'Sneak Preview' of SUSE 9.1

Roblimo writes "SUSE 9.1 won't be out until May, but Joe Barr got access to a 'secret' beta download and tried it out. He liked some of what he saw, and found things he didn't like, too, but is willing to overlook some of the negatives because, he points out, 'This is a beta. Bugs are expected. Work will be done before it goes gold.' The review's at Linux.com." Linux.com and Slashdot are both part of OSDN.

Comments

Much Needed

[artlu]

I have never been a huge SUSE fan because of their somewhat commercialized attitude, and based on the screenshots from the article it looks like this version is going to be no exception. However, if it gets more linux users on the wagon, go for it!

My $0.02.

Re:Much Needed

[richmaine]

"Based on the screenshots"? Did you read a different article than I did? I saw one screenshot, which showed nothing particulary commercial.

The article discussed some objectionable commercial stuff, but I have trouble fathoming your "based on the screenshots".

Re:Much Needed

[halosfan]

Well, some of us are not really huge fans of any OS/distro, as we are just trying to get the work done. And as far as getting work done, SuSE, in my experience, has always been worth its price. I personally view it the way I view German cars: well thought-out design, excellent engineering and superb build quality let me spend more time using the product rather than maintaining it.

Just say no to OSNews

[Gothmolly]

Mod me offtopic, but I for one, welcome a review from someone other than OSNews. Why? Because I want a review containing real information, not gripes about screen antialiasing, the (in)ability to compile packages, and GRUB vs. LILO flamewars.

Re:Just say no to OSNews

[Ubernurd]

I agree that the article was pretty detail deficient. What have they changed "under the hood" in this version? Just as a random example: If I want to manually reconfigure something, do I have to do it in three places and then find out that my changes were undone because I didn't go through the GUI config tool? I haven't used SuSe for a while, so I don't know what the current issues are with it but you get the idea. While, I'm sure the mountain photo is really cool, I'd appreciate some more "techie" details.

Re:Just say no to OSNews

[Angry Pixie]

For fuck's sake, anti-aliasing is very much a tech issue. No all of us wear glasses. Those of us who don't would like to avoid needing to in the future. When you spent hours late at night, everynight, reading reports and calculating figures, anti-aliasing makes it possible to get by without a bottle of eye drops and an Advil. Human interface design is a science, not a cutesy artform with the sole goal of producing 3D icons and splash screens.

Can we have some too?

[baudilus]

It would be nice if they offered the beta version for public use, eh?

I prefer GNOME, so I guess we'll have to wait until the release. I'll share the ISOs too, I'll just strap on my backpack and share the wealth!

Re:Can we have some too?

[PepsiProgrammer]

I doubt it will be much different than suse 9.0 with the 2.6.4 kernel and a few updated packages.

Im currently running SUSE 9.0 with the suse 2.6.4 kernel, and Ximian Desktop Unstable (Gnome 2.6 :)) and its a pretty sweet desktop combination, unfortunately SUSE 9.0 doesnt handle wireless that well, and some hotplugging functionality got lost when I upgraded it to 2.6.4.

Here's looking forward to 9.1

Re:Can we have some too?

[NighthawkFoo]

You have to be a SuSE partner to get a copy of the ISO's. I've got access to them, but sharing is explicitly forbidden.

"Dumbing" Down?

[sirmikester]

The next least favorite thing for me was the dumbing down of menus to a single choice of application, especially when I found myself disagreeing with the choice in almost every instance.

I don't think a new user of a linux system would mind having some simple defaults to choose for. Since SUSE is aiming to please more than just hard core linux enthusiasts, I think that having a single choice is important.

Re:"Dumbing" Down?

[Maestro4k]

• I don't think a new user of a linux system would mind having some simple defaults to choose for. Since SUSE is aiming to please more than just hard core linux enthusiasts, I think that having a single choice is important.

