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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
I've used several versions of both including RH 8 and my opinnion is that while RedHat makes a great server build SuSE has always had the edge in developing the workstation distro.
I don't understand why SuSE is only now coming out with Linux 8.1, and Red Hat only just came out with Linux 8.0. Meanwhile, Slackware came out with Linux 8.0 an entire year ago. Why do all the commercial companies find it so hard to keep up? I guess in some sense the open model really is better.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
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.
SuSE has an ftp installation... so if you don't want to buy the CD, you have to download their installation manager and boot to that. then you can select the packages you want, etc. via ftp.
So I just got done installing Suse 8.0 and while doing the online update, I decided to see what's new on slashdot. Guess what the first article I see is.
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
SuSE just doesn't have enough CDs. I want SuSE to install every utility for every OS I can, at least in theory, emulate. I also want all optional features enabled and support for every language and file format just in case. I'm talking something like a 20GB minimum install, and SuSE just isn't there yet. Maybe next release, though.
I have already loaded it onto my laptop.
For some reason the advanced power management doesn't work, (it did with 8.0). Also, although the wireless stuff recognizes my wireless card, there are links missing for it to make in internet connection. Too bad. Also its hard to put Latex on the computer anymore, you have to hunt it down, and emacs did not install automatically.
I don't know...
"However, if SuSE fix some of the issues they have, get rid or redesign that package manager, license the Web Fonts, add some more GUI settings panels for wireless support, FTP & HTTP servers, better integration with Windows, fix some of their untested or buggy applications they include in their CDs, modify Star Office and GTK+ application to look more as their primary Qt platform and other such details, I believe that Red Hat's 'empire' in the Linux world will be in jeopardy."
Does that mean she likes it, or not?
YaST2 and SaX2 can be better, but even as they are today blow most of Red Hat's preference panels away. On the other hand Red Hat's XFT font properties are no match to any other Linux distribution so far, while Red Hat has good integration for Qt and GTK+ toolkits, something that SuSE doesn't.
This is very important! People keep bitching about Anti-Aliased Font support, well why is RedHat the only including an advanced utility? Fonts are 99% of your visual aspect of your desktop, good looking fonts make a BIG difference. (side note, Mosfet Liquid engine/theme is a must..)
I'm a SuSE (sparc64), Mandrake (x86) user. Mostly because Mandrake had the better font support. I've switched over to RedHat 8.0 due to the XFT font support.
BTW, I shouldnt have to recompile the desktop to have decent font support. So dont keep saying "Compile yourself". If I wanted a source based, compile everything yourself distribution, I would use Gentoo. (Gentoo doesnt include all the custom applications for preferences.)
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?
First she complains about the installer not making enough decisions, then she complains about SaX making decisions.
In reality, the installer DOES make all decisions. All it does (and that was obviously confusing Eugenia) is SHOW these decisions to you and allow you to change it. But it doesn't force you to do anything at all.
What's wrong with that? The below-average complete moron (which everybody seems to be targetting these days.) just presses "Install" and it installs without any need to configure anything. On a computer with one clean harddrive or partition, the install should work just fine with the default settings.
Hell, even Eugenia was able to install the damn thing, so it's dumbed down enough.
Also, unlike Eugenia sais, SuSE comes with CDs *AND* DVD, not "or".
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.
That's not all. Here's a list of what else is missing:
I guess we'll have to wait for 8.2.
DNA is the ultimate spaghetti code.
I, for one, think you'd have to try pretty hard to find SuSE's installation difficult. She complains about the problems for newbies, but this is SuSE 8.1 Professional. Yes, it's for professionals.
Having said that, I think the installer is wonderful for newbies. I like the fact that you get a summary (which is like a web page, as Eugenia said), and you can drill down as deep as you want to customize it. If you like the defaults that the installer has chosen, you can click OK and go right to the installation. I can't imagine why a linear progression through a wizard would be preferable.
If you honestly have a hard time installing SuSE, then I just can't imagine what kind of installer you'd find easier. (I guess that's why I don't design installers.)
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
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.
Just select the K menu and select control panel. Select the default theme. After that find the sytles menu. From their select kde default instead of bluecurve. Last click on the upper left hand Window title bar on any running program. I am not a on a linux machine currently but I believe you can change the Window decoration on one of the settings by right mouse botton clicking it and selecting docarations. Browse and find the default kde2. This will get rid of the bluecurve default titlebar. You may want to keep the default font since the orignal kde ones are ugly as hell.
The only problem I noticed is the default kpanel is gone and replace with the gnome one. I know this because I played around with some of the settings and they are almost identical to the gnome panel. Also you may need to download the default icons from kde's website.
Doing all of these will bring back %95 of the kde desktop back.
What really annoys me more then the gui is the exclusion of apache1.3x and perl 5.6!
Do you have any perl cgi scripts that access a mysql database? Your SOL. Redhat included the older gcc 2.9.5x compiler but not the older perl or apache. And no, perl is not fully source compatible with perl 5.6 like the perl mongers say it is.
I am learning perl programming from a college level book called "How to Program Perl" by Dietel and Dietel. Many cs majors have used their c and c++ books. I tested all the example programs and noticed alot of problems. Particularly with return statements, threading, mysql access, and cgi since mod-perl has not been fully ported to apache2 yet. The return statement problems seems to be caused by some changes in default scoping rules. I can easily changes these but I want to learn how to program and not learn how to deal with perl 5.8. Everything else can not be ported. I do not mind the newer versions of apache and perl being included. I would just like the older ones installed optionally as well as gcc. Apache 2.x is not ready for anything besides static webpages.
In other words avoid this release if your an internet developer.
On the other hand my gripe with suse is that their distro's have always been buggy and not as reliable as redhat or debian.
For my games which require low latency sound(sucks on w2k), and low ping times I will stick with redhat. I have noticed ping times cut in half in some circumstances and my scores are higher due to low latency for sound. I am already dead before I hear the rocket sometimes under w2k. For software development, I will stick with Windows2k.
http://saveie6.com/