Upcoming SuSE 9.0 Professional Reviewed

molarmass192 writes "Open magazine has the first review I've seen of the upcoming SuSE 9.0 (or should that be SUSE 9.0 now?) Professional distribution. To summarize, they are impressed with the upgrades to Yast (it's fully integrated into the KDE control panel), Samba integration, Winmodem support, network configuration management, and performance. It's not the most thorough review I've ever read, but it's an interesting look at what to expect for those who have preordered SuSE 9.0."

Comments

BE THANKFUL COCK SUCKERS

[CmdrTaco (troll)]

at least jizz mopping will never be outsource to india

Re:BE THANKFUL COCK SUCKERS

[Big Dogs Cock]

Hey - my job is outsourcing jobs to India. I will never be outsourced to India.

Mdk

[after]

SuSe still doesnt give the feel of Linux as Mandrake does to me :)

Re:Mdk

[after]

Also, about this. SuSE uses GNOME 2.2? But GNOME 2.4 was *just* released. Mandrake Linux 9.2 is going (or should I say already has) uses GNOME 2.4. I have had a lot of problems before with GNOME 2.2, and I just got Mdk 9.2 RC 2 with GNOME 2.3 (or something) and all the problems are fixed.

HA HA

[Anonymous Coward]

FUCK YOU NIGGA JIGGAs!

Oh Suse Q

[Anonymous Coward]

"Oh SUSE Q, oh SUSE Q!
Oh SUSE Q, Version 9.2, SUSE Q."

Re:Oh Suse Q

[Angram]

What's sad is that 95% of the people on /. have no idea what you're talking about.

Re:Oh Suse Q

[GreyWolf3000]

Dude, we've all heard CCR before.

Re:Oh Suse Q

[ShavenYak]

CCR? The song was by Dale Hawkins, you insensitive clod!

Re:Oh Suse Q

[Anonymous Coward]

No shit....get it?

Why not just use Debian?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why shell out ya money for Linux?
I've never understood these Commerical Distros .. you may as well install M$.

Re:Why not just use Debian?

[rixstep]

I got a better idea.

We'll all wait around until YOU write an operating system; we'll see how good that is; and when you tell us you have bills to pay, we'll tell you to do what you're telling all your friends in the community to do right now.

Re:Why not just use Debian?

[sloanster]

I shell out money for linux because it's worth it, why else?

"might as well install ms?" I think you're a little confused - if you thought the whole point of linux was price tag, you've missed the whole point.

Dear Suzy,

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Suzy,

Congratulations on your new version 9.0 Professional! Your pics on the Register are hot. I think I'll install you on my new 3.2GHz.

Love,
Linus

so much to download

[00RUSS]

hrrm, suse 9 mandrake 9.2 and red hat 10, so much linix goodness.

Re:so much to download

[Lispy]

and slack 9.1

SUSE is just like *BSD

[Anonymous Coward]

SuSE is just like *BSD except that SuSE is alive.

Re:SUSE is just like *BSD

[Anonymous Coward]

When it comes to the subject of operating systems, most of us can agree on at least one thing, and that is the simple plain truth that *BSD is dying. But the deeper question is why? Why did *BSD fail?

Once you get past the fact that *BSD is fragmented between a myriad of incompatible kernels, there is the historical record of failure and of failed operating systems. *BSD experienced moderate success about 15 years ago in academic circles. Since then it has been in steady decline. We all know *BSD keeps losing market share but why? Is it the problematic personalities of many of the key players? Or is it larger than their troubled personae?

The record is clear on one thing: no operating system has ever come back from the grave. Efforts to resuscitate *BSD are one step away from spiritualists wishing to communicate with the dead. As the situation grows more desperate for the adherents of this doomed OS, the sorrow takes hold. An unremitting gloom hangs like a death shroud over a once hopeful *BSD community. That hope is long gone, replaced by an inconsolable despair. A mournful, plaintive nostalgia has settled in. Now is the end time for *BSD.

Can you download ISOs yet?

[caluml]

If you can't download an ISO, that instantly rules out a large chunk of the potential users. And I don't mean some run from CD wierdness - if I want that I'll use Knoppix.

Re:Can you download ISOs yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can pay for it, just like everyone else does. Stop being a cheapskate.

Re:Can you download ISOs yet?

[caluml]

Fair point. But most stuff that finds its way into my networks is stuff that I've discovered, learnt well, and grown to trust at home first. Why would I try out a distro on a server at work that I've never used before?

Re:Can you download ISOs yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

The net install works pretty well. You don't need no stinkin' iso

Re:Can you download ISOs yet?

[jester42]

no, you still can't but you can install it directly over the internet via their ftp server. it's not the same but should be good enough for most users.

I don't like CDs anyway because they just tend to get lost...
I like the DVDs though, because with those you don't have to change CDs anymore. btw how many disks is the current SUSE?

Re:Can you download ISOs yet?

[Zaiff Urgulbunger]

SuSE 8.2 Pro comes as 2 DVDs and 5 CDs. You only ever need DVD1 though!

Re:Can you download ISOs yet?

[caluml]

Yeah but....
When someone comes to me and says:
"Windows did ........ last night, and really pissed me off - I'd like to give that Linux a try - where can I get it from?", it's handy to give them the 3 RedHat ISOs, hand it to them, and say "Boot from the CD".
No dodgy 6 floppy Debian installs, no faffing around with downloading stages for Gentoo (although it's my fav distro for anyone that knows about Linux). Just let RedHats very friendly installer hold their hand all the way through, ask them all the right questions, set up their XFree86, and network cards etc.

And that, my friends, is why people think Linux == Redhat, and not SuSE. SuSE might be great. I don't know - I've never used it. Gentoo 1st, RedHat 2nd, Debian for old slow machines 3rd in my book. Flame away Debian fans :)

Re:Can you download ISOs yet?

[bhtooefr]

Live-Eval 9.0 RC1: ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/live-eval-9.0/SuS E-9.0-LiveEval-i386-Int-RC1.iso

(you may want to use a mirror)

Re:Can you download ISOs yet?

[bhtooefr]

OK, so I RTFPd, and I saw that you DIDN'T want a Live-Eval. However, SuSE 8.2 Live-Eval worked pretty damn well (can't say anything on 9.0 RC1, though)

HERES MY REVIEW COCKSMOKERS:

[Anonymous Coward]

SUSE IS BETTER THAN ANY OTHER LINUX DISTRO....AT SUCKING ASS.

THOSE FUCKING KRAUTS SURE KNOW HOW TO FUCK UP SOFTWARE.

Important Stuff, dig dis: Plaise try t' keep posts on topic. Try t' reply t'otha' sucka's's comments instaid o' startin' fresh thraids. Eyeball otha' sucka's's messages b4 postin' yo' own t'avoid simply duplicatin' whut has alraidy been said. 'esploit some claih' subject dat describes whut yo' message be about. Slap mah 'fro! Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, o' Offensive comments might be moderated. (down low, Yo' ass kin eyeball everythin', even moderated posts, by adjustin' yo' threshold on da Usa' Preferences Page) If yo' ass want replies t' yo' comments sent t' yo' ass, consida' loggin' in o' creatin' some account. Bugs-up-da-ass regardin' accounts o' comment postin' should be sent t' Cowboyneal. Fuckin' A!

Important Stuff, dig dis: Plaise try t' keep posts on topic. Try t' reply t'otha' sucka's's comments instaid o' startin' fresh thraids. Eyeball otha' sucka's's messages b4 postin' yo' own t'avoid simply duplicatin' whut has alraidy been said. 'esploit some claih' subject dat describes whut yo' message be about. Slap mah 'fro! Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, o' Offensive comments might be moderated. (down low, Yo' ass kin eyeball everythin', even moderated posts, by adjustin' yo' threshold on da Usa' Preferences Page) If yo' ass want replies t' yo' comments sent t' yo' ass, consida' loggin' in o' creatin' some account. Bugs-up-da-ass regardin' accounts o' comment postin' should be sent t' Cowboyneal. Fuckin' A!

Re:HERES MY REVIEW COCKSMOKERS:

[Anonymous Coward]

And yo ass obviously wants yo comment moderated down!

Kind of ironic...

[Mahatma Goatse]

... that perhaps the most secure and enterprise-friendly Linux release gets previewed on the same day Steve Ballmer slanders Linux as non-secure?

Re:Kind of ironic...

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft sladers Linux daily, they have a whole department dedicated to it.

SuSE is awesome...mostly.

[numbski]

Unless they've changed something, they have a habit of having everything including the kitchen sink included.

I guess that's good. Most everything is behind a version or two by the time it hits your hands though (in the past).

Perhaps I'm simply spoiled by the FreeBSD ports collection (any good package manager really) where I run cvsup to get the ports collection current, then I can either build from source or pkg_add -r pkgname and install the binary quickly across a network.

Don't take this a knock though, SuSE was the *nix that I learned on, and it's still awesome. Just seems somewhat unwieldy to bundle so much software in that is going to go out of date so quickly.

Great for situations without net access though.

Re:SuSE is awesome...mostly.