The only thing bad about this is having only a single choice for apps is very much a Microsoft mind-set. We want to see Linux to succeed, but I don't think any of us want to see Novell/SuSE turn begin acting/thinking like Microsoft. There are ways to give choice while providing easy single options. For instance the first time you log in, a script could ask if you'd like to change what programs you use for chat/E-mail/Web Browsing/etc. If you're more familiar with Linux and have preferences you'd say yes and pick out your favs. If you're a newbie, or just don't care, you'd say no and get the default options. I doubt this would be terribly hard to do, and shouldn't confuse new users.

Re:"Dumbing" Down?

[KlomDark]

Absolutely, but have both "Default" (Dummy) and "Advanced" (Geek) buttons on the first page, with something like "If you are new to Linux, click Default or expect problems". Just because you are making it easier for new users is no reason to assume everyone is...

Re:"Dumbing" Down?

[rjstanford]

For instance the first time you log in, a script could ask if you'd like to change what programs you use for chat/E-mail/Web Browsing/etc.

Considering that this edition is aimed at least partially at first-time users... how do you expect them to know?

Computer: "Do you want to use Firefox or Galeon?"
User: WTF? This is weird... I just want to get the internet...

After all, its not as if they can't add other software in the future. Its like the classic Microsoft Help question, "This is the first time you've used help. What sort of database do you want me to build?" Meaningless and intrusive. You only get one chance to make a first impression, and giving unnecessary choices to the user is not the impression you want to make.

Remember, most people don't want to "use the computer." They just want to "get the TV listings," or "write a letter." Huge mindset difference.

Re:"Dumbing" Down?

[mortenmo]

The point is here (which some other people also pointed out) is that the personal edition is not for geeks. Geeks should buy the Professional "swiss-army" knife edition that got everything you could possibly want.

Personal should be for people who doesn't care or doesn't know enough to care; they just want to use the computer.

Re:"Dumbing" Down?

[Maestro4k]

• Considering that this edition is aimed at least partially at first-time users... how do you expect them to know?

  Computer: "Do you want to use Firefox or Galeon?"

  User: WTF? This is weird... I just want to get the internet...

Perhaps I didn't make myself clear, I agree that a question like that would confuse the hell out of newbies. What I had in mind was a question like:

Computer: "Would you like to choose a different program to browse the web with, or will the default be ok?"

except more of a single question that when you answered yes would take you to something to chose. If you said no, it'd just go away and that'd be that. Given that type of choice, most newbies would just accept the defaults, but power users could go in and tinker to their heart's content.

Re:"Dumbing" Down?

[zurab]

If you haven't used the recent (3.2+) versions of KDE, then you don't know what you are talking about or what that abomination of a "review" is probably referring to. In those recent versions of KDE, if there's only one item inside the menu group, then the sub-menu is not displayed. Rather, the name of the group is displayed and acts like a menu item that you can click on to run an app. When you do so, it runs an app that is the only entry under the menu group.

So, for example, if in the menu you have Internet->Chat group, and Chat group contains only Kopete entry under it, then when you click on K->Internet, the Chat entry will show up as an application item, rather than a sub-group, and clicking it will launch the only entry under it - Kopete. If you install more chat apps, or edit menu and add more entries under that group, then it will display as a sub-group.

What was to be expected anyway? KDE desktop with GNOME defaults? Did he expect GNOME to have KDE and QT app defaults? Did I mention the "review" was abysmal?

As far as I know, SUSE 9.1 is supposed to include the new KDEfied OpenOffice, better quickstarter, new KOffice. Is 2.6 kernel faster? How does OO.org look? Did the "reviewer" do anything other than try to click on the SUSE website links, documenting every banner ad and pop-up, and try to install xchat? What kind of a "review" is that?

Re:"Dumbing" Down?

[Brandybuck]

The year is 2104. The system is SuSE 99.1. Here is the conversation:

Joe: "Why is there only a single choice of application in every category?"

Bob: "Because we've always done it that way!"

Joe: "But why have we've always done it that way? There must be a reason."

Bob: "Because new users of Linux systems want simple defaults."

Joe: "New users? What new users? We've had in-utero Linux training for twenty years now! The average age of LCSEs is six!"

Bob: "They might want to thaw Ballmer out of cryo someday, and then we would have a new user."

