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First Look At SuSE Linux 8.2

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the poke-it-with-a-stick dept.

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 :)"

31 of 196 comments (clear)

  1. It's funny by Eudial · · Score: 2, Funny

    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!
    1. Re:It's funny by gmuslera · · Score: 3, Interesting
      I think that the reason is more big packages released recently (KDE 3.1, Mozilla 1.3, GNOME 2.2, XFree 4.3, etc) and a big amount of critical packages fixed (sendmail, samba, etc).

      And, of course, time since their last release. If well they don't have to release at the same time, the previous factors helps to do some kind of syncronization (be because "lets release a new version now that package XX version YY is released" or "release now because the ZZ distribution have the XX package version YY and we don't")

    2. Re:It's funny by watzinaneihm · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It's funny how all dists seem to come with new versions at the same time.
      I believe its tbe kernel. SuSe's latest distro uses 2.4.20 kernel. Redhat is pretty much at the same place with RH 9. Whenever a new kernel comes along and breaks a binary compatibility with the previous versions, a new whole number comes out.
      A new UI, applciation etc. makes a point release.Since all the distros use pretty much the same apps, synchro. releases are to be expected. Note that Debian and Gentoo don't play along.

      --
      .ACMD setaloiv siht gnidaeR
    3. Re:It's funny by mattdm · · Score: 2, Informative

      Kernels don't necessarily break binary compatibility. glibc is a more typical culprit.

  2. ey by Tolleman · · Score: 2, Informative

    "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.

  3. Site is VARY slow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
    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.

    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 :) Hey, I'm the first guy to check out all the new toys, and I don't miss a chance to play.

    The test machine used is a clone we built with the following specs:
    • Abit KG7-RAID mainboard
    • AMD Athlon XP 1600+ CPU
    • 512MB RAM
    • LG 40x CD/RW
    • SoundBlaster Live! Platinum 5.1 w/ Live!Drive
    • 3Com 905C NIC
    • 60GB HDD
    • 128MB MSI NVIDIA GeForce4 MX440 AGP Video
    • 256MB USB Pen Drive

    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,

    1. Re:Site is VARY slow by FlyerFanNC · · Score: 2, Funny

      Does that mean that sometimes it's slow and sometimes it isn't?

    2. Re:Site is VARY slow by mickwd · · Score: 2, Funny

      "The only complaint I really can think of through this whole experience is that some of the applications didn't work."

      So nothing major then ? ;)

    3. Re:Site is VARY slow by platipusrc · · Score: 2, Informative

      on my freebsd box, these are the versions of gcc that are available as ports:
      /usr/ports/lang $ ls -a | grep gcc
      gcc27
      gcc28
      gcc295
      gcc30
      gcc31
      gcc32
      gcc33
      /usr/ports/lang $

      Version 3.3 is beta though.

      --
      And the muscular cyborg German dudes dance with sexy French Canadians
  4. KDE broken? by watzinaneihm · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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
    1. Re:KDE broken? by sjbcfh · · Score: 2, Informative
      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

      No need to recompile the kernel. SuSE provides an Athlon-optimized kernel which one can chose during the install.

  5. Whats new? by gmuslera · · Score: 3, Interesting
    more than the package versions, most of the things that the author says that are "new" to the distribution itself seems to be already in 8.1 (yast2 package manager, the desktop, the menus, boot, etc).

    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

    1. Re:Whats new? by twener · · Score: 2, Informative

      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.

  6. Fonts look nice... by gbrall · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Does anyone know whether this clean fonts in the screenshots are out-of-the-box or added by the reviewer?

  7. Frames Per Second by 5lash · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I'm not sure I understand this:
    on Slackware Linux (and also VectorLinux), graphics performance was about 2500-2600 frames/second using OpenGL. With SuSE Linux 8.2 I am experiencing frame rates of about 2000-2100 frames/sec. This is a noticeable drop in performance, but again, for most users this will go unnoticed.
    As far as i know the human eye can only see about 30fps, and from playing Counter-Strike a lot, people seem to be generally pleased as long as they have above 60fps. Does he really mean he's getting 2000 frames per second? Someone explain please!
    --
    Everything sucks except musicandstuff
    1. Re:Frames Per Second by TheMadPenguin · · Score: 2, Informative

      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
    2. Re:Frames Per Second by damiam · · Score: 3, Informative

      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.
    3. Re:Frames Per Second by kidlinux · · Score: 2, Informative

      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.
    4. Re:Frames Per Second by badasscat · · Score: 2, Interesting

      As far as i know the human eye can only see about 30fps, and from playing Counter-Strike a lot, people seem to be generally pleased as long as they have above 60fps. Does he really mean he's getting 2000 frames per second? Someone explain please!