[Broken_Windows]

I purchased 8.0 pro when it came out and ran it for some time, yast2 did an execllent job in keeping the system updated but I soon wanted upgrades to applications on my system. I soon moved on to other distros where I could upgrade on the fly. Slackware 9.1 with swaret keeps me happy now.

Re:SuSE is awesome...mostly.

[reallocate]

Agree that SuSE is a great distribution, and the FreeBSD is good enough to spoil me, too.

Remember, tho, that it's a European product. All those binaries are in there because, first, it's a great selling point, and, second, because bandwidth costs more in Europe. Systems like ports or emerge are only viable when bandwidth costs are negligible. That's why all those European Linux magazine stick CD's and DVD's on their covers.

Re:SuSE is awesome...mostly.

[Kaimelar]

Perhaps I'm simply spoiled by the FreeBSD ports collection (any good package manager really) where I run cvsup to get the ports collection current, then I can either build from source or pkg_add -r pkgname and install the binary quickly across a network.

Don't take this a knock though, SuSE was the *nix that I learned on, and it's still awesome. Just seems somewhat unwieldy to bundle so much software in that is going to go out of date so quickly.

This is why I love APT for SuSE. A simple

sudo 'apt-get update; apt-get upgrade'

and I have the current versions of everything -- just like using the ports tree in FreeBSD. Check it out, you might find it interesting. And it respects the RPM database, so you can still use YaST or install/remove RPMs manually if you want.

Re:SuSE is awesome...mostly.

[Anonymous Coward]

I am only sure about Germany, but flat-rate DSL connections are available pretty much everywhere in the coutry, for reasonable prices. I also know that the Scandinavian countries have decent connections as well, supposedly faster/cheaper than in Germany. Former east european countries may be behind a bit tho. But in general it wrong to say European internet users lack cheap bandwidth.

Re:SuSE is awesome...mostly.

[reallocate]

I stand corrected. Maybe I read too much UK press.

Re:SuSE is awesome...mostly.

[sheriff_p]

Say what?

I remember being insanely jealous visiting my ex in Stockholm, because of the adverts offering 10Mb/s broadband for what I'm paying for 1Mb/s...

Re:SuSE is awesome...mostly.

[RogerWilco]

> Great for situations without net access though.

Exactly

I've been buying SuSE every year, just because I only have 56k.
The first I bought was 6.2, because it used the SuSE display drivers,
the only ones that supported my video card SiS 6326 at the time.
(for the drivers they develop themselves, they tend to realease them in their own distro, and after that contribute the changes back to the OSS commnity, that way having both a competitive edge, and staying OSS.)
I realy liked it when they started shipping with DVD. Now I can just select all goodies I like and it's on my system when I come back from lunch.

Adriaan

Re:SuSE is awesome...mostly.

[ultranova]

I live in Finland and use Elisa as my ISP. 512/512 kbps for 49 / month (through ADSL), 5 simultaneous IPs, no firewalls or other such problems. So, what's the going rate in USA ?

It's great!

[pumpknhd]

People may ask why we should shell out money to pay for open source programs...well, open source doesn't mean free source. Someone had to put in their time and energy programming this stuff. And since most of us haven't contributed to the source code, we could at least support those who have. :)

Re:It's great!

[Anonymous Coward]

But...but...I want it for FREE!

Re:It's great!

[stevey]

Yes we should support people who produce open source, and not just the big projects like Samba, Apache, Rsync, etc. I have software included in the SuSE professional edition that I wrote.

When it's displayed in Yast there's a field for Author name / Homepage. Do you think those fields give me credit? Do you think I even got an email from SuSE? Do you think I might have received a free boxed copy?

Nope.

I only noticed as a colleague pointed it out to me when setting up a SuSE professional box to install Oracle upon..

*sighs*

Re:It's great!

[jester42]

• And since most of us haven't contributed to the source code, we could at least support those who have. :)

Excuse me, but this is real bullshit. You don't pay the programmers, you only pay for somebody who takes open source projects and makes a nice compilation of programs. Plus you get the media, some handbook and installation support.

Re:It's great!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is exactly what is wrong with OSS. You put in a lot of hard work and produce something, only to have some big publisher take your and otehrs work and compile and produce a CD they sell and make money. OSS model dosent work for the producer... its great for the consumer and the intermediary. I'm a develoepr loves to program, but unfortunately I will loose from this model of give away software.

Re:It's great!

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe a better model would be for profits that big publishers make to be distributed to all open source contributers.

Re:It's great!

[big tex]

Bzzzzt. Try again.

As a SuSE user who has been buying boxed sets since 6.1, I know that I am helping to support KDE, ReiserFS, and so on. SuSE supports full-time KDE developers, so I _am_ paying the programmers.
Plus, I really like YaST, so I pay for it.

Also,it's more than "some handbook". It's a frickin' set of doorstops compared to any other reference manuals that I've seen come in a boxed set.

Re:It's great!

[DrCode]

That's why I no longer feel guilty about downloading Gentoo instead of buying commercial distributions. SuSE is my favorite, and I've bought a couple of their versions; but they go out of date really fast. When they change one of the base libraries (glibc?), you're forced to update almost everything, and that's a real pain when you only have a modem connection.

I sometimes think that the commercial linux vendors should offer free copies to open-source developers. But I also fear that that might be most of their market!

Re:It's great!

[JivanMukti]

Also,it's more than "some handbook". It's a frickin' set of doorstops

Well, at least you're getting some use out of it. ;-)

Re:It's great!

[kris]

Excuse me, but this is real bullshit. You don't pay the programmers, you only pay for somebody who takes open source projects and makes a nice compilation of programs. Plus you get the media, some handbook and installation support.

Suse happens to pay programmers that work on the Kernel, particularly the ISDN interface, the RAID drivers and many other areas. Suse also sponsors reiserfs, several KDE subprojects and a lot of other projects. That's you money at work.

Kristian

Re:It's great!

[Grendel Frost]

Then wait a month until they release it for FTP-install. You don't get ISO's, but you do get to install it for free.

Couple more reviews

[jubalj]

Actually there are atleast two more reviews of SuSe 9.0
Mad penguin review
german review (translation)

- Jj

Re:Couple more reviews

[notque]

Without a doubt one receives much software with SUSE LINUX 9,0 for its money required.

Ain't that the truth.

Re:Couple more reviews

[molarmass192]

I like that Mad Penguin review better than the one I submitted. Hopefully the mods do their jobs.

SOS

[OptimoosePrime]

the introduction of dual-booting with any version of Windows

Whoa! Who knew?! And it also mentions an "network-neighborhood" style network browsing icon for SMB shares. Genious! SuSE has just revolutionized the computing world single-handedly. I hear that the next version will have...get this...support for x86 processors. I can't wait.

the competition is tough

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got a copy of Libranet 2.8.1 on my spare computer here. 128 Mb RAM, 366 SillyCelery, nVidia 32 Mb card, running KDE. It's snappy. It's slick. It works. It sets a very high standard. OK, OO takes 37 seconds to start up, but otherwise it's OK. Libranet sets a very high standard.

That compliment does not come easily. I typeset annual reports in WP Win, use Paradigm database manager, dream in Excel macros, am a regular customer of InfoUSA mailing lists, use and despise WinWord and Netscape, and live and breathe QuickBooks2003 and mail merge. I know and make money with Win2000.

So, is SuSe as good as Libranet? I find Linux a relief after a day with Windows. If you don't have to do color separations or LAB, GIMP rules!

Re:the competition is tough

[Anonymous Coward]

"OK, OO takes 37 seconds to start up, but otherwise it's OK. Libranet sets a very high standard."

In Tools>Options>Memory>Use for OOo=9

change the default value 9 MB to 32 :)

fo' sheezy my linuxyzee'

[after]

I concur with you whole heartedly my fellow Linux user.

File transfer problem

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't want to start a holy war here, but what is the deal with you SuSE
fanatics? I've been sitting here at my freelance gig in front of a SuSE box (a
PIII 800 w/512 Megs of RAM) for about 20 minutes now while it attempts to copy a
17 Meg file from one folder on the hard drive to another folder. 20 minutes. At
home, on my Pentium Pro 200 running NT 4, which by all standards should be a lot
slower than this SuSE box, the same operation would take about 2 minutes. If
that.

In addition, during this file transfer, Netscape will not work. And everything
else has ground to a halt. Even Emacs Lite is straining to keep up as I type
this.

I won't bore you with the laundry list of other problems that I've encountered
while working on various SuSE machines, but suffice it to say there have been
many, not the least of which is I've never seen a SuSE box that has run faster
than its Windows counterpart, despite the SuSE machines faster chip
architecture.

My 486/66 with 8 megs of ram runs faster than this 800 mhz machine at times.
From a productivity standpoint, I don't get how people can claim that SuSE is a
"superior" machine.

SuSE addicts, flame me if you'd like, but I'd rather hear some intelligent
reasons why anyone would choose to use a SuSE over other faster, cheaper, more
stable systems.

Re:File transfer problem

[Anonymous Coward]

S.u.S.E. also includes a tool named hdparm.