Joe: "Ballmer? Isn't that the guy who invented the phrase 'having a single choice is important'?"

Re:"Dumbing" Down?

[Maestro4k]

• SuSE 'limiting' your choices? Oh that's funny, considering they have one of the largest distributions on the market. SuSE 9.0 fills an entire DVD before you add in the source files.

  ...

  Furthermore, SuSE/Novell are shooting for a corporate market and corporate markets do not want choice, they want a standard. Most sysadmins will further reduce the available choices even more.

If you've been reading the posts about this, the general feeling is that Barr was actually reviewing a beta of the Personal edition. That edition is NOT aimed at the corporate market, but at the individual user at home. As far as limiting choices, your comment about SuSE 9.0 filling up an entire DVD is a non sequitor, the DVD could be full of videos showing you how to configure things or some-such. I'll assume (because I'm pretty sure it's true) that it does come packed with software. That's great, now when Joe Average installs SuSE and it boots up with all his programs set and doesn't even ask him if he'd like to change them, where's the choices? Joe Average won't even realize there are alternate choices ON the DVD, much less how the hell to change the defaults.

It's this type of attitude that hinders Linux adoption by the general public. You seem to forget that the vast majority of computer users are doing good to find the power switch some days. We can't assume we know which programs are good for them either, because if they feel like the only program they can use to browse the web is Konqueror and they absolutely hate it, then they're probably going to hate Linux and go back to Windows. That'd be a shame because they might find Mozilla/Firefox to be perfect for them if only they knew there were choices and could figure out how to change them.

Having something offer to allow you to change the defaults not only allows power users to change the defaults, it alerts the user that there ARE alternatives if they don't like the default. Then they'll know to look for a way to change it, and not only may end up loving linux for it, but will learn more about linux as they look for and find how to change their defaults.

As far as complaining, I certainly wasn't. You sound like you're complaining because someone dared say SuSE wasn't perfect though, so calm down. SuSE's doing great, we're just commenting on things that could make it even better. Everything can be improved, so don't even try saying SuSE's perfect as is.

Re:"Dumbing" Down?

[Finuvir]

Why ask at all? Just make it possible for power users to change their prefered programs (which I assume it is). Don't bother people with pop-up questions, just let them do what they want to do. Yes, people will usually just pick the default, but it'll make them uneasy. They won't know that they're making the right choice, and they may very well think they're making irreversible descisions. It's better just not to bother them.

Re:"Dumbing" Down?

[Finuvir]

Why would a geek need an 'advanced' button? Just make the power-user options less visible and the geeks will still find them but the novices won't. There's no need to ask for an experience level and list of qualifications before deciding what options to offer a user. Besides, how does the user know what the developers consider 'advanced'? I'm sure I'd want some of the advanced options, but I'm new enough to Linux. Which should I choose?

Re:"Dumbing" Down?

[Archibald Buttle]

Don't forget that your average new user would have absolutely no idea what "Firefox" or "Galeon" is. They could be just about anything, as could "Mozilla" and "Konqueror". In fact they all sound like game titles.

Apple is just as bad with "Safari", although in most other areas they're better with "Mail", "iTunes", "iChat" etc.

Microsoft on the other hand has "Internet Explorer" which kind of makes sense for a web browser, but "Outlook Express" doesn't make much sense to me as an email program.

There's plenty of examples of applications with duff names that don't really match what they do which all serves to make computers seem strange and complicated to the uninitiated. Whilst we may all know they're not really that complicated they look complicated which puts people off.

Default choices are most definitely a good thing. Providing users with a limited set of options presented in a plain and clear manner is also a good thing, but defaults are generally better.

Advanced options are fine, but for about 95% of users they're useless, and the remaining 5% will only want to use them rarely. Why expose the 95% to needless complexity when it will only alienate them?

It's similar to the old RISC vs CISC debate - in a CISC instruction set about 5% of the instructions were used 95% of the time. The RISC people saw this as a big opportunity and concentrated on doing that 5% really well, and sure enough their initial chips were much faster than their CISC equivalents.

