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SUSE 9.1 Personal ISO Available For Free Download

Posted by timothy on from the that's-a-change dept.

twener writes "DistroWatch.com was the first to report that a complete, bootable, and installable ISO image of SUSE LINUX 9.1 Personal has appeared on SUSE's ftp server and its mirrors. No public announcement on SUSE's website is available yet. This is the first time ever that SUSE makes an ISO for i386 of one of its product flavors available. Don't forget that after installation you can install the packages of the SUSE 9.1 FTP version with GPL'ed YaST to gain an almost (commercial parts missing) SUSE 9.1 Professional installation."

18 of 187 comments (clear)

  1. Heh... by Xpilot · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I saw it just now and wondered what it was. It's only 1 CD though... is it the same as the boxed set of the SuSE Personal Edition, or did they leave stuff out?

    --
    "Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." -- Linus Torvalds
  2. So...? by 0racle · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Wow! I mean so what? It was never all that difficult to get SuSE before. Are they worried that everyones going to go for a free distro instead, like they have been all this time.

    --
    "I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
  3. Or... by Punboy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    About a year and a half ago I wrote a script to parse the file list on the SuSE FTP server, find which files go on which CDs, download them, and create ISOs, then using the boot section off of their network install CD make the first one bootable. Full SuSE professional (commercial parts missing) for free! All on CDs!

    --
    If you like what I've said here, and want to read more, go to http://www.krillrblog.com
    1. Re:Or... by GigsVT · · Score: 3, Interesting

      That sounds a whole lot like jigdo for Debian. It's pretty cool to do it that way, you wind up downloading the same amount of data anyway, and you don't have to worry about security on a fresh install, all the security errata are the very latest on your ISO!

      Static ISOs are inferior in many ways to a dynamically built ISO.

      --
      I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
    2. Re:Or... by Punboy · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I'll be posting it to my server soon, it'll let you select which version you want (SuSE 8.2-9.1) and dynamically create the ISOs right there. It takes some time, my server only gets around 3 Megabytes/sec off of the mirrors... but it'll generate a custom ISO right then and there for you to download (my server serves it to you at a max of 750KB/sec)

      --
      If you like what I've said here, and want to read more, go to http://www.krillrblog.com
  4. BitTorrent Anybody? by afriguru · · Score: 2, Interesting

    In my opinion, the mirror system is so outdated. Who is going to take the first step to make these ISO available via BitTorrent? I only have a 50gb monthly bandwidth allowance on my host; I am not sure that this would be enough to run a tracker for such a (presumably - because I use Fedora) popular download.

    Quote: "Download from here: SUSE-9.1-personal-x86.iso (700MB) or try one of the official SUSE mirrors"

    --
    ___
    internet, productivity blog
  5. GPL YaST by EdMcMan · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I have not heard anything that YaST was actually GPL'd yet. Where can I download it?

    1. Re:GPL YaST by PCM2 · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Why is this marked offtopic? I think it's pretty germane to the topic, myself. The whole point of these "you can get this free," "this has been open sourced" announcements from Novell is to generate buzz around the company by making them seem friendly to open source. I've heard a lot about them open sourcing YaST, though, and I can't find it anywhere. There's no obvious download on Novell's site. It's not on forge.novell.com, their open source site. It's not on Sourceforge. And the top Google search for YaST reveals this page, where the crux of the message seems to be "Only SUSE has YaST."

      I keep hearing about open source YaST. So where is it already? And, more to the point, I'm kind of waiting for Novell's open source/Linux strategy to be more than just talk. Right now it seems to be business as usual at the OSS divisions, and business as usual at Novell. Are the two sides going to meet?

      East your ChickieNobs!

      --
      Breakfast served all day!
  6. Re:Kinda ;) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I never had much luck with the SuSE liveCDs. The best one I tried was PCLinuxOS. It detected and configured all my hardware automatically and it gave me a beautiful looking desktop.

  7. Just A Question... by Steinfiend · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I've always wondered what the advantage of paying for SUSE is? I mean from the user stand point, I understand the desire to support the "community", but when I can get all the same software from other distros for the cost of download time and a couple of blank CDs.

    Mandrake is easy to install and configure, Fedora is extremely powerful, Gentoo is geeky beyond belief and Debian is solid as a rock. It seems that all niches have been filled already.

    1. Re:Just A Question... by Jadrano · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I've always wondered what the advantage of paying for SUSE is? I mean from the user stand point, I understand the desire to support the "community", but when I can get all the same software from other distros for the cost of download time and a couple of blank CDs.

      If you downloaded everything that is on a SuSE Professional DVD, that would certainly be quite a lengthy download. For many people, that's probably already enough for preferring to buy it. Then, you get printed books that are quite good.

      Mandrake is easy to install and configure, Fedora is extremely powerful, Gentoo is geeky beyond belief and Debian is solid as a rock. It seems that all niches have been filled already.

      Yes, I don't think SuSE tries to occupy one of these niches, according to these criteria, it in between as to most criteria you mentioned. But I think a distribution does not really have to fit into a niche. There are big geographical differences. As far as I know, SuSE is the most widespread Linux distribution in Germany (where it's based) and some other European countries. Then, people choose a different distribution if there is a particular reason, but if they just want a kind of "general-purpose" Linux, SuSE is probably the first choice. I suppose that they want to be one of the "mainstream" distributions rather than filling a particular niche.

      One area where SuSE Professional really stands out is, in my view, the amount of software that is included. I find that a great advantage - when I read about a program I want to install, chances are good that it's already on the SuSE DVD, and then I don't have to download it and YaST takes care of all the dependencies etc.. It's much easier and quicker to install a working application and everything it needs with a few clicks in YaST than having to care about everything yourself. I find that very important. I haven't compared all recent distributions, but when I occasionally had to do with other distributions, I had the impression that they include much less software than SuSE Professional.

