More SUSE Linux 9.1 Reviews

JoshuaTreeCA writes "Adam Doxtater of Mad Penguin has published another excellent review... this time on the newest SUSE Linux 9.1 beta-release. This release comes complete with the latest GNOME and KDE enviroments as well as being the first distro to present a retail package built on kernel 2.6.4 Check out the review, with screenshots." rokzy also wrote in with another review from NeoLink Computers.

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[Whafro]

Here ya go

SuSE 9 seems to dislike USB mice

[mfearby]

I just installed SuSE 9 and I must say I was very impressed... right up until the point that the mouse (which worked fine during install) didn't work on the second boot, then wouldn't work when KDE started. Had to start YaST to reconfigure it but had to reboot before it would work. THEN the mouse just stopped working after I clicked the apply button after choosing the icq2 icon scheme in gnomeicu.

I'm guessing USB mouse support still hasn't made it's way into Linux in a robust form yet?

This is pretty bad - so bad, in fact, that I'm now back in Windows XP because it, at least, knows how to understand what is now an old thing like USB mice!

Re:SuSE 9 seems to dislike USB mice

[Anonymous Coward]

I just installed SuSE 9 and I must say I was very impressed... right up until the point that the mouse (which worked fine during install) didn't work on the second boot, then wouldn't work when KDE started.

This is a known bug in KDE. Try calling it a Kmouse instead of a mouse; that should fix your problem.

Re:SuSE 9 seems to dislike USB mice

[Plutor]

> I'm guessing USB mouse support still hasn't made it's way into Linux in a robust form yet?

I've been using my USB mouse totally flawlessly on my laptop for the better part of the year. I've grown out of distributions like SuSE and Redhat exactly because of your reaction. Selecting "USB mouse" doesn't work, must be Linux's crappy support!

I recognize that's what most people are looking for, I'm just saying, I hate the feeling of not knowing how something works on my computer, and worse yet is not knowing how something is broken on my computer.

Re:SuSE 9 seems to dislike USB mice

[cdc179]

USB mouse support has worked great in GNU/Linux for a while now. This is just something on SuSe's side.

Make sure that your kernel has HID support.

Re:SuSE 9 seems to dislike USB mice

[pantherace]

USB mouse support in linux has been as robust or more robust than Windows for quite a while. What usually is the problem is the distribution's config tools.

So have you bothered to file a bug report about it with SuSE? Or just decide to cluelessly bash Linux on /.?

Check /etc/X11/XF86Config for which device the mouse is using, and you have two options:
/dev/input/mice - ALL mice (USB, PS/2, busmouse) connected to the system. This is what most people will want. (With some kernels there is a delay before Xfree starts to get the input.)
/dev/input/mouseX (where X is a number starting at 0) - a specific mouse. Which may be what SuSE set up, and if so and it disconnected for any reason, the number would go up. (This is useful say when a trackpoint goes out on a laptop, to specify only the trackpad/external mouse, also the AllowMouseOpenFail option is a good option when using this)

With Windows, USB mouse support seems flaky. I haven't extensively used XP (seems not to support Compaq Presario 1700s well at all: blue screen city.), but 2000 certainly doesn't detect all mice when you plug them in. But then I suppose Windows USB mouse support is a WORKSFORYOU resolution if it were in bugzilla. :)

Re:SuSE 9 seems to dislike USB mice

[mm0mm]

I've been using SuSE for a while (currently 8.2), and I've had similar problem with the last couple of edition of SuSE when I was installing it on laptops. By default YaST doesn't configure 2 mice (touch pad + usb) set up, and only SaX does. But the problem is when I configure mice using SaX, YaST will overwrite the mice config file after reboot. If you ever need to reconfigure mice setup, NEVER use sax.

I believe it did support dual mice during installation, but after the installation was finished, USB mouse was not working properly for some reasons.

anyway, I usually end up making changes in the config file(XF86Config) by text editor/vi so the mice will work properly. You just need to add one more input device in it. I love suse, but I have to admit configuring mice on SuSE can be a pain.

Re:SuSE 9 seems to dislike USB mice

[cozziewozzie]

The annoying thing about SuSE is that, although they always put out an amazing distribution, there is always some sort of showstopping glitch that gets through and annoys the hell out of its users.

In 7.3, for example, the SuSE firewall started before eth0, so it didn't work unless you edited the startup scripts by hand. They fixed it in the next version. Now the USB mouse doesn't work, although it worked in all the previous versions. I think that every SuSE version I've tried had some glitch like this (8.2 has some issues with the automounter). Which is annoying because in all other respects, SuSE is a top distribution, and this makes them look like amateurs.

Debian to suse

[qwertyatwork]

A few days ago I installed suse on a blank hard drive to find an alternative to debian for my desktop. I was impressed by the hardware detection, but yast was slow! It took forever to pull up. I tried mandrake to, I wasnt impressed at all. Is yast slow for everybody, or just me?

For those who don't RTFAs

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is the basic jist of things:

GUI looks good.
Some things work, some don't.
Pretty desktops.
Looks faster then the previous version.
Screenshoots of the desktop provided.
I did not like this bit or that.
But at the end of the day it worked for me.
If you're shit with computers, stick with..oh never mind.
More pretty desktops.
Wait for the next version.
Some bugs, but overall germ free.
I give it a rating of **** out of *

Now who do I talk to about my pay cheque for doing this.

KDE? GNOME?

[Anonymous Coward]

This article's been up for over quarter of an hour now and... where's the KDE v Gnome flamewar? Did everyone suddenly grow up or something? You guys are no fun any more :(

Kernel responsiveness to user input

[Anonymous Coward]

One thing I REALLy want from a computer is for it to be extremely responsive in whatever it is I'm doing. In other words, the "top" applcation that I'm working in (or switching to) should always get top priority; I don't want to wait for the machine.