Interesting screenshot

[tverbeek]

The "My Computer" icon shows Tux sitting in front of what could only be... an iMac. Is this somebody's idea of a joke? A peek at Novell/Suse's long-range goals? A rogue OS-X-boosting employee waiting to be slapped down? Inquiring minds....

Re:Interesting screenshot

[blackmonday]

Does SUSE make a PowerPC edition? If so it's not unreasonable to think someone could install it on an iMac. At least they didn't use an aluminum G5 case as the icon.

SUSE 9.1 Professional

[Karma Sucks]

He doesn't say whether he reviewed SUSE 9.1 Personal or Professional.

Fact is, it sounds like he reviewed SUSE Personal which is geared to novice users and with the "one task, one app" philosophy. No wonder it has only KDE and various spit-and-polish suitable for novices. By cutting out the cruft SUSE because all the more usable for this demographic.

Fact is, Joe Barr isn't a novice user so he's going around looking for stuff that isn't there. SUSE 9.1 Personal provices a swiss-army knife selection of choices including GNOME. So he should use Professional instead of Personal if that's what he's looking for.

JDS?

[AKAImBatman]

Suse and GNOME? It will probably end up being a lot like Java Desktop System. The demo CD of JDS I've tried is niiice. It's fast, smooth, and even detects 3D hardware automatically. I have not once been to the console in it or experienced an unexpected crash.

likes?

[viniosity]

After RTFA I can't say I saw much of what he liked about 9.1. "The next least favorite thing for me.."

I've never used SuSE before but, beta or no, this hardly encourages me to give it a try. Not that that's so bad.. there's a distro for everyone after all.. still I would have liked to hear more about the integration of Ximian and SuSE under Novell's stewardship.

Re:likes?

[Quantum Jim]

FYI, SuSE produces Knoppix-like bootable CD called "SUSE LINUX for i386 Live-Eval". I revieved a copy via a magazine. It is kinda slow and not the best for using from the CD-ROM, but it provides a good intro and demo of SuSE Linux without having to install it to your hard drive.

Notes: I recommend that you try it if you have enough memory - 256MB isn't enough,but 512MB or 768MB should work well (since it has to be loaded into RAM with no HDD install). I perfer Fedora Core 1, but my advice should give you an easy way to try SuSE.

Unable to resist...

[panurge]

Well, now IBM is chummying up to Novell who now own SuSe (how long will the umlaut last?) and planning open source processors to run Linux, the Grand Plan is coming to fruition.

OS X for creative types under the sky
Solaris for server farms in halls of stone
Windows for mortal men doomed to die
Linux for Big Blue on his deep blue throne
In the land of East Fishkill where the big fabs lie.
Suse to package it, Reiser to file it
Novell to service it, Gnu to compile it
In the land of East Fishkill where the big fabs lie

light on details

[kbrannen]

Ok, it's a beta; but could we have a few more details? #1 on my list is: What's it like with the 2.6 kernel?

Closely followed by how is the driver scene and hardware compatibility list is, what X version is being used, and so on.

The hard thing will be having to wait for this release. :-) If it's coming out in early May in Germany, it'll be the 3rd or 4th week of May before it gets to the US. Or at least that's how it's been historically. It'll be interesting to see if Novell's recent ownership changes that.

PowerPC

[Goo.cc]

Does SUSE still make a PowerPC version of their OS? I seem to remember one being announced but I didn't see it in their online store.

Yawn...

[Rick Zeman]

...Yet Another KDE vs Gnome and Dependency Hell Article. Can't call it a review, contrary to the billing....
Personally, I prefer KDE, but that's like saying I prefer dental surgery with a hammer and chisel vs. brain surgery with the same implements.

Installing Gnome on SuSe

[Tarantolato]

It's relatively painless if you do the Ximian Red Carpet install from the Ximian site.

Yeah...

[bonch]

...heaven forbid someone complain about something non-techies consider important, like poor anti-aliasing, the inability to compile packages, and the usability of GRUB and LILO.

I read a review once where Eugenia complained about the spacing between menus. Yes, believe it or not, those are things that graphics designers would care about because it has to do with subtle factors in user interaction.

