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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 :)"
It's funny how all dists seem to come with new versions at the same time. Conspiracy? Aliens? Illuminati? Flesh eating spiders from mars? Thermonuclear sharks with lasers attatched to their heads?
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
"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,
I still have SuSE 8.0 installed on most of my computers, and laptop. And I got to say I like it very much.
SuSE is a good solid Linux distro.
From the screenshots, looks like they upgraded the theme of YaST 2 to Keramik and changed the default theme colour to blue. Good stuff. If they make a full list (and links) of patches / add-on of their kernel along with the documentations, it would make my life compiling kernel easier.
============
Mathematics will always come back to hunt you down, in so many ways
From the article
The only complaint I really can think of through this whole experience is that some of the applications didn't work. You would launch them from the K menu and nothing would happen.
Saw the samething with RH9.Try a simple KscreenShot->Save on RH9. While it was expected with RH and their Bluecurve, whats wrong with Suse?
Also the test machine seems to have been an AMD, while I believe most distros put in a Intel optimised Kernel (atleast RH does) and the author mentions that it runs slower than a source distro.Shouldnt he have recompiled the kernel ideally>
.ACMD setaloiv siht gnidaeR
New packages are important, but I have them installed in 8.1 already, and the changes that should matter should be in what differenciate this distribute to the others, and itself in previous versions
- Massive Distribution Version Release
- Long Period during which FTP mirrors are overloaded
- I decide it would be good to burn CDs
- Laziness ensues
- I actually burn CDs
- as soon as the burning starts, new packages come out
- as soon as the burning stops, new distros come out
- Massive Distribution Version Release
- I cry...
Note there was no "4. Profit!" in there...Does anyone know whether this clean fonts in the screenshots are out-of-the-box or added by the reviewer?
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"5... 4... 3.. 1... OFFBLAST!"
Everything sucks except musicandstuff
I think that would be more like the rape-it-with-a-sledgehammer department. Must be referring to the distro.
That's not a soda... it's a caffeine delivery device!
I always find it interesting how some people see what other people think are cons as pluses.
Here's a good example: the story's author likes how SuSE prompts you for information constantly during install. I've heard that as a criticism from other people - why won't this thing just install, dammit!?
It's also a good reason why some people prefer certain distributions and hate others. The guy who likes Debian may not care about a complicated install process and tons of configuration afterwards if he gets auto-upgrade functionality like that found in apt-get, whereas a RedHat user might prefer auto-detection and a really nice-looking desktop (Bluecurve) in exchange for the lack of apt-get functionality.
This is why such casual observations as "X distribution sucks, Y is so much better" tend to be so idiotic - not everyone has their priorities in the same places. What's good for me might not be so good for you, and vica versa.
-Erwos
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
Yeah, they are gonna be ticked I think ;-) to wake up to a sluggish server first thing on a sunday morning. I've already got an email in to them to open the flood gates, at least during the slashdot rush.
Linux with kernel panic...
MadPenguin.org
Recently, someone pointed me to Suse's Open Exchange Server and I was blown away by it. I have quite a few small (2-3 people) offices that are REALLY wanting a way to share calenders and other stuff. MS's Exchange server is WAY TOO DAMN EXPENSIVE. It would seem just a simple computer running Suse's OE would be perfect! However...
:( Are there some good community sites out there for Suse? People that actually use OE Server?
I am really not a linux expert. Ive run Red Hat for years and I like it -- but its not my primary box. It just sits for web serving and ftp. Ill open up VNC and browse through it when Im doing some random stuff that eats up CPU time on this box and Ill also use it when Im at the library or something and I want to use Phoenix -- but thats about it. So, I dunno if I can handle the switch to SuSE.
Also, the other problem I have is with SuSE support. Recently they started offering This evaluation program for OE server. It sounds like $20 gets OE server and I can install it on a box running SuSE and go to town, assuming I can RTFM. I think this would be GREAT! It gives me a chance to demo this out and decide if I want to try to sell it to the small offices I do work for. However, as stupid as it sounds, $30 (after shipping) is hard to come by as a college student. So, I sent them an e-mail asking 1: How long it takes to get shipped out post order and 2: Could I just pay the $20 and download the isos? That was Monday and today is Sunday, and I didn't receive anything back from them. Considering part of the $1,250 paid for OE Server is a year of support from Suse, I need to know that they will be there.
I'd read the article posted, but it has already been slashdoted
PS -- If anyone knows of any alternatives to OE Server, please let me know! I need to be able to share calenders and address books for clients running outlook 2k/XP/2k3. If you know of a way to make iCal and vCards work and well for outlook, I could even live with that.
The ultimate network admin tool needs HELP!
KDE loads and runs perfectly with no delays launching windows and apps take minimal time to load. It's not quite as fast as source-based distros, but for an everyday user, this is completely acceptable behavior. It still runs TONS better than Windows 9x, NT/2000, and XP combined. Who is he kidding? As much as we all love linux and free software. A thing as opening new windows is one of the things that works well on windows. Always fast and the windows is opened before you release the mouse button. /Esben
"Nobody really checks their email any more. They just delete their spam"
In case y'all didn't know, SuSE is Slackware's long long lost bastard child. It sprung directly from it just as Redhat squirted out Mandrake.