Re:File transfer problem

[ralphclark]

That's no troll - I've had similar problems with my (heavily patched) SuSE 8.1 system (Athlon 1.2GHz/256MB on a KT7A-RAID mobo, with the two 40GB IBM 60GXP disks on separate channels of the HPT370 controller and a 128MB swap file on each disk) running a recent Hubert Mantel 2.4.21 kernel. hdparms has both DMA and LBA enabled.

Performance is never better than mediocre under KDE but that's not the real problem. The real problem is that it frequently seizes up completely.

On many occasions it coincided with memory usage going through the roof for no apparent reason, and swapping like mad. The memory problem appears to be down to either X, KDE or mozilla and I suspect mozilla is the usual culprit. Those moz developers just don't seem to take care of garbage collection in a reliable way.

On other occasions "top" appears to show X taking up an awful lot of memory (up to 50%).

In some cases killing all moz processes makes the problem go away but because of gui unresponsiveness its often easier just to keep hammering on Ctrl-Alt-Backspace until X reboots. Sometimes it is so solidy frozen that I can't even ping it from nearby. And sometimes the box is so totally hosed there's no response even after an hour so I'm left with no option but to cycle the power and hope reiserfs will be able to contain the damage.

*sigh* guess I'll give it one more try with SuSE 9.0. If they don't stay on top of the quality thing this time though I'll be switching distros.

Re:File transfer problem

[molarmass192]

Your post may not be a troll but that parent post is a troll that's really getting old. He just replaced Mac with SuSE this time around. So clever he is.

Something is definitely wrong with your setup. SuSE 8.1 shipped with gcc 2.96 as a base so be extra weary about trying to run apps compiled with gcc 3.2 (eg. any Mozilla later than 1.3). I can't guarantee that that's the problem but it's a place to look. As for X taking up a lot of memory, that sounds about right. However X is effectively a shared resource under Linux so that's kind of to be expected. Also, Linux uses as much memory as possible for buffering and caching, so top's memory reading doesn't reflect the true resource usage. Run this command and subtract the buffer/cache value from the memory used to get a more accurate picture of what's going on:

free -m

Regardless, you should try a gcc 3.2 based distro, namely SuSE 8.2 and higher, and see if your Mozilla problems go away.

Re:File transfer problem

[Anonymous Coward]

You know X has the right to(perhaps not the right to but meh) claim all the video memory wether or not its using it. That might be inlating you top readouts

Re:File transfer problem

[ralphclark]

Thanks, I'll try that before I put 9.0 on.

Re:File transfer problem

[HidingMyName]

I'm not sure why, but X under SuSE seems to have a long slow memory leak for me too. I'm running 8.2 (upgraded from 8.0) but somehow I've got over 118 MB allocated to X, which doesn't make sense. Of course Mozilla wants another 82 MB. Other than that SuSE has been smooth. I've not felt HD based lockups like the parent complained about.

Re:File transfer problem

[Yenhsrav_Keviv]

I've had suse 8.2 running on my machine perfectly fine since i got it at the beginning of summer. no major issues with it, but i must admit i dont use mozilla....i saw the version that came with suse 8.2 was somewhat outdated, so i downloaded mozilla firebird, http://www.mozilla.org/products/firebird/, and have been using that instead. i guess i suggest trying an updated mozilla or even firebird, maybe that'll fix some of your problems.

Re:File transfer problem

[ralphclark]

I've been upgrading every time a new version comes out - I'm on 1.5 now. It's no better.

I'M WANKIN', I'M WANKIN', I'M COLD COLD WANKIN'!

[Subject Line Troll]

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

What kind of performance increase?

[Billly Gates]

I use to use SuSE in the past. It has become quite slow and bloated, even on my athlonXP.

I switched to Freebsd because its slim and lightening fast. I have a hunch its mainly its own version of xinet and yast that slows things. I wonder if it could be faster and if it is, if I should switch?

Re:What kind of performance increase?

[MrResistor]

I use to use SuSE in the past. It has become quite slow and bloated, even on my athlonXP.

I know what you mean, but the problem was not SuSE, it was KDE. Newer versions of KDE are much better, or you could use one of the lightweight WMs and enjoy the related performance boost.

I don't know how that compares to FreeBSD though.

Re:What kind of performance increase?

[Brandybuck]

Well, if he was using KDE under SuSE *and* FreeBSD, then his perception of speed differences was not due to KDE.

(and I suspect the difference probably isn't the kernels either, but related to the default packages and services the respective systems install by default)

Re:What kind of performance increase?

[molarmass192]

Well, Yast doesn't run as a background process with the exception of "auto-updates" which I disabled. Yast is ok but I prefer to configure my setup manually and keep all my configs backed up in CVS. I also use inetd instead of xinetd. Another thing is that as of 8.2 (could have been 8.1) SuSE provides a kernel optimized for your CPU instead of a generic i586 one. This default i586 target probably explains the slowness you noticed. As for switching, if you're comfortable and happy with FreeBSD then why bother changing? The only reason I can think of is that it's easier to get commercial software for Linux but if you've already got the apps you need ...

Re:What kind of performance increase?

[reallocate]

I'm a happy SuSE 8.2 user who switched to FreeBSD and cancelled a 9.0 preporder. (The jury is still out, tho.) I'm noticing no subjective performace differences between the two.

I believe the installed kernel isn't replaced until the first online update. Is that update available to people who haven't purchased SuSE?

Re:What kind of performance increase?

[molarmass192]

I wonder if it has something to the with the Professional vs. the Standard distro. I know for a fact that there's are at least 2 kernels on the DVD included with the Professional distro, one being an Athlon specific target. I never used the CDs so I don't know if that's the case on those.

Why do you need an ISO?

[Anonymous Coward]

SuSE doesn't give away ISO images for free. Why must you insist on ISOs? You can download all the FTP-based install files for free and then do all the freeloading FTP or SAMBA over-your-local-network installs you please. I think SuSE has the finest, most refined Linux distro going and I actually buy the full version from them every other version or so...to help support their efforts. I also download all the FTP files and set up my own internal distro install server. It's not that much extra work, and I actually like it better since a SuSE install base is huge, it spans multiple CDROMs (or a DVD disk, and I don't yet have any DVD drives) and I hate swapping CD discs during the installation, I prefer to kick off the install and let it run to completion all by itself while I go away and do something else. An FTP install over 100Mbps LAN is faster than even a 48x cdrom drive anyway.

Re:Why do you need an ISO?

[BUMPHUCKER69!!]

Because when my friend asks where i got that cool OS, I like to be able to hand him a burned copy and tell him to copy it and hand it to one of his friends when they ask him where he got it.

You dumb fucker!

Re:Why do you need an ISO?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because I don't want to screw around with a bunch of stupid little files.

As far as I'm concerned, if the idiots at SuSE can't figure out the friggin basics, they probably can't figure out anything else of importance. Yast is a good example; I can think of others.

Or let me put it in more basic terms. I'm the chief Linux person of a $1 Billion a year company that is right now converting over to Linux, from Solaris and Windows. We're not going to be using SuSE.

To the folks at RedHat: Those ISO's you've made available are one heck of a great marketing ploy. You're in like Flynn here; and SuSE is out.

Perhaps the folks at SuSE will get a clue now. I kind of doubt it; but I really don't care. And yes, this is a true story.

Re:Why do you need an ISO?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but I bet you're not the cheif linux person at a $1 Billion a year company.

They tend to have CIOs, not CFOs. And they don't give a shit about ISOs.

Dumbass.

Re:Why do you need an ISO?

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd lose. :)

Since you have trouble comprehending this stuff, I'll try to type slowly. The ISO's were what got me and others into RedHat. And the lack of them helped turn me off of SuSE. It's clear that SuSE doesn't understand what they are doing, and the lack of ISO's reflect this. It was cheap, good marketing for RedHat.

So SuSE can kiss their support contract for over 3000 licenses this year alone goodbye. And that's for starters. Penny-wise, pound-foolish. And an also ran in the tech biz.

And before you start calling people "dumbass", you should learn how to spell, chief. *snicker*

Re:Why do you need an ISO?

[lee7guy]

Well, I'm the chief Linux person of a $100 Billion a year company that is right now converting over to Linux, from Solaris and Windows. I hereby declare that you have no freaking idea what you're talking about.

Re:Why do you need an ISO?

[Anonymous Coward]

Any fool can say that. Kindly prove that you aren't one, and state what the support options are for a real IT environment, who the players are, what they offer, and how much they cost, as well as the TCO for a 5 year period.

Hint: The answer isn't obvious to a shallow clueless fool who makes stuff up. No doubt we won't get a real answer out of you. Goodbye.

Re:Why do you need an ISO?

[ahillen]

OK, but even if your story is true, I don't think that it is typical that compamies base their decission of which flavour of Linux to use on the availability of the complete distro as ISO images. Usually other issues like stability,system maintance, support etc. become more important. But of course, not everybody has the same priorities.

Re:Why do you need an ISO?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, some people have access to SuSE ISOs. I've been running running 9.0 for a few weeks now, and I burned my own CDs. It helps when your employer is on such good terms with SuSE that it even gets access to beta ISOs.

