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SuSE Linux Desktop 1.0 Reviewed
LinuxLasVegas writes "SuSE announced a new release today titled "SuSE Linux Desktop 1.0". The distro is built on SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8.x technology and comes with Crossover Office 2.0. Mad Penguin has the first review of this release. From what I read, it seems like a good release, but for the $600 price tag, I'm not sure if it would be worth the jump..."
Yeah, THAT'll happen.
and bundled WITH the mantenance package it is $600
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Wow. I guess they want the crowd that thinks xp and 2000 is to cheap.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
It looked to me on the website that the price was listed as $99... is $600 with support and such?
Why does this cost $600?? I read the first two pages of the review - excellent point about how deep CrossOver puts some items by defautl - but didn't see an explanation of the cost.
Just in case ;)
http://www.madpenguin.org/slashdot/sld10.html
Linux with kernel panic...
MadPenguin.org
This price includes the maintainance price. Problem is, you can't buy the software all by itself, so it does costs as much: $600. That's too much IMHO. SuSE Linux PRO costs $79. I would pay up to $150-200 for it cause of all the commercial apps included, but not a cent more.
I don't care about the price tag as much as I care about the philosophy. OSS is primarily about free as in speech, not free as in beer. Same as Red Hat Enterprise, the price tag allows them to offer you support and stability, things they don't have the financial resources to provide without charging for the service.
This is aimed at the enterprise customer who is looking for culpability in their vendors and a certain level of support. Hats off to them... I hope Linux becomes a profitable offering for the vendors pursuing it.
--madgeorge
and it's already been done.
I'm doing a little art project that involves getting as much spam as I can to a spam hole on yahoomail. I'm looking to get as much 419 nigerian scams, mlm scams, penis enlargement, chain-letters, investments ... mails as possible. I've tried to d/l some of the latest spams received by the spam archive (http://www.spamarchive.prg/) and answering it to hook the spammers, but I don't seem to get any, and half of those reply-to addresses are deprecated already. The junk mail filter in my dummy yahoomail account is turned off, but still nothing comes through.
:
/. was the best way to jump-start that spam flood I need.
So, if some of you get a lot of spam, could you please respond to a few in my yahoomail's account name to start the syphon ? the address is
internetnoise@yahoo.com
If you do help me, please don't sign-me up for free newsletters, or horoscopes or things like that : these aren't true spam/scams and I'd like to receive only those.
I'm not trolling by the way, and I know this is OT, but I figured posting something on
BTW : the above is really my account. If you send a mail to it, I'll respond immediately.
http://www.thewaxmonkey.com/madpenguin.org/sld10.h tml
Linux with kernel panic...
MadPenguin.org
isn't a review of the distro (which is just SuSe 8.2 + Crossover near as I can tell) but of the support. i.e. how useful is it, how easy is it to get a tech on the phone when need be, how quickly do patches come out and how easy are they to apply/do they break things. For us home desktop users this is pretty meaningless, except as it pertains to getting linux a foothold in the corporate sector.
This is a package for corporate computers, so of course it's overpriced. Corperations have always payed way more than software was worth. It's a throwback to the days when software was harder to write and software engineers were a lot scarcer, I think. Or maybe they're just dumb and ignorate about technology (probably both).
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
The more it costs, the more it is of value, most of German managers seem to think. (And others, I have heard...)
Hmmm, but... I read something of about 129 Euros, where's the rest going now?
It's happened at last: the cost of enabling software is greater than the cost of the hardware. This is true for a US$600 OS+basic s/w package that can run on a modest but new x86 box bought from a well known vendor.
It just might be worth it. But I'd spend an extra US$200 and get an eMac from Apple; an OpenBSD base, plenty of bundled applications, and a decent all-in-one system to boot.
Either way, it can still be entirely free from Microsoft applications.
Or a cluster of quad Xeon's running linux?
What's the deal with version 1.0? Did they wrap around the data type holder with their constant version upgrades and have to wrap around?
___
Cogito cogito, ergo cogito sum.
$99 for the media. 499 for a 1 year maintenance license for FIVE clients. You only have to buy the $99 media kit once, so essentially its $100 per client for all the crossover stuff.
is this about that 80 lines in the source thing? if so, wouldn't it be just possible to go in an re-write thoughs 80 lines? you know, say the same thing in a different way? ie: Hello = Hi
You are confusing me with someone who cares.
Them's some purty expensive blank CD's!!
Windows XP Home Edition -- $179.00
Office XP Standard -- $342.00
Price -- $521.00
Still cheaper than the Linux solution, PLUS it has all that fun Microsoft cross program functionality.
I guess the question is raised to on why chose a $600 OS package to run programs that are designed for another OS?