      It's a myth that the human eye can only see 30, or 24, or whatever arbitrarily low number of frames per second you want to come up with. First of all, the limiter is not the eye, it's the brain. So the more accurate phraseology would be "the human brain can only perceive X frames per second" rather than "the human eye can only see X frames per second". More importantly, though, is that there is no hard and fast number of frames per second a human can perceive - it's different for everyone, but for almost everybody it's well beyond 30.

      Consider motion picture film. Initially, film was shot at roughly 16-18 frames per second. This was later standardized at 24 fps when it became clear that at 18 flicker was still clearly visible. 24 fps is the minimum at which flicker was determined to not be a distraction, and this minimum was used for economic reasons (not because it was the highest number of frames per second people could perceive, but because it was the lowest number of frames per second at which they would not be distracted by flicker, and this helped keep film stock costs down to the minimum while maintaining the increasingly sophisticated audience's interest).

      Now, you may wonder why I'm using 24fps as an example when you're talking 30. Simple, really - a film strip that's being projected at 24 frames per second is actually showing 48 images per second, it's just that half of those images are blank. Now, next time you go to a film I want you to look at a bright scene and tell me you do not perceive any flicker at all. You probably won't be distracted by it, but you'll see it if you look for it. And this is at a real 48 "frames" (images) per second - well higher than the 30 you mention. Clearly the brain is capable of perceiving even higher than the 48 images per second projected in motion picture theaters.

      I think people get confused by the concept of persistence of vision. Persistence of vision is what allows us to assign motion to static images when they're projected in sequence fast enough for our brains to be tricked. However - and this is the most important thing - the speed of projected images at which our brains can be tricked into perceiving motion and the speed of projected images at which our brains lose the ability to perceive those individual images are not the same. There are two different areas of the brain at work here - one processes raw images, and the other assigns meaning to them. They work together but are independent of each other.

      It may be easier to understand this through a musical example. Imagine a piece of music that you've never heard before, but one that makes auditory sense (ie. it's not just a bunch of noise, it follows a pattern your brain has heard before and expects). Now imagine that three times per second there is a period of silence in that music. You will likely still be able to hear the music itself and understand it to be music and follow along with it - but you will still hear the silences as well and it will be annoying. Obviously, as you ramp up the sample rate there is a point at which you first will be able to tolerate those silences (perceiving them to be nothing but degraded sound quality) and then eventually lose the ability to perceive those silences at all, but that point is at a fairly high sample rate. This is obviously the theory behind the CD, which is broken up into 44,000 samples per second.

      It's a bit of a moot point in this case because we're talking extremely high frame rates (there would be no perceived difference between 2500 and 2100 frames per second), but it's a pet peeve of mine when I see it stated that 24 or 30 fps are "all the human eye can see" so I thought I should correct it. In the case of

  8. Observation by Erwos · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.
  9. Where to get some Suse love? by rosewood · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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...

    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 :( Are there some good community sites out there for Suse? People that actually use OE Server?

    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!
    1. Re:Where to get some Suse love? by alansz · · Score: 2, Informative
      In the U.S., you might check out Ricis, Inc., which is a SuSE partner and sets up a lot of SuSE systems (including the open exchange server) for enterprises and organizations of many shaps and sizes. Their other specialty is security.

      [ Disclaimer: I consult for this company. ]

    2. Re:Where to get some Suse love? by r101 · · Score: 2, Informative

      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.

    3. Re:Where to get some Suse love? by rsax · · Score: 2, Informative
      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.

      Check out InsightConnector. You can try it out for 14 days, pretty cheap and it works with the Cyrus IMAP server.

  10. Re:It's not funny at all! by rosewood · · Score: 3, Interesting

    FTP installs are PERFECT for this problem

    I too used to download the 6 ISOs and burninate all the CDs. No longer.

    Ill take one CDRW and burn the FTP boot disk image, boot that up and specify my FTP source and go to town. Of course, I only use Red Hat but I think this works for all major distros. The redhat one doesn't allow me to do the pretty install. I think the redhat team should jump all over that.

    Its also nice because you dont download any RPMss you dont need.

    --
    The ultimate network admin tool needs HELP!
  11. Another distro diary by Telex4 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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 :)

  12. Re:Shameless, Kinda-Off-Topic Troll... by mfago · · Score: 2

    I started compiling from source two weeks ago and just built Mozilla last night!

    The perfect advertisement for a pre-packaged distro?
  13. GENTOO PLUG by Syncroswitch · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

  14. SuSE Linux 8.2 Product Pages by twener · · Score: 3, Informative

    There are more screenshots than in this review.

  15. Re:Shameless, Kinda-Off-Topic Troll... by Unregistered · · Score: 2, Informative

    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.

  16. 8.2 not available on SuSE ftp server yet by rsax · · Score: 2, Informative

    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