- IP
I'm getting a little bored of these reviews... they read more like little diary entries than full reviews. This one is better than most, but it is still just a rambling tale of the odd things this person noticed about the product. At the moment, the only way to determine which distro is better is to try them all, or to sift through reviews weeding out the occasional shred of information from the random problems each person had.
:)
A breakdown of what the distro offers in the way of tools, unusual packages, speed, stability, etc. would be nice. I know it might get a bit repetetive over many versions, but it's still useful to get it all down, and also to comment on how well they work.
Me thinks it's time to set-up www.troll-diary.org and let these reviews be posted alongside the usual ill-thought-out "Linux won't succeed until..." and "distro x isn't as good as BeOS because...". It'll save me checking them out at least
I used to use SuSE on a number of machines some time ago (started with SuSE 6, last version I used was SuSE 6.2).
What really used to annoy me was the propensity it had for just editing config files I had altered, without any warnings. ISTR there was a change you could make in a rc file somewhere that would stop YAST from doing this, but then that meant newly installed packages didn't configure themselves correctly.
Have SuSE since fixed this? I now run Debian on my machines at home, whilst at work we use Redhat (management's choice, but not one I'm massively upset with). I haven't seen a good reason yet why I might want to switch, but perhaps some other Slashdotters can come up with some?
Blaming GW Bush for the Iraq war is like blaming Ronald McDonald for the poor quality of food.
All pre-packaged distros suck. Build your own linux distro... from scratch.
(Chicken-v.-Egg Warning: You'll need a working linux system to build one from scratch.)
I started compiling from source two weeks ago and just built Mozilla last night! w00t!
I find SuSE to be a bit rough on the updates, and the live cd, no download thing is not acceptable. Dont get me wrong I like suse, and I paid for boxed sets of 6, 6.1, 7, 8, but its just not worth it anymore. Gentoo gives me all the bleeding edge that I can handle, with a 10th the fuss, and its free, AS IN BEER.
Does anyone know if Suse is distributed in ISO format?I'd like to have permanent copies of the install disks, because I expect to be moving soon, and don't know when I'll have fast internet again... Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Ignorance is blissful, to the ignorant.
> one that had to be elected
Really? I thought Bush hadn't the mayority of the votes.
> must campaign in a multi-party system for reelection
You mean a TWO-party system, not a multi-party system. Look at the european counties, they have democratic multi-party systems - or do you think ignoring minorities is democratic?
> or your family threatened if you spoke out against the government.
Ok, so if an US-citizen says 'fuck Bush for whatever, I don't like him' he won't be arrested? Are you sure?
Btw: have you noticed that Bush is allied with a real dictator? I'll explain this: a dictator is usually defined as a political leader who is not interested in the popular opinion, who ignors the interests of its citizens and of other parties, right? So what about Asnar??? Over 90% of the spanish population is against war, and he just says 'fuck off, I want war!'. Is this democracy??? Is Bush really willing to support and be allied with such a dictator??? Think about it!
Complete with screenshots :) = Site down
Mirrors?
There are more screenshots than in this review.
All these distributions are great, but what I really want is the ability to install a printer without editing text files and starting a service to do it, and have my printers actually show up in my applications.
Howdy,
I am a windows XP user. I've had redhat installed before with win2k, dual boot, but haven't used Linux since I upgraded to XP. I just looked at the Suse page and could not find anything under install that led me to believe the two operating systems would work together. I am a clueless windows user. If you want me to run linux, and Suse looks real pretty, I need to have my hand held a bit more.
I have plenty of space, and a real desire to try out Suse, but not at the risk of damaging my XP install.
Does anyone know if SuSE 8.2 supports LT winmodems? (I know... "ugh!", but my laptop came with one and I don't feel like spending extra money on a pcmcia card) This is pretty much the only point that keeps me with RedHat at the moment.
I usually define SuSE as AIX written by Germans on crack. -- Derry Hamilton, alt.sysadmin.recovery
Bush was not elected fairly. Not only did he fair to get the majority of votes, but there was a major election scandal in Florida where some 60,000 voters who *happened to share their name with a convicted felon* and who were *dispurportionally black* were barred from voting, despite the fact that the vast majority were not convicted felons, and most of those that were had the right to vote because they were convicted in states which did not disenfranchise felons... This was covered BTW on BBC, and in the Washington Post (well after the fact) and is the basis of a lawsuit against the state of Florida by the NAACP. Basically assuming that standard demographics applied, Bush would have lost the election because he would have lost Florida... BTW, Jed Bush used the same tactics in the most recent election, excluding an even greater number of (predomainantly Democrat) voters.
;)
How does this have to do with SuSE 8.2? SuSE 8.2 is a German company, and so I have argued that one should in fact protest this war by going out of our way to buy German and French goods. This means Mandrake and SuSE. Oh, and it never hurts to send a letter to your congressman explaining why you are doing this too... CC: president@whitehouse.gov and leaders of France and Germany as well, naturally
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
SuSE 8.1 could never detect my monitors, has this changed? Red Hat, Mandrake, Slackware, and just about every other disto I've tried can except SuSE.