Stability? I'm guessing this is a very arguable reason. I mean, I'm not going to claim to be the worlds smartest software developer, but i know that programs running in an emulated environment are often slower and less stable than running in their native platform.
Price? As proven above, this is hardly a driving force behind the purchase.
I guess part of me is wondering what the target market for this application is? I guess I'm having trouble understanding the whole reason for windows applications in a non-windows environment. Why run an OS that that boasts 70% application compatibility for what you use when you can run one that is 100%?
I'm not trolling or flaming here, I just really do not understand what business this software is even targeting.
Perhaps Linux SysAdmins who want the windows applications without the hazing of their friends when they see him running windows at a LAN party?
So feel free to flame me if i'm wrong.
And it is available essentially for free, preloaded on hardware from all major manufacturers.
THose manufacturers charge you in the cost of the machine for the Windows liscense.
There is really no reason to use anything else
How about preference, tco, reliability, etc.
said nicely: stfu
Can someone please explain? Thanks.
-renard
apparently not. sco has not only copyrighted those lines, but patented the IDEA of 80 lines of codes. and the idea of any code that performs the same function, thus crippling any possibility of linux surviving...
CrossOver comes in Xandros Desktop Deluxe 1.0 and that distro includes XFS file system that integrates well with MS domains, if that's what you want. Also, CrossOver is a seperate product that can be installed on almost any Linux distro. It's hard to imagine that Linux user would pay for desktop distro $600, no way Jose.
IP was invented for the sake of lawsuits.
I like the part about "Reputable software companies such as Microsoft". NOT!! Spewed coffee all over my nice new 17" Apple Studio display.
Arf!
which linux has the best games ? redhat, suse, mandrake, or the kernel ?
and which is fastest ?
it says there are 5 licenses that come with it.
and this is targeted at bissness's who buy in bulk anyways. so this is a good deal.
comes out to $100 per seat with support not bad....
-Nex6
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This was already posted verbatim in "FreeBSD 5.1 Released", and probably elsewhere as well. Not only is it a troll, it's a redundant troll.
True, but there cost os no where near the retail price of windows. Granted, its been 10 years, but we used to pay 20 bucks for an OEM version of NT.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Thats still $79 bucks more per pc then Suse.
And linux is free...and support will be too as soon as you want to donate your time to starting a company that gives things away.
then sell the 4 remiaining liscenses to someone else.
Or get 5 buds to all chip in.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The press release says that SuSE Desktop 1.0 works with SuSE's Enterprise OS, but doesn't mention any 64-bit CPUs (Opteron, Itanium, etc).
LinuxLasVegas says, "The distro is built on SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8.x technology"... which means it would have native support for the Opteron.
Not sure who's right here - this looks like a workstation OS, and thus limited to 32-bit. That might change once the Athalon64 comes out in a few months, I guess.
It's not an irrelevant question. There statement of May 15 is not enough.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Includes support for 3 years (w/updates) and 5 licenses I believe. It's some kind of SMB thing similar to Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
Just from what I have read from SuSE. This addresses the fact that Business Users are muvh different than the retail market.
These are smart business models for the SMB market. The only market that matters right now. The big boys spent their wads - now everyone has to compete for real - not just on advertising.
All Ad hominem replies happily ignored as the sender shall be deemed to lack the faculties to comprehend the equation.
. . . the SuSE or Redhat collaboration product that will allow me to pull the information store from Exchange 5.5 right onto an Outlook-compatible platform running on Linux or *BSD. And yes, my company will pay good money for it if it comes from either of the aforementioned firms. But this is certainly a nice looking and ambitious product from a company that is already known for bringing good stuff to commercial Linux.
It's only funny until someone gets hurt. Then, it's hilarious.
600 fucking dollars? THAT'S INSANE.
This link is to a "different" product, actually it is the same, different box.e _linux /office_desktop/index.html
http://www.suse.com/us/private/products/sus
Let the frenzy begin.
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing. Emo Philips
Enterprise means Big Company. So stop thinking in terms of a single desktop, or even 5. Lets start at a departmental level and say 100 clients. Windows Windows XP Pro - ~$100 Office XP Pro - ~$200 (being generous) Client Access License - $15 (you do use servers right?) Total per client: $315 Total @ 100 clients: $31,500 Suse Media Kit - $99 10 Seat Client License - $899 Total per client: ~$91 Total ~ 100 clients: $9089 Looks cheaper to me...
I cannot believe that this was modded up. `Insightful', even.
Ok,
I support Linux as much as the next OSS geek. But really, I don't pad the truth.
You state 2000 dollars for the same MS setup.
I guess you are forgetting to add the cost of Offic XP for each linux box. But you didnt forget to add it for the MS boxes. So the MS numbers get padded up.
You you really should compare apples to apples.
600 dollars for a five client License.
