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First Look At SuSE Linux 8.2
TheMadPenguin writes "Once again I find myself checking out the newest SuSE release, and to tell you the truth, I really enjoy it. My personal computer is running Slackware (yes, I upgraded to 9.0 immediately), and I wouldn't trade it for any other distribution in the world, but I've got to say is that SuSE is still at the top of their game. When you look at all the desktop distros out there such as Mandrake, Lycoris, and Red Hat, they all really have their endearing factors, but they all are lacking in one way or another.
Check out the entire review at MadPenguin.org. Complete with screenshots :)"
"Once I installed the current 1.0-4191 video drivers" From what I have experienced with them. They are a bit (massive lag impulses) slow with 2d. I think it is because nVidia is developing their own 2d renderer or something.
This is not to say that SuSE is perfect, because it's not. It has it's irritations just like any other OS, but they are minimal. More on that later... let's get on with it.
Joe Eckert at SuSE, as always, rushed a copy of their newest release to us. I finished up my work, brewed a fresh pot of coffee, and sat down with our new found treasure. It was just like Christmas. No other distro really gets me this excited, except for maybe Slackware
The test machine used is a clone we built with the following specs:
The nice part about a machine like this is that we usually don't run into too many compatibility issues. In a way I prefer this, but it would be nice to have some really interesting parts to test with, but our budget doesn't permit it at this time. Donations are welcome :)
Installation
If you've ever installed SuSE Linux before, the installation routine has not changed much at all. If you haven't, let me explain the procedure briefly for you. SuSE has always had a great installer, though it can be a bit cumbersome due to the amount of user input it requires... compared to other distros in its class. For instance, Ark Linux requires the end user to answer only a few questions before proceding. Red Hat and Mandrake ask a few more. Slackware asks more, but is for a more experienced user. SuSE stops at every step of the way and asks about configuration. I'm not really saying this is bad, because it isn't, but it's not for the impatient. The nice part about it is that when setup is complete, you will have a running system that really doesn't require any more setup. Once the OS is up and running, you can immediately begin working (or playing, depending on the situation).
The first thing I noticed when the installer started was that it was using antialiased fonts and the Keramik theme. Nice touch! Compared to their previous versions, this is a welcome change. Most people view this as purely eye candy, but I tend to think of it differently. I see it as less of a strain on your eyes to read the text presented to you. It also looks more appealing to new users. Those of us who have used Linux extensively have grown somewhat used to looking at jagged fonts over the years, but to a new user (coming from Windows or Mac), this is an immediate turn off. My hat's off to SuSE for realizing the importance of first impressions.
The next thing that stood out, other than flawless hardware detection and my timezone was actually correct, was that GNOME was not selected by default in the software list. Well, what about all my apps that require the GNOME/GTK libraries? No problem. I did a search on some of the libraries necessary for operation of traditional GNOME/GTK apps and they were all preselected. Nice touch. This goes a long way with me. For the diehard GNOME users out there, it is still an option. Don't worry. I used to be a GNOME user, but tried KDE 3.1 when it came out and was immediately a convert. SuSE has always placed more emphasis on the KDE environment, so this was not surprising at all.
I made some custom selections to try and break dependencies,
It is true. GLXGEARS pulls frame rates like that all day long with a good card. Games such as CounterStrike will not, though. It's just a benchmark really. Thats why I said most people wont even notice it, but for benchmark purposes, it's just a way to compare, and say "Hey this card ran better under slackware!". :)
Linux with kernel panic...
MadPenguin.org
glxgears is an extremely simple 3D demo, it runs at 600fps on my Athlon with no 3d accel whatsoever. A card that runs glxgears at 2000fps will run real games at much lower framerates. No, you can't visibly tell the difference between 500fps and 40000fps in glxgears, but it's a benchmark, so you don't need to.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
Kernels don't necessarily break binary compatibility. glibc is a more typical culprit.
[ Disclaimer: I consult for this company. ]
No need to recompile the kernel. SuSE provides an Athlon-optimized kernel which one can chose during the install.
There are more screenshots than in this review.
You have your SuSE upgraded to glibc 2.3 and compiled with gcc 3.3? And sure the development is evolutionary (faster YOU, YOU at install, common desktop look [Keramik/Geramik], better WLAN support) rather than revolutionary.
I'll bite
Go gentoo. Seriously. It has all the advantages of LFS w/out the hell of actually maintaining the system. It also has a cool init system. And it doesn't need a working system. All you need is a cd.
The performance of glxgears is completely, 100% meaningless unless you are given ALL the details.
When I run glxgears, it comes up in a 300x300 window, and I get ~1110fps consistently. When the window is full screen (1600x1200) that drops to 67fps. If I put the glxgears window behind another window, I go up to about 4050fps.
This is on an amd thunderbird 1.4 @ 266, and an ATI Radeon 64MB ddr.
Assuming glxgears comes up in a 300x300 window by default, you still need to know what depth and resolution X is running at. The above numbers I provided were at a depth of 24, and a resolution of 1600x1200. If I drop to 16 @ 1280x1024, the frame rate in a 300x300 window goes up 200-300 fps. Full screen, I get ~132 fps.
So before you start making comparisons with glxgears, make sure the environments are as similar as possible.
Everyone always says the human eye can't see over 30fps. That's a lie, as far as I'm concerned. When I play Quake 2 (for example), I notice an enourmous difference between 30 and 60 fps, and a more marginal difference between 60 and 90 fps. I tried reducing the frame rate in a network game, hoping to improve my ping. Don't know if it worked, but it wouldn't have been worth the annoyance of the lower frame rate.
The sensitivity to frame rates most likely varies from person to person, just like sensitivity to sound. Some people say a 128kbps mp3 sounds terrible, others can't tell the difference.
-kidlinux.
Check the documentatipon on Windows XP bootloader.
When you find out how bloddy hindering awkward that is, take a look at the install book you get with SuSE boxed set. It goes into this in some detail.
The only point where you'll have problem is resizing the partition XP is on (this is a problem with XP, since most of the other "enterprise grade" filesystems hadnle partition resizes). If the automatic tools won't work (ask SuSE - they will answer you), then look into a commercial tool for handling any OS partitions.
If you are using older NTFS partitions (if you upgraded rather than bought and installed XP new), then you are definitely OK. XP does give some headroom to the idea that other OS's may exist in the world, so use that and configure it to look for Linux Boot partition. Done it myself. Read carefully and you'll be fine. If you used the new XP-only NTFS+ and have no partition you can vape to put Linux on, check first. You may have to pay for another program to fill the gap in XP capabilities.
You may want to keep an eye on the Kroupware Project with it's kolab server: http://kroupware.kde.org
It requires a commercial plugin from outlook and is currently beta, but it could be one for the future.
Check out InsightConnector. You can try it out for 14 days, pretty cheap and it works with the Cyrus IMAP server.
After browsing through their ftp server for a little bit, I discovered that 8.2 won't be available until April 11. Latest version that's available right now is 8.1