You can always just buy a boxed set and rip or burn those CDs.

Re:Why do you need an ISO?

[lee7guy]

The kettle calling a fellow administrator black.

Re:Why do you need an ISO?

[Anonymous Coward]

Allow me be more clear. Of course the complete decision wasn't made based upon whether free ISO's were available. But a key part of the decision was made because of what I am best familiar with. And that is RedHat. I know RedHat inside and out, at the source code level.

The reason why I am so familiar with RH is because of those free ISO's. I've used SuSE and have actually bought a release or two. But I stick with RH because I'm more familiar with it, and it meets my needs.

And I've pushed the whole company to standardize on RH, because I'm best familiar with it, and it will meet the company's needs. SuSE could also meet the needs. But I'm far more comfortable with RH.

All of this is because RH made it easy for me to work with their distro. They did this by making their ISO's freely available. Once I first found out that SuSE didn't, I blew them off. Why should I bother, if they aren't trying to meet my needs from the start?

So RH made a great marketing decision, by realizing that the ISOs are superb advertising.

And they are now making a bunch of money off of my decision. SuSE isn't making squat.

Re:Why do you need an ISO?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can download all the FTP-based install files for free and then do all the freeloading FTP or SAMBA over-your-local-network installs you please.

If you can find an ftp site that works. I've tried all the mirrors near belgium and they either refuse or time out the first time I issue a command.

Re:Why do you need an ISO?

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh - I knew you couldn't answer that question intelligently.

that's too bad

[Anonymous Coward]

sorry i'm not famililar with how big projects work...how do they keep track of who contributed to the work?

Re:that's too bad

[stevey]

I have no idea either, but I guess that at some level somebody must suggest a new package to be included and then one of the people involved in putting together the distribution must maintain it.

They'd be responsible for updating the package, building it, and making sure it worked properly.

I'd expect them to forward any changes they had to make to the upstream author, like the Debian people do, and then add the packages details to some internal database - so they know where to look to check for a new release in time for the next release burning..

Torrent

[Unregistered]

Does anyone have the torrent for the live-eval cd yet?

Also, do they actually think that people buy it since they can't download an install iso instead of just using a differnet distro like drake?

Re:Torrent

[reallocate]

I bought it for good support, reliable updates, and great documentation. It's worth 60 bucks.

Re:Torrent

[Unregistered]

I am happy with my current distro (gentoo), but when new users ask me what distro to recommend, i feel like i can't recommend SuSE as most new users don't want to go through all the trouble to do the FTP install an don't see the reason to pay for linux which they can easily get free elsewhere.

Re:Torrent

[np_bernstein]

I've never understood why people care about the iso thing. You can do a ftp install off of two floppies, or burn the ftp/http/etc install cdrom and use that.

FTP Install Instructions

Re:Torrent

[Ceadda]

Ah.. torrent? The live-eval's already on most of the mirrors they got, right from the suse page. And anything with a .gov or a .edu gives out enough speed for me to get a copy in 12 minutes...

Re:Torrent

[Enucite]

From your link:
"This SuSE Linux 8.2 installation tree is suitable for installation via ftp, http, nfs, smb or hard disk."

I don't think that's the same version the rest of us are talking about. ;)

They don't have 9.0 available for free download yet, and they usually don't make the new versions available until the software on them is horribly out-dated.

That's what other people are complaining about.

And that's what they mean when they say "Does SUSE expect people to pay for it instead of just using something else?" Because--right now--you can't download and install 9.0.

Re:Torrent

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know if it includes the LiveCD, but check http://forums.bytemonsoon.net/showthread.php?t=127 4

Re:Torrent

[reallocate]

SuSE adds value by delivering more than 1000 pages of excellent documentation (beats getting half-baked advice rom the web);a well-tuned configuration; and a working update system.

If people don't think that's worth paying for, that's their decision. I suspect SuSE figurs they havent lost a sale, anyway, since people who expect Linux to cost nothing, as well as being free, aren't much of a market.

Re:Torrent

[Stevyn]

Well here's why. Say for example you have a slow cable modem or dsl. You would rather download the iso's in the background for half a day and then burn them to a cd. you don't want to give up your computer for that time while the installation downloads and installs the files. Over the summer I spent a couple days downloading the tree for suse 8.2 because I didn't want to give up my computer that time. ISO's would have been more convenient since this approach didn't take well to yast. It kept asking for installation cd's every time I tried to update it. Go figure.

I thought that this was pretty obvious reason for the iso's, but hey, what do I know anymore? And why do they not offer them anymore? Well because why pay for a cd when you can burn it? But you have a reason to pay for it to avoid this hassle.

Re:Torrent

[Anonymous Coward]

haha: http://suprnova.lagalot.com/torrents/450/SuSe_Linu x_9.0_Complete_5_CDs.torrent

Omg Looool!!! Wtf!! ^___^

[Anonymous Coward]

GAY-O By The WIPO Avenger, 2003-10-18 18:30 (To the tune of Day-O by Harry Belafonte)

Gay-o, gay-ay-ay-o! Hemos cum when they suck his bone! Gay, me say gay, me say gay, me say gay, me say gay, me say gay-ay-ay-o! Michael cum when they suck his bone!

Suck all night on CowboiKneel's bum! (Hemos cum when they suck his bone!) Suck Cliff's cock 'til the morning come! (Hemos cum when they suck his bone!) Cum, Mr. Taco Man, taco-snot all over! (Taco cum when they suck his bone!) Cum, Mr. Taco Man, taco-snot all over! (Taco cum when they suck his bone!) It's six foot, seven foot, eight foot COCK! (Jamie cum when they suck his bone!) Six foot, seven foot, eight foot COCK! (Jamie cum when they suck his bone!)

Gay, me say gay-ay-ay-o! (Hemos cum when they suck his bone!) Gay, me say gay, me say gay, me say gay... (Hemos cum when they suck his bone!)

A beautiful bunch o' balls on Pater! (Taco cum when they suck his bone!) He likes to play the game "Hide the Hamster"! (Taco cum when they suck his bone!) It's six foot, seven foot, eight foot COCK! (Jamie cum when they suck his bone!) Six foot, seven foot, eight foot COCK! (Jamie cum when they suck his bone!)

Gay, me say gay-ay-ay-o! (Michael cum when they suck his bone!) Gay, me say gay, me say gay, me say gay... (Michael cum when they suck his bone!)

Cum, Mr. Taco Man, taco-snot all over! (Taco cum when they suck his bone!) Cum, Mr. Taco Man, taco-snot all over! (Taco cum when they suck his bone!)

GAY-O! Gay-ay-ay-o! (Taco cum when they suck his bone!) Gay, me say gay, me say gay, me say gay, me say gay, me say gay-ay-ay-o! (Taco cum when they suck his bone!)

-- The WIPO Avenger

add to post

[Anonymous Coward]

I use the Flipscreen3D screen saver, it's honkin' fast.

I started on Linux with the first Naba Barkakati text with Slackware. Then I went to the InfoMagic Workgroup Server (rh5.2), wound up with SuSe7, now LN.

I use it to catalog my pics from my Canon
G3 with Gallery. Linux is now a go on the desktop. The development is just amazing.

Still waiting for Distro "X"

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder which distro will reach version "X" (10) first. In my eyes, to be hounered the "X" title, the distro must

• Ship with Kernel 2.6, with support for the most obscurest hardware.
• Gnome 2.6 (that means decent file dialog and banishing gconf-editor and metacity)
• KDE 3.2 (Yes, KDE 3.2 alpha is pretty good, surley an XP beater. The Crystal SVG 0.9 theme is perfect!)
• Use a package manger like urpmi, yum, apt-rpm (not apt-get, that uses a non standard package format)
• Has the command line stripped out with EVERYTHING, I MEAN EVERYTHING possible for the GUI, NO EXCEPTIONS, not even for Emacs zealots)

I loved SuSE 8.0, and it is one of the best distros ever, but I'm currently with Mandrake 9.2, but the distribution that gives me what I want will get my money! We all know what "X" stands for (In mac terms, not X11 terms), so create the best "X" you can ;).

Re:Still waiting for Distro "X"

[(startx)]

Do you even remember OS X 10.0? It's not the uber-leet 10.2 we all know and love today. Yes, it was leeps and bounds ahead of previous macos versions, but it didn't play dvds, it was slow as shit on older hardware, and it still looked and felt as clunky as os9. a lot has changed since then.

Re:Still waiting for Distro "X"

[Ianoo]

What are you talking about? Gnome 2.6 will not be dropping metacity or gconf-editor, since they serve their purposes very well. What exactly is wrong with them? If you want new features, request them, but don't just badmouth them. Sounds to be like you prefer KDE anyway (IMO Crystal is butt ugly, but I really like Plastik!).

Also, since when is debian a non-standard package format? It's used by more than just debian these days, and who sets these standards anyway? I don't see your problem with apt-get, especially considering it's far superior to rpm in some respects.

Your last point doesn't make any sense either...

