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Suse 9.1 Reviews?
Bruha asks: "There have been several reviews of SuSE 9.1 lately in the online press. However I'd like to hear what the buying public has to say about Novell's first release of SuSE since buying the company. I'm currently typing this article from SuSE 9.1 x86_64 and I have to say past a few quirks I'm really starting to love this distro and admire how polished it has become since 8.2 my last SuSE purchase. What are other's opinions of the software after trying it out and what problems and new things have you discovered? And if you're sticking with it after a move from another distro why did you decide to stick?"
I almost agree with you. It's that little "apart from license and money reasons" thing that gets me. Of course, apart from money reasons, I'd be using a PowerBook 17".
Really, I can almost like XP, so long as I can switch the interface back to "Classic Mode" it's fairly usable. But if I don't like the way MS' designers decided that people should use computers, I'm out of luck for changing it. With Linux, I can do a lot at the command line, where I'm comfortable (if not talented), and when running KDE (which is most of the time), I can configure it to do a lot of stuff that I can't do (or it costs money to add the software for) on Windows.
And, as far as the "just works" part, so do a lot of Linux distros. Pick any one of the major distros and you've got a fully-confgured, ready to run system about twenty minutes after starting your installation. The basic software is good (Open Office, Mozilla, Evolution, etc.), and a user that just wants to get by with whatever they're handed is not left wanting for much. And, mind you, I don't say that derisively. With any modern OS (okay, the major three: Windows, MacOS, Linux), the basic distro includes enough software for most users. On Windows you should really add MS Works and on MacOS add AppleWorks and the iLife packages, but without ranging too far or spending an exhorbitant amount of money, lots of functionality is at hand.
But for me, supporting freedom in an OS is important. Microsoft would go a long way toward dowsing the fire of contempt that's burning at their door if they released their core OS (without any add-ons like Paint or Wordpad or any of the myriad extras they put into their distro) as Open Source and sold what are now XP Home, Pro and Server as commercialized add-on packages with support options.
But that's just me. I'm really looking forward to what Novell is going to do once they've integrated SUSE, Ximian and their previous software (NetWare, NDS, GroupWise, etc) into one software line.
The Spoon
Updated 6/28/2011
1) Some people like configuring and building things from scratch, Linux gives them that power.
2) No artificially forced hardware upgrades. Linux can still run on a 486 with 32MB of Ram and make it usefull again, will XP?
3) Linux is being constantly improved on a daily basis. The next version of Windows won't be out till 2006. Maybe.
4) Linux doesn't monitor your internet activity and report back to it's creators without your knowledge as a standard practice.
5) Linux is being developed by people who love computers and programming, always eager to find new solutions to your problems. Windows is being developed by people who love your money and want to find new ways to seperate you from it.
6) Linux is packaged and sold by dozens of companies willing to cater to any market and customize their software as necessary. Windows is sold by one corporation unwilling to change except for its largest customers. Your needs are immaterial to them.
7) When you develop software for Linux the market is open to competition. When you develop software for Windows you're constantly looking over your shoulder for Microsoft to decide your enough of a threat that they need to crush you.
8) Linux gives the user unlimited options to configure their system as they wish. Microsoft grudgingly gives limited ability to customize it's software and ties many of it tools to each other in convoluted knots meant to keep the user from straying to other vendors.
9) Linux adheres to open, published standards whenever possible ensuring that your data is easily transportable to other programs or operating systems. Microsoft 'improves' published standards with proprietary unpublished changes that lock you into their software and make moving to other vendors or OSes a logistics nightmare.
10) Linux doesn't make bold advertising campaigns about the new features that will be in it's next release, force VARs and developers to start training and preparing for those new features so that they can be ready to market and then slowly whittle down or outright dump those features because they have become unfeasable/obsolete/unprofitable as the release date gets pushed farther and farther back.
Well, I don't know--haven't measured speeds & figured out percentages, so I can't say if my ~400 MHz PII box runs faster or slower on Gentoo than it did under Win 98, then Mandrake, then Red Hat, then Debian, then SuSE, but I can measure two things:
1. I've run it longer on Gentoo, and more frequently (no more dual boot) than I did on any previous Linux distribution, probably because:
2. I've learned more about Linux than I did on any of the previous distributions.
So, maybe it isn't faster, but I am, and steadier. That's the advantage I've found--I'm better able to figure out why things don't work--& everywhere, always, something doesn't work in this world (former mechanic).
Makes me happy.