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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..."
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.
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
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.
$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.
Them's some purty expensive blank CD's!!
Pay once and use it throughout your enterprize...? That WILL happen. Beats the shit out of a Windoze site license!
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have backups to corrupt.
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
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.
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
RTFA. That's five client licences, including support and updates for a year. Compare that to Microsoft's plans - maybe $2000 for the same setup, still with their $50-per-call support service.
actually, you should multiply your MS figure by 5.
SUSE come with 5 lisences.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
then sell the 4 remiaining liscenses to someone else.
Or get 5 buds to all chip in.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
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.
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...
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...
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! ;)
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...
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
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.
Dude, You should multiply your figures by 5. Five licenses for Windows XP plus office XP will be $2605. This is without any support. SuSE is giving a OS plus a bunch of software (office, image manipulation, etc ) for $600. And this is for 5 licenses, including 1 year support.
So on one hand you have $2605 for office and OS, without support, on the other hand you have $600 for office and OS and a bunch of applications, plus support. I call the SuSE offering, very cheap, and very strategically priced.
--
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?
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.