I can get XP professional for 113 a pop. That is 665. A whole 66 dollars more.
So for the difference of 13 dollars you can have XP or 2000.
Now combime the licensing costs of office for each machine. And there is only a 14 dollar difference.
Please state all the facts.
As for support and updated, I bet you will get updates for XP and 2000 for a year.
Don't play the close source game of fud.
Puto
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
What I would like to see is SuSE (or someone else) take KDE to the level Ximian is pushing GNOME. SuSE would have the clear advantage of being an end-to-end solution provider, and could integrate KDE deeply with the rest of the OS. A (more) polished, integrated KDE desktop targeted to enterprise (and even small) businesses...especially if they can extend the capabilities of the Kiosk framework (esp. for organizations serving the public, like schools, libraries, etc.). Tight OpenOffice integration would be integral, too. I'd do it if I was a millionaire...
... There always will be a Bittorrent link.
Maybe that's how Microsoft got all its money.
read my blog
musings on politics and technol
I remember when people griped about the price of Mac OS X 10.2/Jaguar. I thought it was a bargain. That being said, this isn't that bad when you consider that I think they are gearing it to business. What would five copies of XP Pro cost? Exactly. Hell, I'm a sysadmin, and I hate to say it but 90% of the workstations my end users use are running 98 SE. With the exception of a couple 2000 boxes, fourteen new ThinkPads running XP, one XP desktop, and my desktop that is running RedHat 9. I need, desperately, to upgrade these machines.. but.. I found that buying new Dells with XP already on them is going to be more cost-effective than just buying XP. That being said, I would be just downright tickled if I could get rid of the several programs we have that require Windows and rid the company of the Micorosft virus. Anyway, when you think of it that way, it makes sense. Cost per user of about $120 for the 5-user pack is pretty dammn cheap.
Everybody is screaming about the price, but its actually not that bad. Obviously SuSE isn't expecting people to go out and buy this instead of their regular linux for the home.
If you wanted to install Windows XP Pro and Office XP on five computers, you can bet its going to cost you a whole lot more than 600 dollars.
All thats left is to see if it works well enough to be worth the money.. I'd say for a business looking for stability and an identical setup on multiple computers, this is perfect.
Man, why would I buy that, Windows is already at 5.0 and Red Hat Linux at 8.0! ;)
how many times do people have to say FIVE DESKTOPS before idiots like you can finally get it? hope you're wearing your asbestos suit, knucklehead. okay, focus. ready? how much does FIVE XP + MS OFFICE desktops cost? think about it real hard, and when you get it, reply.
it may be that they're paying royalties to SCO.
years ago, the cost of a desktop UNIX(tm) included about $200 royalty to AT&T.
Holy Christ. That's the fucking funniest thing I've read in days. I wish someone would have modded you up.
For at least some of a companies machines, this is very welcome.
CrossOver Office needs to fix some things as the author states, the screen shot of the menu looks plain stupid.
Yea, I need Exchange and it's not there, hope that gets fixed. I've had problems with kmail and authentication schemes as well.
I'd prefer if only ONE browser was presented, preferably mozilla and that anything calling ANY DAMN THING on the web used that one browser. Different browsers confuse some (most) windows users and can be just enough to cause them not to choose the entire OS. Hell even keyboard shortcuts can do that.
Is it MadPengs page that forces a jump back to top of page when you press the back button?
If I could find the time, I'd do a CrossOver Distro (hey crossover SELL THIS! And fix the menus!).
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
For that price phone support should be included. You just dont get the same results when emailing back and forth...
No compiler?
PLEASE please read and think before writing - then you will understand which will lead to writing less b*llshit.
I pronounce it "Suzie"...
Xandros Linux is a Debian-based desktop linux that costs only $99, including Crossover Office 1.0.
Can you one download the iso's of the thing or not? If so, then if the corporate folks want to pay $600, it's quite fine. I could also start my Linux support shop.
Have you checked with Ximian Evolution 1.4? Just released today.
I know it's got a bunch of MS Exchange compatibility features, but I don't know if it does exactly/all of what you're looking for. All I know is I downloaded and installed it and it's got the slick Gnome 2 interface, FINALLY. 1.2 and previous were ugly as hell.
Chris
which free software?
/ss
According to this (German) article, volume licensing at a discount is available. I would assume 50 Euro per seat. Note that SuSE generally offers university discounts of about 30 percent.
One thing holding Linux back has been the low entry cost. Scares people, that does.
Example? In a past life, I did sporting goods retail to pay the bills. Our shop sold a SCUBA regulator, and a rather nice one, for $250. It wasn't a famous brand in my neck of the woods, and regs of similar quality were selling for $350 minimum 'round there.
Great deal? Hell yeah. Were people flocking in, tearing them off the shelves? Ha! We didn't sell one in two months.