  8. It is nice! by ErixTr · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Although a ftp intall was possible, it is nice to have an iso.

    Suse made the right thing. I didn't bother with the ftp install but this will make me try Suse.

    --
    less is more
  9. Dumped SuSE 9.1 Pro and back on Slack 9.1 by AetherBurner · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I was running SuSE 9.1 Pro (Base with Develop install) and I could not play a DVD without XINE complaining about dropping too many frames, probably because of a lack of processor power. Machine is 500MHz PII with 256 MB RAM and 2x80 MB HD's, ATI Radeon 7500 LE video and SB16 audio (may be a dinosaur but it still rocks!). Reinstalled Slack 9.1 (full install) and after fixing permissions for the drives, I can run a full compile and watch a DVD in full screen with no hiccup or complaint from XINE as where with SuSE it was XINE only in a small screen. I wonder if this may be a possible sign of F/OSS software bloat trying to be all for all and trying to be better than M$ configurations. When I change the mobo to Athlon64, I may consider using the 64-bit version of SuSE 9.1 but I am really worried that SuSE will be a resource hog. Both installs were stock with no tweaking or trimming. I realize that this was not a scientific test whatsoever but first impressions count greatly, especially for the newbie starting to investigate using F/OSS. The answer to 64-bit question will have to wait for the fall.

  10. Suse versus Mandrake? by bcrowell · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Mandrake and Suse both seem to be aimed at relatively unsophisticated desktop users, and both seem to have done a lot of work to make good installers. Good for them!

    I recently bought the Suse personal 9.1 box, and although it was impressive how easy it was to get a working KDE desktop system, I really felt hemmed in afterward. The Suse repository only has a very limited set of applications. When I asked around about how you install other apps, people told me either "Oh, generic RPMs usually work," or "Here are a couple of sites where people will point you to individuals' web pages where they host RPMs." I guess I've just been spoiled by FreeBSD's ports system, which has thousands of apps, including virtually every app I ever need to run. I'm really not that excited about downloading binary RPMs from people I don't know -- that's a little too much like unsafe sex. If generic RPMs usually work, that's cool, but then what's the advantage of Suse?

    My impression is that Mandrake has a much bigger set of apps available -- is this correct? Even if you have to join Mandrake Club to get them from Mandrake, at least joining the club is an option, and if you don't join, you're just in the same situation as with Suse: werbsurf for someone's personal site where they've packaged the app.

    Please don't take this as a troll or a "my distro is better than yours" post -- I'm really curious to know what people think about Mandrake versus Suse. Although I'm now using FreeBSD myself, I'm curious what would be a good distro to recommend to a newbie, and AFAICT Suse isn't it.

    --
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    1. Re:Suse versus Mandrake? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      That's pretty much true. Suse does have some decent addon packages but it doesn't really compare with Fedora, Mandrake, Debian etc in that field. It's really more of a what comes on the cd is what you get type distro, ala lycoris etc.

      As far as Mandrake vs Suse, Suse has always been more polished and less buggy. Mandrake on the other hand has always had Free Iso's available as opposed to Suse who insisted on payware or ftp installs. This Imho really hurt Suse. Consider where they are now and how much farther along they would be by now if they had been truly Free all along. Mandrake also has a much larger and more active user community. If we are to believe that the strength of OSS is in the community then in that area Mandrake has Suse beat hands down.

      Anyway Suse ISO's are only a good thing. I welcome them back into the FOSS world now that they freed up YAST.

  11. Miles between Personal and Pro by miyako · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm a Suse user, I'm typing this on my Suse 9.1 box right now. I love Suse, but I have to say that from what I've seen, the personal releases are crap.
    I remember not too long ago, a friend of mine was wanting to try out a new Linux distrobution. He'd used Mandrake a bit, but still hadn't learned a lot about linux. I suggested that he go buy a copy of Suse 9.1 because the manuals are really nice, and the ftp version wasn't available yet.
    He took my advice, but got the personal version to save money (who can blame him). I didn't think there would be too much difference, I've only used pro, but from reading comments here on /. it seemed like only the proprietary software and some advanced server stuff would be missing.
    Nope
    Suse 9.1 personal is more like a Windows install than a Linux install. It comes with practically nothing you would assume would be in a linux installation. No server software at all, no development tools, it was a very anorexic distrobution in my opinion.
    It seems to me it would be much nicer if Suse would have released ISOs of what can be had from the ftp version so people could torrent it.

    --
    Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
  12. GPL doesn't prohibit for-profit distribution. by jbn-o · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Since all the software available on the website is available for free download, and its all GPL, yes it is. As well as people have previously asked SuSE and they've said yes as long as you don't distribute for profit.

    This makes no sense to me. If all the software SUSE distributes on this ISO is licensed under the GNU GPL (or if it is all licensed under any set of free software licenses), anyone should be able to distribute copies for profit. One of the criteria for a license to qualify as a free software license is that it must allow commercial distribution.

    --
    Digital Citizen
  13. Try Linspire. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I'm curious what would be a good distro to recommend to a newbie, and AFAICT Suse isn't it.

    I've recently tried out the Linspire distro (formerly Lindows), and can attest that it is by far the most user friendly newbie distro around. The Click-N-Run menu is spectacular for non-techies who want to run certain popular programs but would run screaming away from compiling them. What's especially nice is that Linspire is actually a modified version of Debian, so newbies have the choice of using apt-get and Synaptic as they feel more comfortable with Linux, or get tired of paying $5 a month for the convenience of Click-N-Run. (And to be honest, $5 a month isn't much to pay to keep Mom happy.) I highly recommend checking it out.