Re:Still waiting for Distro "X"

[Brandybuck]

Has the command line stripped out with EVERYTHING

You had me going until then, but this last one makes me say "no thanks." Just today in the lab I had to pull up the command shell in XP. Why the double standard?

Re:Still waiting for Distro "X"

[Anonymous Coward]

Pre X MacOS didn't have a command line.

Re:Still waiting for Distro "X"

[PReDiToR]

Working on the assumption that you didn't put this in just to troll ...

Has the command line stripped out with EVERYTHING, I MEAN EVERYTHING possible for the GUI, NO EXCEPTIONS, not even for Emacs zealots)

There you go, spoiling it. You described the perfect OS until you said that.

The command line is NECESSARY you dolt. Necessary, as in, can't live without. As in no matter how pretty you make your OS it still runs on text, and you have to get to that text sometimes. If you want nothing but pictures, grab the funnypages. In this world the command line lets you fix problems that arise in ways that they never teach you in college. Its the command line that keeps people like me in employment while kids straight out of university are still scratching their heads over how to write shell scripts.

Re:Still waiting for Distro "X"

[Anonymous Coward]

Neither does my palm, but neither are my development platform of choice. What's your point?

Re:Still waiting for Distro "X"

[Durin_Deathless]

I have no complaint with anything you say *except* the line about the stripped command line. You need that. Even OS X has emacs and nvi preinstalled. Other handy things are there too. ssh, openssl(for checksumming), and telnet.

Re:Still waiting for Distro "X"

[Anonymous Coward]

This one is easy. There will never been a Linux distribution labeled as version "X", because those heroic friends of Free Software over at Apple would sue the vendor eight ways to Sunday.

Re:Still waiting for Distro "X"

[tyrione]

http://www.suse.com/en/private/products/suse_linux /i386/images90/desktop.png

Odd but I do declare I see Konsole on that doclet don't you?

No UNIX-like OS Distribution will be without a Terminal Service, period.

No Developer running GCC ro VIM or Emacs, etc., will put up with that shit.

However, I can see SUSE disabling it or "hiding" it until it's activated keeping it less prone to idiot mode.

Re:Still waiting for Distro "X"

[gowen]

Has the command line stripped out

So, with a GUI, how do I do

for i in $(find ~/altimetry ~/SSH-anomalies -name "*.gif" -type f); do convert $i `dirname $i`/`basename $i .gif`.png; done

Show me that GUI, and I'll abandon the command line.

Re:Still waiting for Distro "X"

[Tukla]

If you want nothing but pictures, grab the funnypages.

Heck, most comic strips "run on text", too.

Hardware detection

[rpozz]

I dunno if it's mentioned on the /.ed review, but when I tried out the live-evaluation CD, it auto-detected every single piece of hardware in my machine and configured it automatically withou asking me a single question about it. Why the hell can't windows do this?!

Re:Hardware detection

[Phoinix]

The question is

Why the hell can't Debian do this?

Re:Hardware detection

[Anonymous Coward]

Because Debian is obsolete and dying!

See my rant about debian here

Debian is a DISGRACE to the Open Source community! Stop torturing yourself and use a REAL distrobution!

Re:Hardware detection

[RdsArts]

The question is

Why the hell can't Debian do this?

It can. It's just in testing. It's call "Knoppix." Used it to install a Debian desktop before I moved to Arch-Linux. Most people I've heard from who've tried it like it. Give it a shot why don'tcha now?

And how is that different from SUSE 8.2?

[richmaine]

Sounds sort of like the reviewer never actually used previous SuSE versions, but just copied marketting blurb claims. He makes a big deal about how new it is that SUSE 9.0 does....exactly the same thing that the 8.2 I'm running at home does.

Namely it set up dual boot with Windows XP and mounted the NTFS file systems read-only.

Re:And how is that different from SUSE 8.2?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah NTFS
Any of you /. know how to read an encrypted file you have on back-up but failed to save the cert for?
Does any OSS *nix offer encryption at file level?

I.e. How do you cope with a malformed disk with important files (as in day-to-day life) which you kept secure, even unto thy self?

Ugh, I really do not want to type that stuff, nor can I find everyone to pose for photos again, the ripped DVD's and MP3's no problem, but my life...

Re:And how is that different from SUSE 8.2?

[Geek of Tech]

Tell me about it. 8.2 Seems to do all that. Of course I would have only had 8.2 for 2 Weeks when 9 is announced.

Where can a person download it? You know, the ftp-installer?

Re:And how is that different from SUSE 8.2?

[Ceadda]

You can download it from the huge picture link and word "DOWNLOAD" right on suse's website. But it wont be up for download for a week or 2 more, till they get some initial sales and tests to make sure everything's working and they get a boost in money.

3 Years ago no Winmodems for Linux and now :-)

[NoSuchGuy]

3 Years ago you were told, sorry you can not use your Winmodem with Linux!
And now ;-) That's improvement.

When can we expact that Windows runs Linux binaries? (okay that will never happen but I could not resist)

NoSuchGuy

The one feature I want

[Raster Burn]

I'm a SuSE 8.2 user, and while YaST is very, very nice, I still feel it's missing one feature. In Windows XP, it automatically detects wireless networks, and configuration is as easy as clicking on network "so-and-so."

I know about programs like airsnort, but when will a distro build this feature in? Wireless networking is still a major pain in Linux :(

Re:The one feature I want

[locus_standi]

Have you tried Mandrake 9.2. It features wireless network configuration and automatic detection during installation. Redhat 9.0 also has WiFi features.

Re:The one feature I want

[Raster Burn]

nope. Thanks for the info! Is the detection only during installation, or can I access it in Mandrake Config (or whatever it's called)? I've really been wanting to install Mandrake on my laptop.

Re:The one feature I want

[adrianbaugh]

I've found it far more of a pain in Windows, especially when using WEP. In Linux I just type my WEP code into a file in /etc; it stays there, doesn't get "lost" etc. In Windows all the adapters I've ever used come with a really stupid utility without which the card doesn't work in various ways but which interferes with the "other" (built-in) bit of Windows' wlan support and screws things up.
All the adapters I've tried have been auto-detected under Mandrake 9.2, knoppix 3.3 and gentoo, except the ADMtek-based card which requires a binary driver not shipped with distributions. But hey, the hardware-compatibility HOWTO is your friend.

Re:The one feature I want

[Anonymous Coward]

Erm, what are you talking about ? I`ve got SuSE 8.2 Pro and setting up the wireless network was as difficult as plugging in my USB wireless card and clicking a few options in YaST. It must have taken less than five minutes (if that).

Re:The one feature I want

[Anonymous Coward]

I have had no problem running wireless with Redhat 9.0, it only auto detects the card from a fresh install but will install the drivers very easy by just going to the add net connection(or whatever it is) to it.

Troll-in-one

[Anonymous Coward]

To spare this section of all the trolls (yeah right!), I have incorporated every *BSD troll into this one message. If you have mod points and you're a wanking Linux fanboy, please mod this up rather than only modding up the one-shot trolls. Thank you.

Oh, and if I've missed any, please add your troll as a reply and I'll include it in the next Troll-in-one.

_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_

The *BSD Wailing Song

What's left for me to see
In my ship I sailed so far
What can the answer be
Don't know what the questions are.
And after all I've done
Still I cannot feel the sun
Tell me save me
In the end our lost souls must repent.
I must know it is for certain
Can it be the final curtain
As long as the wind will blow
I'll be searching high and low.
Who knows what's really true
They say the end is so near
Why are we all so cruel
We just fill ourselves with fear.
And heaven and hell will turn
All that we love shall burn
Hear me trust me
In the end our lost sould must repent.
I must know it is for certain
Can it be the final curtain
As long as the wind will blow
I'll be searching high and low
Final curtain
Final curtain

_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_

• flask of ripe urine
  pressed to bsd lips
  bsd drink up

_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_

I don't want to start a holy war here, but what is the deal with you BSD fanatics? I've been sitting here at my freelance gig in front of a BSD box (a PIII 800 w/512 Megs of RAM) for about 20 minutes now while it attempts to copy a 17 Meg file from one folder on the hard drive to another folder. 20 minutes. At home, on my Pentium Pro 200 running NT 4, which by all standards should be a lot slower than this BSD box, the same operation would take about 2 minutes. If that.

In addition, during this file transfer, Netscape will not work. And everything else has ground to a halt. Even Emacs Lite is straining to keep up as I type this.

I won't bore you with the laundry list of other problems that I've encountered while working on various BSD machines, but suffice it to say there have been many, not the least of which is I've never seen a BSD box that has run faster than its Windows counterpart, despite the BSD machines faster chip architecture. My 486/66 with 8 megs of ram runs faster than this 800 mhz machine at times. From a productivity standpoint, I don't get how people can claim that BSD is a "superior" machine.

BSD addicts, flame me if you'd like, but I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to use a BSD over other faster, cheaper, more stable systems.