Yes, with the Slashdotting, I just bet that Penguin is FURIOUS now.
Google news is linking to the /. story as the top Sci-Tech story right now, I don't think anyone can stand up to a combined slashdotting/googling at the same time :P
...a daily weblog of broken websites!
I don't think that boycotting a German linux distributor will effect Germany's political stance one way or the other. It will only hurt one of the best Linux companies around. I don't understand why so many people of so many nationalities are taking the political decisions of other countries personally. I am an American, an ex-soldier, living in Germany. I personally feel that the war is in many ways justified, others don't. Everybody is allowed to have and voice their own opinions, and countries are allowed to do the same. The French, Russians, and Germans are the most outspoken against the war, but that is their right. One of the reasons that we are in Iraq is to give the Iraqi people the right to voice their opinions. We don't punish people for different points of view in the United States, and we shouldn't treat Germans, French or whoever, any differently. And a note about presidents going against the will of their constituants. Name one country that does a nationwide vote on whether to raise taxes or not. We have set regulations for electing officials, and they were followed to a "T". Dare I forget to mention that our legislative branch of government voted overwelmingly to support the presidents decision should he feel that war is the only viable option. Everybody has an opinion, but not everybody has the facts... learn a little before trying to tell someone something.
...arrested for trespass and for blocking traffic, or worse, not speech. If the administration were busy silencing critics, Bush would have had Bob Herbert and Paul Krugman executed already...
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Seen 4 times on the review site's page: Warning: Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/tmp/mysql.sock' (2) in /usr/local/psa/home/vhosts/madpenguin.org/httpdocs /mainfile.php on line 28
Madpenguin be illin'....
Obviously not long enough to give them any credibility in the business environment. Ok for the home user, but shhheeeeshhhh I wouldn't do a LAN install with any of these release-every-3-to-6-months dists.
scripsit craesh:
Huh? Right-wing dictatorship in Spain? Impossible. Could never happen. You must be thinking of San Marino.
In principio creauit Linus Linucem.
> Huh? Right-wing dictatorship in Spain? Impossible. Could never happen. You must be thinking of San Marino.
Impossible??? I also thought so before, but yes, it's real! Some hours ago I heard in TV that 92% of the spanish citizens are against war, there are every weekend millions demonstrating (although the goverment says there are just some 100.000), in several regions they are even on strike, simulating war instead of going for work!
Aznar is really destroying Spain! He is responsible for the Prestige-disaster, it has contaminated huge parts of the spanish northern coast with oil. You think this is impossible in Spain? It _IS_ possible, I'm sorry.
The next ellections will be summer, go to hell Aznar, great dictator, hopefully the last one Spain ever had!
craesh
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
Well, both Google and Slashdot can take googling/slashdotting, but those are probably the only ones (-:
Attention, content-management hackers. MySQL appeals, because it's open-source, it's easy to set up, and it handles very simple queries quickly. THESE ARE ITS ONLY VIRTUES . Once your web site starts getting traffic, you have to start looking at a real DBMS that optimizes complex queries and scales worth a damn. Here's one, and another, and yet another.
We're trying! Some serious db issues now... not related to /. so to speak, but a definate OUCH :)
Linux with kernel panic...
MadPenguin.org
I also have never been laid, and can go weeks without bathing! If it werent for the internet, I would have absolutely NO human contact...
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
Keeping our fingers crossed this time. Sorry for the inconvenience /. :)
Linux with kernel panic...
MadPenguin.org
Kernel:
/etc files with it's own. Dag nabbit!
Clever installer detected my laptop and installed klaptop packages, but the SuSE kernel didn't even have the magical ACPI "control method battery" feature (either in the kernel source or as a module) to run it!!!!! There were a few minimal ACPI modules available.
So I get to look at a damn ugly icon of a battery with a line through it saying that my kernel does not have the ACPI features to run the program.
To get it to work, do we need to purchase the new version? Or download a generic non-SuSE'ed kernel source?
"Clever" YaST2?
Oh yeah, and the "clever" auto-config-my-system program kept overwriting my changes to the
"Clever hardware detect?
The built-in mouse/knob-thingamee kept getting redetected at boot time as new hardware every 3rd or 4th boot. I get a nasty text version of Yast asking me to select (again - for the millionth time) the same mouse/pointer. And "no" I haven't been using any external mouse devices.
THE SOLUTION:
Perhaps SuSE should fix their bugs on the current version, before charging people for a newer version.
I have SuSE 8.1 Professional and I already upgraded to KDE 3.1, so nothing in 8.2 is exceptional, except for their online update fix. I have SuSE installed on several boxes and my new Pavilion laptop, I amazed that I never had to configure anything passed the installation. The reason I'm upgrading to 8.2 is not the new kernel or features, but to support SuSE for a most excellent distro. 8.1 is solid stable and fully functional.
Read "SuSE Linux 8.2: Evolutionary, but not Revolutionary".