The other day, a friend directly connected his G3 iBook to my 1.4Ghz P-M laptop over 100mbit ethernet. As he copied large files from me, my computer bogged down and was unusable. Just switching windows to something already open was painful to watch. His iBook, though, just hummed along - he could switch to other apps and use them just fine. Very frustrating.

So....would the Linux kernel 2.6.x be extremely responsivle to user input, no matter what else is going on?

Re:Kernel responsiveness to user input

[Some Bitch]

So....would the Linux kernel 2.6.x be extremely responsivle to user input, no matter what else is going on?

I can only speak from personal experience but I find KDE 3.2.1 + Kernel 2.6.5 pretty hard to slow down. Even with a large emerge going on in the background (processor at 100%) and XMMS doing it's thing (along with the usual 20 zillion apps open) I still find my desktop as responsive as when the processor is idling. Things slow a little if it starts paging to disk but with 512MB RAM that doesn't happen often.

Serial-ATA

[moonbender]

At work we're considering buying a new (low end) Dell server which uses S-ATA hard drives. It's supposed to house a SuSE Linux system in the future. However, I'm not sure how well Linux in general, and SuSE in particular works with Serial-ATA drives, especially when there's nothing but Serial-ATA available - ie. the installer would need to work with it, as well.

The best resource I found was this page, but it doesn't help me a lot, either. The server would be a Dell Poweredge 750 running the Intel 7210 chipset, which supports S-ATA.

The system which the new server should replace is currently running SuSE Pro 8.1, which I am fairly certain does not support S-ATA - but does SuSE 9.x?

Re:Serial-ATA

[arkhan_jg]

linux in general works fine with SATA drives if you're using the 2.6 kernel (they're under device drivers/scsi device support/low level drivers) and as the page you link says, there's the same libata patch for the 2.4 kernel series.

Having done a quick google, it appears the suse 9.0 cd has the support for sata controllers if you type 'apic' at the boot screen. (presumably that's the kernel with the drivers compiled in)

So the one remaining question is if the 7210 chipset is one of the supported ones.

This thread is a patch for the 2.4.26-rc1 kernel piix driver (the one which treats the drive like hda, rather the scsi emulation libata lib_piix which treats it as sda, and is what the 2.6 kernel uses)

Basically, it looks like it's a minor varient of the ICH5 chipset (which is well supported), so if the 7210 isn't supported yet by Jeff Garziks' libata, it soon will be.

At worst, you'll have to install with the sata controller in legacy mode (pretending to be a normal ide master/slave controller), setup a new or patched kernel, and change the bios back to enhanced mode afterwards.

Don't forget, Dell sell their poweredge servers with redhat enterprise - and if redhat supports that chipset, suse likely will too. The simplest route is probably just to email Dell's corporate tech support, and ask if the sata on that model is supported in linux yet. (jeff garzik may work for redhat, he's certainly got a redhat email address, though I hesitate to recommend emailing him directly)

You could also email SuSE, either tech support or one of the mailing lists (suse-linux-e@suse.com iirc, the full list is at lists.suse.com, it's been a while since I used SuSE)

As a quick addendum, avoid the nasty onboard RAID 0/1 on these mainboards. It's like a winmodem, most of the work is done in the closed driver, and the linux support is pretty weak at best.

You're by far and away better off using the sata drives 'standalone' then using the linux native md RAID support to RAID individual partitions. The only time you'd need the closed drivers would be if you were dual booting with windows using the onboard RAID.

Correction regarding Gnome.

[FreeLinux]

SuSE 9.1 beta does not come with the latest Gnome (2.6) it comes with Gnome 2.4 because 2.6 was released too late to make it into SuSE 9.1 beta. However, Gnome 2.6 will likely be available from SuSE as a separate download.

Don't you remember Joe Barr's pathetic whining about Gnome and SuSE 9.1 beta in his Quick Look article. Possibly the worst review ever written.

Re:Where can I find a 9.1 download?

[gmuslera]

The problem is not where, but when. The FTP version usually goes "public" after a month or so of the official release, and I suppose that the betas are only released to selected testers.

Re:Where can I find a 9.1 download?

[FreeLinux]

The 9.1 beta is a special release that was opened up to members of the press. It is on a restricted access server. SuSE typically does not make its betas available for download like Red Hat use to with Rawhide. Additionally, SuSE typically releases new versions in boxed sets first and then makes it available by ftp about a month later.

You will probably not be able to get a hold of 9.1 until the first week in May, when you can buy the boxed set. Early June will probably be your first chance to download SuSE 9.1

So much for the review...

[pair-a-noyd]

65 comments and the site folds..
Well, nevertheless..

I for one will be buying 9.1 professional.
I use 9.0 pro now and am very happy with it.
I tried bringing it up with the 2.6 kernel and KDE 3.2 but wasn't happy with that. Things didn't integrate well so I backed it down to a stock 9.0 package and all is well.

Having them integrate all the goodies ensures that everything will work as expected and I'm more than happy to wait (what else can you do?) for 9.1

I'll be traveling over to Fry's to pick up my package of 9.1 Pro when it hits the shelf.
I want the DVD and CD's and books and support. And I don't mind at all paying for it because in my 27 years of working with/on computers, Suse is the BEST operating system package I have used. Everything else is just second rate and inferior.

SUSE logo changed?

[joeseph schmo]

Maybe slashdot should update the SUSE topic icon.

It looks like the lizard has been put on a diet (suse.com).

Oh, and two of his legs have been chopped off...