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..."

Comments

actualy, it is $99

[the_2nd_coming]

and bundled WITH the mantenance package it is $600

Re:actualy, it is $99

[ekk]

$99 gets you: "5 CDs, 2 manuals (User Guide, Administration Guide) Only sold together with SuSE Maintenance Program" So it's $598, because the install kit isn't sold separately.

Re:actualy, it is $99

[the_2nd_coming]

it is not ment for the average home user!!!!!!

my god do you frigen READ!!!

Re:actualy, it is $99

[sjvn]

$599 is the real price but that's for a five desktop license with a year of support.

It's not meant, or priced, for single users. It's a pure business desktop play.

Steven

$600 Bucks?

[SomeOtherGuy]

Wow. I guess they want the crowd that thinks xp and 2000 is to cheap.

Re:$600 Bucks?

[MyPantsAreOnFire!]

Well, to a certain extent, you're right.

Corporate users and decision-makers are particularly averse to "free" things, because of the perception that things that are free come with some sort of gimmick, trick, or legal gotcha.

Offering the same product to them at a sizeable price tag (it looks like the OS itself is $99, whereas the maintenance add-on is $500 more) gives the illusion of value, or addition, or more importantly, accountability.

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.

The most important piece of the SuSE corporate invasion is the fact that decision-makers now have someone to call or point the finger at when something goes wrong.

Re:$600 Bucks?

[RoLi]

Well 5 licenses of XP and 5 licenses of Office XP cost somewhere between 2000$ and 3000$ without any support.

If you want a year of support from MS, I would guesstimate that you would end up paying at least 6000$ for 5 seats or 10 times of what SuSE charges.

SuSE's offering isn't meant for home users, it targets businesses which don't have much Linux experience and will need both much support to make the jump and also a possibility to run at least the most important MS apps.

For that niche (and only for that niche) SuSE's offer isn't a bad deal, IMO.

MIRROR LINK

[TheMadPenguin]

Just in case ;)

http://www.madpenguin.org/slashdot/sld10.html

SuSE's price

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:SuSE's price

[the_2nd_coming]

this is comercial and included 5 licenses (which are required for the bundled proprietary apps)

so for a corprate environmnet this is fine.

Free as in speech

[madgeorge]

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

Re:Free as in speech

[dmaxwell]

RTFA. That's $600 for enterprise level support for 5 clients. Granted, that leaves room to argue for RedHat but it's certainly competitive with Windows 2000 + 5 cals ($1000).

What's really needed

[rsilvergun]

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).

$600 is for 5 Clients

[kikensei]

$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.

Whoa

[The Bungi]

$600 price tag

Them's some purty expensive blank CD's!!

The point

[Nex6]

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

Re:Germany special?

[thasmudyan]

As a german I can only agree, it's kind of a leftover IBM mentality of sorts. Profesisonal solutions are only acceptable if they're expensive and they have to come from megalomaniac companies. If it doesn't cost enough, it can't be worth very much...
But SuSE is not one of those companies! Actually, the cited 600,00 price is for a package including support costs for five clients for a year, so you'll find that for an office solution it isn't that expensive. (But I would still prefer the "normal" 8.2 version.)

Re:All to run windows programs?

[BenjyD]

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.

The Price tag

[!Squalus]

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.

This is MUCH CHEAPER than Windows

[scarpa]

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...

Can't they compete with Ximian?

[EarthTone]

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...

Seems expensive, but remember..

[phisheadrew]

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.

This plus CrossOver Office might just work...

[mrmeval]

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!).