But, go ahead and stick to the reviews that are techie-only if you wanna.

Re:Yeah...

[kkirk007]

99% of this article is complaining about configuring Gnome under SUSE. The average "non-techie" that you're jumping up to defend doesn't care whether their desktop is KDE or Gnome, so long as it works.

The system, aside from the small fonts on install, ran very well.

I agree with you though, I'd like to see some usability reviews from the POV of a non-techie. Especially considering ESR's recent criticism of Linux usability.

Re:The Problem With Linux

[boy_afraid]

I currently work as a notable figure in state politics, and I make over $90,000 a year. Most of the now Linux developers I tormented barely make it past rent.

Actually, that is the exception. All the fellow geeks I know, including myself, make more than your paultry (he he, tee hee) $90K. I scoff at your pay, it is WE who have the power. I pity you. Oh, and that pay doesn't include the extra money I make by whoring myself out for side jobs.

This review..

[jvagner]

..doesn't bother to explicate what makes SUSE any different from any other distro. Why not Fedora, or Mandrake? What makes SUSE, well, SUSE?

He never says.

Re:This review..

[RPoet]

You're too kind. This "review" provides no information at all. I'd like to hear about hardware integration, how well the distro specific tools worked and how well they fit with the desktop environment. This is just a brief story about one guy trying to make SUSE as much into Fedora as he could. All he says is "it came with KDE, so I installed GNOME, and it didn't go smoothly, but this was a beta anyway, bye."

Whoring?

[baudilus]

A / S / L?

Review?

[trtmrt]

This guy just installed SuSE 9.1 without Gnome (his choice) and then complained about not having Gnome and Gnome applications!? I have installed SuSE 8.0 and 8.2 (both home and pro) a couple of times and never had any problems installing Gnome (I prefer KDE but install Gnome just in case). I don't think it's very likely that they would brake YaST so bad that you can't install Gnome. Yes, it complains about dependencies but it resolves them and installs everything you need. SuSE is by far the easiest OS I have had to install (well apart from a bizzare NIC problem...).

SuSE is commerical - and that's good.

[DR SoB]

The Linux community _needs_ a vendor that is commerical based, it helps spread the word. I recently attended SHARE in L.A. and the only Linux retailer there was SuSE.

SHARE is mostly a mainframe conference but since z/OS (and s/390) now supports omvs (Unix System Services) it makes sense to start pushing more Linux.

I can recommend SuSE to some of my less technical friends and they will see that it's easy, and has good commerical support.

What a Rant

[adler187]

I really didnt like this review. He complained that the menus were too simple. I have used SUSE since 8.0 and am currently running 9. As far as the menu's go in 9, if you only have 1 app of a certain type, it defaults to renaming that app to whatever type it is. For example, in a default install you will only have Konquerer for a browser, so when you go to Internet->Web Browser, it will launch Konq. Now if you have Mozilla installed too, Web Brower will become a sub menu containing both Konq and Mozilla.

One way to get around the small font in the install he complained about was to change the resolution. Before you hit enter at the install bootloader, hit F3 (i think) and it will give you a list of resolutions to use. The menu is located at the bottom of the bootloader. He also complained that it didnt come with the stuff he wanted. Well cry me a river because you are a little more advanced than their target audience and are too lazy to install and configure the apps to your liking.

Also, in YAST there is an autocheck dependencies which should automatically resolve all dependencies when installing things, so he shouldn't have had to figure out what was not making his GNOME install. Maybe it is disabled for some reason in the beta, or maybe he didn't see the checkbox down there?

Maybe he should complain less and use the system more.

Re:Really Dumb Question

[iiioxx]

How do you pronounce Suse? I've never seen it anywhere...

Soo-SEH.

I've said it before ...

[DrugCheese]

And I'll say it untill something else replaces the fact that SuSE is the best all around distribution. From linux newbies looking to switch from windows for the very first time to system administrators needing to drop in a box here or there that they can setup and never think about again.

And if they need to think about it again they can remote administer it through YAST or SuSE's desktop sharing.

Re:I've said it before ...

