fix them
- Sun won't lilke you modifying Star Office (so download openoffice and bitch about the stuff that was left out THERE because of patents, etc).
- "GTK+ applicaton to look more as the primary Qt platform" - WTF. Nobody home there - GTK - The Gimp Toolkit - Gnome vs. Qt - Trolltech
- "Better integration with Windows" - Why? If you want Windows, run Wndows. If you need to share files, use Samba.
Unfortunately, this has been the trend with too many reviewers - they look at the superficial stuff, and make up their minds based on whether the colors are pretty, and this passes as in-depth journalism.It was thinking (if you can call it that) like this that gave us the dot.bomb crash.
go ahead, mod this as flamebait, but I think the original article was a real POS, and that reviewers should be required to actually USE the product in a production environment for more than a few days before writing about it.
She's clueless. And I suspect certain Slashdotters keep spewing her crap at us because, hey, 'OMG CHIX()R WIT COMPUTER!!!'
;))
As for installers, she finds problems with everything, wearing whines about 'the newbies' on her chest like some sort of twisted medal.
You're absolutely right. There is no problem with installing Linux. She complained about RH's install as well - where you just click on yer language settings and go. So I'd imagine she's seeing flaws that aren't there in SuSE's install as well - it was quite easy to do back in 5.something or other. (Last time I had a copy of SuSE laying about.
Seriously, if newbies can't figure out what language they speak, perhaps they shouldn't even be near a computer. Or any sharp pointy objects, for that matter.
As for the rest, hit default. If you have some need to not hit default, then, you're not a newbie, sorry.
Even if SuSE packaged GPL'ed software, they don't have to make rpms publically available. GPL says you have to give source to anyone you distribute binaries of GPL'ed programs. Therefore it's perfectly ok for SuSE or anyone only to sell rpms on CD to customers as long as you give a CD with source rpms too. Or give an account to a private FTP containing the source. You only have to give everything to those who get binaries by some mean. Then of course if you buy SuSE cd's, you can redistribute images of CD's without caring SuSE's feelings at all. But you don't have to. But back to the point, your conclusion was that rpms of GPL'ed software means they HAVE TO BE downloadable somewhere. Well, it just is not necessarily true.