_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_

It is common knowledge that *BSD is dying. Almost everyone knows that ever hapless *BSD is mired in an irrecoverable and mortifying tangle of fatal trouble. It is perhaps anybody's guess as to which *BSD is the worst off of an admittedly suffering *BSD community. The numbers continue to decline for *BSD but FreeBSD may be hurting the most. Look at the numbers. The erosion of user base for FreeBSD continues in a head spinning downward spiral.

OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of BSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.

Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD w

Just installed it myself...

[jamesots]

I've just installed SuSE 9.0 on my laptop this evening. I wasn't sure if it would be worth upgrading from 8.2 as the changes didn't seem that major, but I like to support SuSE since they do such a good job, and I've bought every version since 7.2 so it seemed like a shame to stop now...

Anyway, I copied all my important data onto the server downstair, stuck the disk in a did a full install. (I've always done an upgrade before, but I thought it was about time to have a clean sheet again).

I was really impressed with the installation - went really smoothly, and detected nearly all my hardware straight off, with only the Wacom graphics tablet not detected. It was improved over previous versions in that it gave options for connecting to networks and authentication via LDAP and stuff like that. One of the last things it offered to do was connect to the internet to get the latest updates, which I allowed it to do. It also got the proper NVidia drivers and the MS TTF fonts.

I did the usual fiddling to get the display exactly how I like it, copied the data back from the server and I have a fully working system again.

Now I'm starting to notice the improvements. The first thing I noticed was the considerable improvement in boot speed. The next thing I noticed was how the fonts were all looking really nice without me having to change any settings. (Although I have now changed to Bitstream Vera because I prefer that).

Then I plugged my camera in, and a new icon appeared on the desktop for it automatically. (I tried to ages to get 8.2 to do that).

My samba connection to the server is working without me having to fiddle with any settings.

I'll admit it's early doors yet, but so far things are looking really good, and I'm very pleased I upgraded.

Re:Just installed it myself...

[Medieval_Gnome]

Then I plugged my camera in, and a new icon appeared on the desktop for it automatically. (I tried to ages to get 8.2 to do that).

Don't know what which one of us is the exception, but it worked perfectally fine for me in 8.2. Maybe different camera model support?

Re:Just installed it myself...

[Anonymous Coward]

My samba connection to the server is working without me having to fiddle with any settings.

You mean you don't have to type "guest" for the username every single fucking time you want to access a pubshare, like you do with RedHat 9? And you don't have to know that you need to use "guest" for the username to get SMB printers working? Sounds nice.

DONT anybody reply to this by saying "all you have to do is hack your samba.conf with bla there and foo permission here bla bla bla". K? thanks.

Re:Just installed it myself...

[jamesots]

You mean you don't have to type "guest" for the username every single time you want to access a pubshare, like you do with RedHat 9? And you don't have to know that you need to use "guest" for the username to get SMB printers working? Sounds nice.

I typed my default login details into the KDE Control Centre 'Local Network Browsing' panel. And for printers I used my own login details as well when going through the add printer wizard. I haven't edited anything in the config files - YaST even let me join my computer to the domain without any hassle.

With regards to the other post about the camera - perhaps my camera didn't work because I'd upgraded from 8.0 to 8.1 to 8.2, and maybe some configuration files got messed up on the way. I don't expect everything will work perfectly, but still, it's doing a better job than before.

Freeloaders

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, do they actually think that people buy it since they can't download an install iso instead of just using a differnet distro like drake?

Actually they *know* people buy it whether or not they'd offer a free ISO download. Also what's this obsession with ISO downloads? SuSE install images would span at least 7 ISO image files. They offer the entire FTP/SAMBA-based install set of files for free download, about 6GB worth, so the total download btye-count to get yourself a freeloader's install-base is about the same. All you need then is to set up an internal FTP or SAMBA server to host these files and then you can do all the install-over-your-LAN installations you please. Over a 100Mbps LAN it even goes much faster than a CDROM install does, plus you're not bothered to do all those pesky disk swaps as does a cd disk-based installation require.

Re:Freeloaders

[PReDiToR]

I download the ISO's so that I can use them as virtual CDs in many situations. Right now my Linux\Distros directory has RedHat, Gentoo, Slackware, Debian, SuSE, TinyLinux and Smoothwall in it. That's a lot of GB just full of ISOs and accumulated driver sources. I keep that HD formatted to fat32 so that I can use it read/write in Lin/Win.

Mount them after booting from a floppy and installing the system
Mount them with alcohol and share them in windows (or indeed FTP as you suggested)
Mount the ISOs as virtual CDs for VMware use
P2P the ISOs so that other people can get them too. After all, sharing the install files widens the userbase, no?

Then I can even (I think I have done this twice) burn them and post them to a friend that has dialup.

I advocate SuSE to people because it has KDE, and less RedHat proprietry software in it. SuSE works on my system right out of the box, and YOU is easy to use and works as well as any other update (including windowsupdate) I have tried.

Fools Rush In - Wait for Steve

[rixstep]

I think I'll wait to see what Steve Ballmer says. Odds are he'll discover that SuSE/SUSE is just as insecure as all the other Linuxes.

Better safe than sorry.

Re:Fools Rush In - Wait for Steve

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, so Steve Ballmer spends some time actually trying out new distro's like SuSE? I doubt it. He fancies himself as a manager, not a programmer.

BTW, I'm using SuSE 6.3 (snapshot) dual boot with Windows 98, (Well, actually triple-boot with Debian, but that's OT) just installed this PM, and am using Opera 6.03 (connected with wvdial) to post this. This SuSE's no Debian, and Debian's apt-get install (whatever) beats 'em all.

Sad news ... Fred Berry dead at 52

[Anonymous Coward]

I just heard some sad news on talk radio - actor Fred Berry was found dead in his Los Angeles home this morning. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon.

Re:I'M WANKIN', I'M WANKIN', I'M COLD COLD WANKIN'

[Anonymous Coward]

I love you, SLT. If I was a woman or gay I would marry you and let you father my children. Your posts are absolute classics.

PPC???

[Anonymous Coward]

Now how about an upgrade to SuSE PPC. We're still stuck at 7.3....

Want list

[brrrrrrt]

Want list before I'll install SuSE:

Kernel 2.6
VirtualDub, and not a demo version :)
NTFS write access
Flash MX
Something like Visual Basic for applications added onto Open Office (I heard the Qt people had something in the works?)
Working DivX player
Doom :)
Gimp 2, when it's out of beta
Perl 6, when it's there
PHP 5, when it's out of beta
PostgreSQL 7.4, when it's out of beta

So I suppose it'll be a year or two..

But it's good to see they're making progress. Even when it's sometimes in rather obsolete areas (e.g. winmodems :)
DVD recording on the other hand is a big plus!
Still a much better distribution than Red Hat with the ubiquitous Red Hat branding and bending things their way..

Re:Want list

[Angram]

Ooh, add in decent sound card support! I have a nice old Turtle Beach Santa Cruz DSP, and there's no way I'm switching until someone can come up with a nice surround sound (4.1 in my case) & graphic equalizer. Oh, that and a decent GUI. I'm not a programmer, so I want my options up-front and simple!

Re:Want list

[ducomputergeek]

Why I gave up on Linux and switched to Mac OS was so I could get the best of both worlds. Programs like Flash MX and Gimp. GoLive with PHP and MySQL locally on an apache server laptop.

I started on SuSE 6.4 and then gave up for FreeBSD on the server side and Mac OS X on the Desktop. It is still the best distro for beginners. YaST was an amazing tool. I had tried to install Redhat before and couldn't get RH 5 to work, but SuSE worked great without any problems, everything was detected except for my modem and this was 4 years ago.

After I under stood *iux more I switched to FreeBSD and fell in love with the ports tree and ease of maintaining an up to day server. I can't wait to ditch our last Linux hold out, not to be a troll, but trying to find working RPM's for common apps like php and mysql for RH 7.3 is like near impossible. No biggy, just install from source, but still...

To bad really

[DarkOx]

Its so sad they took a wonderful distribution like Slackware and made it windows.

I've just got one question

[Anonymous Coward]

How did you tell your parents you're gay?

Did you just come out and say "mum, dad, I can't get enough cock" or did you just start wearing nothing but leather chaps around the house?

Re:I've just got one question

[Anonymous Coward]

You see, it all started with Windows. All the pretty colors and big bright hot flashy buttons. It was so candy land fruity tooty that I knew that if I stayed on the Windows path that in no time I'd be sucking off Johns for cash to buy the next XP Plus pack. That's when I knew it was time to switch to Linux. Immediately the craving for dick subsided and soon all the hot chicks at work started asking me out for drinks. When I asked them why, typically after a solid screw session, they said that Windows users have notoriously bad breath and more often than not are unemployed slackers. Needless to say, I haven't looked back since!

next version of Redhat won't be free

[mrm677]

Of course the sources will be available but they won't offer an installable distribution for free.

Re:next version of Redhat won't be free

[Lord Kano]

Of course the sources will be available but they won't offer an installable distribution for free.

This is the potential pitfall of growing businesses around linux. By necessity, a business is all about profit. I don't begrudge Red Hat for doing what they need to to remain in business. This is why I haven't even considered using their distro since the IPO.