[Homology]

And I'll say it untill something else replaces the fact that SuSE is the best all around distribution. From linux newbies looking to switch from windows for the very first time to system administrators needing to drop in a box here or there that they can setup and never think about again. Moreover, the so-called minimal install is not minimal when it insists on installing X and qt, when it should not.

And if they need to think about it again they can remote administer it through YAST or SuSE's desktop sharing.

Since I bought the last three SuSE Professional, it's fairly clear that I think it's a good distribution. The written documentation that is part of the package is very useful, and the Pro version contains two books (User Guide and Administration Guide) of about 1000 pages in total.

YAST is very nice, and one useful aspect is that it has a curses based counterpart for administration thorough SSH. However, I think that SuSE Pro is better as a desktop than server. You see, the configuration tools does not always work (say, Apache2 configuration is broken in SuSE 9.0). That would be OK, if not the entire configuration system with scripts and all is so opaque and hard to grok.

So, eventually I quite simply migrated over to OpenBSD. Much easier to administrate and understand what is actually going on.

SuSE Pro : desktop very good. As as server : not quite up to it, unless you want to run Java (SuSE is now a Source Partner with Sun)

But you're not running SUSE 9, per se...

[IANAAC]

Stock SUSE 9 comes with 2.4.21 and Gnome 2.2, in addition to the defaujlt wm KDE 3.1. I'd say you've changed your distribution quite a bit, really.

What?!

[srcosmo]

Only one screenshot??!

This is slashdot, guys! What are you trying to do, make me read the article??

Just say no to random babelling

[fm6]

Critiquing the quality of information in the article is hardly offtopic. My personal gripe is that the story is full of comments like, "KDE and Konqueror are OK, but I'd rather use Gnome and Mozilla." We all know that SuSE is KDE-centric, and that not everybody likes KDE, so what is he telling us that is of any interest? If you're going to do an unauthorized peek at a beta version of a product, you should use a writer who can actually talk about what's changed in the product. In the case of a Linux distro, that probably means a person who actually prefers that distro and uses it with most of its default options.

Re:Really Dumb Question

[eLoco]

Actually, it's closer to

SOO-zuh

(emphasis on SOO)

menu options

[zogger]

I like that idea a lot! Just expand on it easily. Menu *options*,and I don't mean emphasize "theming" and all that hoo-rah, the apps themselves, something like you get 3 choices a single click away, default-basic (one of everything basic, web, text reader/writer, media player, email client, chat client, etc), intermediate (more apps for different purposes, choices for each style of app),then power user with the entire kitchen sink in the menus, I mean every single last steenking teeny tiny app installed on the box.

I also think that every app should have an easy to read listing of WHERE all the files relating to the app are stored, so that if the user is confronted with having to go tweak into unknown land, they can at least find the file to tweak easily. That's the intermediate level that causes so much grief I think,(does for me anyway) going from pure point and click noob to intuitive command line.

Lame Lame Lame

[brunes69]

Disclaimer: I have viewed this Joe Barr guy as a complete lamer ever since his huge rant against MPlayer for not supporting his buggy GCC

This is a really really lame review. The whole thing can be summed up in about three lines:

"I installed SuSE Linux. The install went great, but I don't like KDE and none of my Gnome apps were installed off the bat, and I couldn't install them properly because I don't know how to work YaST, so it sucks. Hopefully this will be corrected when it goes gold".

Basically, he installs it, and is upset to find out that all the default apps are KDE apps. Well hello, SuSE has *always* been a KDE distro. And guess what, that is the exact same way *I* feel eevry time I am forced to install RedHat, and I have to use all Gnome apps.

If you want a Gnome-centric distro, why are you using SuSE at all?Another waste of everyone's time by Mr. Barr.

Good choices

[Tarantolato]

Personal Edition, on the other hand, is for "non-professionals" in home environments, and Novell/SUSE doesn't want to overwhelm these consumers with too many options, Schlaeger said.

Ya know, much as I'm a big gnomefanboy and all, I think this is a good choice. My girlfriend (big guineapig on all ease-of-use issues) gets freaked out when she sees two different [x] available.