I could tell customers about what a great unit it was, how I dove using it just the other night, in cold water with current, and it performed like a dream. I often did tell them. 'Till I was blue in the face. But most customers couldn't wrap their heads around the idea it could really be inexpensive and good.
So we bumped the price up to $350. They sold like hotcakes.
The moral? If you think the $600 (5 seat, one year support) price tag is pretty steep for a product that can be downloaded for free, that's your clue they're trying to sell it to someone else. Someone who doesn't know what they're getting, but who has an idea what these things "should" cost, and who doesn't trust things that don't do what they "should".
Did someone check their information? The cost is only $99.00 and only with the fancy maintenance plans does it approach the stated $600.00 price tag. Did I miss something or am I just going crazy?!
Stop trolling, troll.
In the corporate world, it's all about who you can blame when the shit hits the fan. If your whole windows network goes down, and your group loses 5 days of work time, you can say "microsoft is to blame! sue them!" and your boss doesn't fire you. If your whole *nix network goes down, and you downloaded the OS for free, you have no one to blame, and you get a pink slip. If your whole windows network goes down, you tell your boss its windows fault. He won't believe you (it works for everyone else at our competitiors). He'll tell you to fix it. If your whole *nix network goes down. He'll tell you to fix it. In principle, you can actually fix it if you know enough about how its put together. This is why I'm starting to think that these specialised versions that suse and redhat make are not a good idea. They are starting to insert propitary pieces into linux distros. This makes figuring out how the system works more complex and less flexible. You'll only get fired if you present your boss with worthless excuses time after time. They may not know the technology as well as you, but if you are unable to communicate why something you are in charge of is repetedly failing the company then you will not be around for very long even if the failure is not your fault.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
It is meant for corperate users. Desktop linux for the group that would be the least likely to actually use linux on the desktop. I think Suse should just droup out of the software market and proptly start selling mennorahs in mecca.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
I think that this is great and I'm all for someone coming up with better desktop options. Who cares about the price, after all this is for companies and if enough of them can migrate, then other software providers will take notice
But I have one problem/question with this progress that has been made under Linux of late.
I have a series of machines that range from 600-750MHz and 128MB - 768MB RAM. It seems to me that the new KDE has become remarkably slow. To the point where I am unable to seriously consider using it on the lower RAM machines.
Rather than just bitch and be labeled a troll, I have a serious question. Is this the cost of progress? I am assuming that WinXP is going to be equally difficult to use on these machines, but I have nothing to base that one. Has anyone tried it?
Does the relative bloat of KDE compare to the relative bloat of other Desktop Environments?
This is a real concern for me because the slow down in performance when comparing Suse is significant enough that I'm wondering if KDE is approaching Gnome in speed or if KDE has passed WinXP in performance (or lack thereof).
I think that the responsiveness of a system is more critical that the Eye Candy it provides, especially as a User Environment. And I'm not seeing that in KDE. Are you?
Does SuSE 8.2 Free support NTFS in the kernel? I don't feel like compiling kernels yet, and I was wondering, because I'm contemplating a switch to SuSE from RedHat (RH8 doesn't work on my computer, because my i810 is fux0red - Win2K has mouse problems with it, too, but SuSE live-demo doesn't have any problems). Why I was asking is because SuSE live-demo doesn't support it.
Keep thinking like that and stick to your Windows. Good software & develpers deserve the support. This is not big business we are talking, it's hard working coders that actually care about the product they are working on / creating. I', sure you'll think I'm not cool for "DL`1NG TH3 31337 XP PR0 FR0M IRC & B31NG 4 SH33P L1K3 Y0U R" I use SuSE 8.1 Pro and it is worth every penny, if not more.
However -- would you really want phone support if it meant you had to talk to someone in German? with email, they can run it though the computer equivalent of babelfish (Sytran). Their comprehension and some of their answers indicate that the xlation SW isn't that perfected yet...
But I agree...this is especially a pain when Germany is in another friggin' day for the most part. I'm in California -- and even the UK is 7-8 hours ahead of me -- meaning that unless I can manage to get out of bed *and* _be_ _awake_ _enough_ (that's the challenge) at 7am-8am my time, I'm likely going to get a 'closed' please all back during normal business hours -- or maybe an answering services.
But even with email, we're talking, usually 24 hour turn-around -- not ideal for debugging or anything requiring interactivity. Reminds me of Dell's
phone message telling me that I can get faster service by submitting my question via email -- and that the longest hold time is
But the price is the price -- we're patsies^WAmericans -- don't we just pay what we are told to pay and not question service? Qeustioning price and/or service? We, obviously need some more voodoo economics training on spending cash we don't have...and how that'll solve our cash flow probems.
-l
p.s. -- $600? Ouch! Sort steep for a new/untested/unproven product.