LK

Re:next version of Redhat won't be free

[raodin]

Not a suprise, they direction they've been going.

Re:next version of Redhat won't be free

[Wesley Felter]

RHEL isn't free, but Fedora Core (the successor to Red Hat 9) is still free.

Too bad they didn't seem to like it much.

[LazloToth]

Heh. So much for "objective and unbiased." But as a SuSE fan, I do understand.

The sound you hear

[Anonymous Coward]

Is a hoard of Debian Zealots trying to convince you to switch. I'm here to pre-empt them.

First of all, Debian has the most out of date software packages of any major mainstream distros. Even in the unstable version, is KDE 2.2 and Gnome 2.0, with Xfree86 4.1 (A version that really sucks).

Secondly, its a pain in the goatse to set up, first of all, you are forced to use Kernel 2.2, which is horribly hacked with "backports" to get any use on any modern machine (Read, made after 1999). Good luck memorizing all the *.ko files in /lib/modules, as you are going to need it.

Configuring XFree86 is hell! If you don't have a Thick X11 orilley book, and a list of your horizontal sync values from your monitor's intruction manual (if you even have one), BOOM! There goes your monitor.

Even then, good luck getting anything over 640x480@16 colours.

The most common response to help questions on the Debian mailing list is "n00b, READ THE FUCKING MANUAL, you idiot, go back to WINDOWS XP if you can't learn to use dselect", true too, search the archives if you think I'm lying. Other distros give you comprehensive PRINTED MANUALS, PHONE SUPPPORT and/or freindly forums where repling RTFM gets you banned!

Debians support for any decent hardware, including USB mice, scanners, Sound cards, heck even Serial devices struggle. If you can even get 80x25 text mode with PS/2 input devices you are really lucky.

Apt-get has many flaws. First of all it uses a non standard package format (the rest of the world uses RPM, deprecate the DEB format!), has broken respetories, and out of date software to install.

And if you think I'm joking about this, find out why THOUSANDS of Debian users are switching to REAL distributions. Debian is falling to pieces, if it is to survive any market share it will be through its superior forks (Xandros, Lindows, K/G-noppix) and unoffical package respetories.

Don't get me wrong, I love Linux, and I'm happily using distros such as Mandrake, SuSE, Gentoo and Fedora. But I'm sick to death of zealots that push obsolete Distros on me EVERY FREAKING TIME A DISTRO is reviewed. I'm speaking from real world experiance here, My Old packard bell monitor caught fire because of Debian!

Re:The sound you hear

[Zandall]

KDE 2.2 in Unstable? Kernel 2.2 in Unstable? Are you nuts or what? Well, maybe you have not visited debian.org since Woody was released a long time ago... If you don't know what I'm talking about, Woody=Stable and I have never used it with 2.2 kernels, only 2.4.xx.

But you were talking about Unstable, and I'm using Sid (Debian Unstable) so I can use my winmodem, XFree86 4.3.0, CUPS 1.1.19, emacs 21.2, GCC 3.3.1, KDE 3.1.3, MPlayer 1.0pre2, Perl 5.8.0 and other up to date software.

BTW, I love the way Conectiva implemented apt-get for rpm, and the way SuSE organized their rpm repository to avoid weird package conflicts when updating (I've tryed SuSE 8.2 and the only thing I have to complain is about the Brazilian Portuguese translations inside Yast2 and a few other configuration utilities). Very, very well organized.

Thanks, SuSe :-)

About Debian mailing list, I use to see people posting answers using RTFM acronym, but I also use to see many other people giving very polite answers. And it's not usual to see "you idiot" from people wich e-mail ends with "@debian.org". Also about manuals, everybody use to overevaluate the complexity of dselect, as you may see in "Debian Quick Reference", a small 29 pages reference to "tasks", "apt-get", "dpkg", "dselect" and stable/testing/unstable system.

When you say "Debian is falling to pieces", considering many new distributions are based on Debian, I think I would not say this, as I didn't say "RedHat is falling in pieces" when Conectiva, Mandrake, SuSE, among others, based their initial distribution on RedHat. But I have no doubt Debian is not the most popular, nor Slackware, but they won't disappear just because of it. I think Debian will remain a good and free distributuion, very well tested, with fast security updates, and very well organized repository of applications. Not for everybody, and not to be trashed, but to remain as a reference on those topics I've already mentioned

P.S.: I don't think the "backports" John "Mad Dog" Hall applyed to 2.2 kernels were horrible as you've said. Many machines (like my old Psion 5MX, for example) would not have being using some improvements made in Linux kernel 2.4 (mantained by Marcelo Tosati) if John didn't make a so good job.

+-XP

[Angram]

I had a similar experience, but I was a bit let down when it taunted me with Windows (XP) drives. It found them all and added them to my desktop, but since they're NTFS, they won't open. Exactly what the benefit of adding unusable links on the desktop/workspace is, I don't know.

Re:+-XP

[adrianbaugh]

Note that the final release of SuSE 9.2 will contain a 2.6 kernel for testing. I think 2.6 supports read/write to NTFS volumes, maybe they're just setting up the desktop ready.

Re:+-XP

[agrippa_cash]

The newest kernel, that I've used anyway (2.6-test8-mm1), can write safely to NTFS only over existing files and only if the resulting file is the same size as the original file. This may be useful to some, but I'm not optimistic that safe NTFS writing will be coming anytime soon.

Re:+-XP

[Anonymous Coward]

The live eval does not include the ntfs read mod by default ... It is one of those diffs to get some to go buy the box set. Don't recall v7 but v8 was able to read NTFS drives..

The LiveEval is showing a potential user what could be... Maybe not a good marketing idea - but the general belief is that if you can d/l and setup the live eval - then u are not a novice..

802.11x Wireless support

[DigiShaman]

I would like to install Linux on my IBM 390e Thinkpad. But, what's holding me back is little to no wireless support. I mean, it's supported. But I can't find any devices that are "plug n play" with existing destros (such as Red Hat 9 and the like)

Re:802.11x Wireless support

[dukerobillard]

I have a Dlink DWL-650 wireless card on my old Toshiba laptop, and Vector Linux (a slackware derivative) found and used it automatically when I installed it.

Re:802.11x Wireless support

[adrianbaugh]

Try a Netgear MA-311 (PCI) or MA-401 (PC Card) adapter. Both tend to be autodetected (as prism2 chipsets) by anything modern (Mandrake 9.1, gentoo, knoppix 3.3), and work fine, certainly more trouble-free than with windows.

Having said that, in my experience they work even better with the linux-wlan-ng code.

Arial?

[Anonymous Coward]

Salutations.
I am ASC II son of EBSICIT.0, from the 3rd planet in the reign of Bush Jnr CMNXVII
My scribe droid runneth Windblows 3309, on an Anthena waspsting-MX with 1000 yards of goatskin & 3 kilderkins of black pitch yarda yarda yarda
What is this font of which you speak of arieal?

Killer app? ee
Killer FONT? arial
KILL KILL BILL BILL!!!! Terance E Bush DMIV

The Athlon64 support is nice

[tuffy]

I'm switching over to SuSE since the professional Athlon64 version is within the budget of mortals. Red Hat's Advance Server 3.0 for workstations (the cheapest they've got with Athlon64 support) costs $792(!) which is out of my league.

Re:The Athlon64 support is nice

[Anonymous Coward]

Mandrake 9.2 is supposed to come with an AMD64 version too (although how soon remains to be seen - there is a Cooker version for it anyway)

sun

[minus_273]

hmm in wonder how this compares to sun's mad hatter which has also been getting alot of press these days

Isn't it wonderful..

[Ceadda]

How they always try to blame the lack of support for NTFS, and windows not reading linux partitions, on linux? Wouldn't this be Windows fault for not bothering to admit there are other operatating systems in the world that people might need to use now and then?

Leave us alone

[Anonymous Coward]

We all know this is based on a Kinks song.

wrong, you can download in iso

[justins]

It tends to come out after the box, however. And it doesn't include the entire distro. It's mostly just a bootstrap to get the installation going, the rest is downloaded over the net.

Also, do they actually think that people buy it since they can't download an install iso instead of just using a differnet distro like drake?

Anyone who has used SuSE won't switch to a toy like Mandrake.

Nice upgrade

[AaronW]

As a long-time SuSE Linux user it sounds like 9 is a nice upgrade. I've already ordered the upgrade from 8.2 to 9.

My experience with SuSE was that 8.0 was good, 8.1 was buggy, and 8.2 has been quite stable. They addressed many of my complaints about missing modules in YaST in 9.0, which is good. I also like the fact that they're using GCC 3.3.1, which IMO is *much* more stable than 3.3 or the pre-3.3 SuSE included in 8.2 (although 3.3.2 was just released).

I've already upgraded my SuSE 8.2 to use KDE 3.1.4 (which is available via FTP from the supplementary section of the SuSE FTP site (and mirrors), and have found it to be quite stable. It looks like SuSE 9.0 is basically just an evolutionary step from 8.2. I think the release number should really have been 8.3, although I guess they're under pressure from Redhat. I also like the fact that they backport a lot of features from the 2.6 kernel back to 2.4 (the SuSE kernel scheduler is basically taken straight from 2.6). When Linus came out with the interactive patch that makes X much more responsive I was able to verbatim take the patch and apply it to the SuSE Linux kernel.

I also love the fact that SuSE comes on DVD. It's nice to not have to swap between lots of CDs when installing various packages.

And finally, YaST is a great tool that always surprises me. Last night I went to enable telnet and rlogin support on a machine in our lab (security is no issue) in xinetd and Yast immediately requested that I install the appropriate CD and installed the RPM packages required (they were not already installed).

-Aaron

9.0?

[jasonditz]

This sounds a lot more like 8.3 to me.

They upped from 7.x to 8.x when we got into KDE 3... there's no tremendous new version of anything important except YaST.

Re:9.0?

[ckuehnast]

SuSE's version numers actually have a meaning - they are linked to the release date.
9.0 just means "ninth year, first release".
This explains why there has never been a SuSE x.5 or higher in all those years...

Re:9.0?

[riggwelter]

[Former SuSE employee]

The release numbers are basically decided by the marketing department, to not appear to be a major version behind RH/Mandrake.

Also, there is one very significant change, RPM has been upgraded to 4.1.1 from 3.0.6 in 8.2

You Can download Bootleg Suse9 ISOs

[Anonymous Coward]

lots of bittorent files for SuSE 9 out there
(5 CD images 3.6 GB)
Check it out!

this review linked to...

[mantera]

feels like an infomercial

OT: Rollover images in a review?

[WoTG]

SuSE 9.0 sounds interesting. Maybe it's time I give SuSE a roll.

On an OT note, that's a different approach to doing graphs, using two images and some rollover javascript. I must say, it didn't work for me. I kept mistaking them for adverts.

Go ahead, mod this down now...

Misinformed, basly

[Anonymous Coward]

He mentions many features that have already been in 8.2 and lables them as new, such as KDE control center integration.

ISO's

[Anonymous Coward]

The ISOs are on suprnova if anyone wants them. It is the 5cd set they are selling as the professional version on their site.

Re:ISO's

[jvervloet]

The ISOs are on suprnova if anyone wants them. It is the 5cd set they are selling as the professional version on their site.

Here is a link. Does anybody know how legal this is?

SuSe to announce hot stuff next week ???

[Anonymous Coward]

While wandering the web I discovered that SUSE will be featured during a press conference organized by Objectweb on Linux World in Germany next week.

So : SuSe announces version 9 Professional & SuSe is a guest star of an ObjectWeb press conference.

Do the math !

WHO MODDED PARENT UP?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Bzzzt wrong! Many European countries, especially in Scandinavia, have a far better network infrastructure, and the bandwidth is cheaper.

Quit trolling.

My experience with SuSE

[Anonymous Coward]

I went and bought SUSe personal. That was a mistake.

"If you are a geek, according to suse, you should be getting the professional package".

I don't know whom the "personal" is aimed for but it sucks. Many things missing. No ftp client, no serial communication software, sources missing etc. Generally it sucks.

Anyway, that personal/professional distinction does not make much sense in the linux world. It should be:

newbie/geek/giga-server-admin

Re:My experience with SuSE

[bigredmed]

The most important thing SuSe 8.2 Personal Ed. is missing is decent customer support. Very European (lazy, and really unhelpful.) The online site has no useful help functions. The email site will only help with the actual install. (So if you are up enough to send an email, then they won't help you.) The phone site is only open from 9 to 3 M-F, so I can't call from my desk at home to go over a problem with it in front of me. They don't cover USB devices, so I can't get help installing my Visor. Their paid service will also not cover the visor install or other USB install issues. They refered me to a listserv that appears to be run or atleast frequented by SuSe programmers, but no one ever replies to a post. If SuSe ran their customer service like Microsoft, it would be geometric improvement, and you know how little that would mean to the average user... Two things this experience has taught me: 1. SuSe is not a company I want to do business with. 2. Software reviewers need to start including customer service in their reviews. (Had I known that SuSe sucked at customer support, I would have looked at Mandrake or stuck with a Debian distro like Knoppix or Morphix. No customer service, but none advertised or expected.)

SuSE 9.0 download links on edonkey/emule

[Anonymous Coward]

suse 9.0 pro has been available for long on p2p now.

suse support is so bad, i wouldnt pay a dime for their stuff. better get debian instead. but if u really need it, here it is:

ed2k://|file|SuSE-linux-9.0-professional-x86-cd- 1- of-5.iso|681414656|618C8AE39FDC9C75C662CCD2FDD8F43 8|/

ed2k://|file|SuSE-linux-9.0-professional-x86-cd- 2- of-5.iso|676446208|A3CE4C17C3B8B9F22746A87F8BB92C7 A|/

ed2k://|file|SuSE-linux-9.0-professional-x86-cd- 3- of-5.iso|681226240|A9B86CC3FE65D13D0C938D5FB4AECD6 5|/

ed2k://|file|SuSE-linux-9.0-professional-x86-cd- 4- of-5.iso|676933632|D90F3730D97078E965306D178CFEFDF 0|/

ed2k://|file|SuSE-linux-9.0-professional-x86-cd- 5- of-5.iso|681095168|EA0112A622844DC323A25E4A7209943 0|/

(beware of the slashdot extra space in long lines... )

I want it bad

[Ripplet]

Sounds great, and I'm about to order it.

But can anybody tell me the difference between the full professional version and the upgrade? As far as I can make out from the website, the only difference is that with the upgrade you don't get the user manual.

Does it actually check during the install if you have a previous version? Hey, if it does that's fine with my, I have a full 7.3, I was just wondering though. I mean, if it doesn't, why doesn't everybody just get the upgrade version, or shouldn't I be saying that?

(I seem to remember pulling that trick with an edition of Delphi once, when someone helpfully informed me that the only difference between the upgrade and the full version was the box they came in!)

Re:I want it bad

[dremspider]

I want it bad too. I ordered it when it was first announced. I can't tell you what SuSE, no I am sorry they are now SUSE, is doing but I can tell you what happened with me and 8.2. I ordered the upgrade, and they said it had one less manual. When I got it their was no difference at all, the manuals were all their and everything. Not once does it check for the disk. I can't tell you for sure that they are going to do that again, but maybe they are.

Re:I want it bad

[Anonymous Coward]

The upgrade has the adminstration guide only. DVD and CD set is same as full version, no checks.

No support from SuSE unless you really ARE upgrading though. Fair enough.

Re:I want it bad

[Ripplet]

>No support from SuSE unless you really ARE upgrading
Ah yes, that makes sense, and in fact I also just noticed that the support you do get is 60 days as opposed to 90 days.
Right, well, I've ordered it, and even got a couple of the small geekos for the kids, nothing like getting them started early eh?

Cheers.

Re:I want it bad

[Frodo420024]

But can anybody tell me the difference between the full professional version and the upgrade?

I checked with my distributor, and the disk set is identical. No 'Check for previous version' sillyness. What differs are the manuals - you get an upgrade manual that (presumably) outlines the main differences from the previous version. I think this is in good Linux / Open Source spirit. The price diff is less than I'd pay for two Linux books at my bookstore anyway, and I'm very content to let the excess money go to a useful company (as opposed to .. well, nevermind :)

In my case, I have a 7.0 Personal on the shelf (had good manuals also), and am picking up a 9.0 Pro full version next week. The package list of the Pro version also appeals, there's some stuff in there (mostly video) I've tried to install independently before, with very limited luck.

Looks like we have happy competition between SuSE and RedHat - keep rockin'!

RTFA and RTF Website (RTFWs?)

[Anonymous Coward]

SUSE site clearly states support parameters.

2ish yrs ago I had a support email exchange with suse.de and was 'helped' with my particular issue.

MY Support ISSUE is that SUSE only does install support for 60/90 days - STARTING from the date of the release - Not from when the product is purchased!!! I bought (with real money) a version (8.1 I think it was..) and it was already out of the support time frame when I went to install it the first time.

That was my experience - YMMV.....

I'm in everything you eat,

[Anonymous Coward]

cause everything you eats got FLAVA

Suse 9.0 seems so zzzzlow

[LokiOfRagnar]

I am installing SUSE 9.0 on my new Asus M3700N but it seems so slow... anybody else experiencing the same zzzlowness?

NPTL Support?

[lateefj]

Does anyone know if suse 9 supports NPTL?

Buy one, install many!

[Frodo420024]

Just found this:

Furthermore, no license costs are incurred for the installation on multiple machines or for software subject to the GPL (General Public License).

on their 10 reasons to switch page. Cool.

no 9.0 for me and my laptop.

[timerider]

I just gave it a try...

and I will put 8.2 back on that laptop tomorrow.

Reasons:

• a simple reboot and X11 font antialiasing stopped working.
• compiling a little program while connected via a vnc session crashed it so badly, i needed to reboot into a rescue cd and run reiserfsck --rebuild-tree, thus clearing /home of some essential files.

'nuff said.