SUSE 9.1 Personal ISO Available For Free Download

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."

Comments

More SUSE

[argonaut]

This should help the adoption rate of SUSE, much like it did for Red Hat.

Re:More SUSE

[kwanbis]

ftp installs are only posible for broadband users ... and even then, i would never try it ... a suse iso is a good thing

Kinda ;)

[CptChipJew]

This is the first time ever that SUSE makes an ISO for i386 of one of its product flavors available

Except of course for the LiveCDs.

Heh...

[Xpilot]

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?

Re:Heh...

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder though if you can use an ftp to get extra packages that aren't included in this.

Read the frickin' story!

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.

Re:Heh...

[the_rev_matt]

Having just bought the boxed Personl Edition 9.1 (dammit), I feel fairly safe saying that this 1 cd ISO is the same as the boxed CD. The Personal box contains 2 cds, a live cd and an install cd. A pretty full featured installation with only 1CD, as well.

So...?

[0racle]

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.

Re:So...?

[The Analog Kid]

It wasn't difficult but everytime I'd try an do an FTP install it was slow, very slow and I've tried different FTPs. It would take me about 2 hours to install when it would take 15 minutes tops to do a ISO install.

SuSE vs (RH) fedora

[anandpur]

SuSE will be at higher grounds if thay fully support personal distribution and it will take away some many users of (RH) Fedora

Just downloaded last night at 2 AM

[Anonymous Coward]

Insomnia struck and I decided to try out Linux again. I got the Live CD first, then pulled down the personal ISO at 300 KB/sec from GA Tech.

I guess I got lucky. If someone will setup a tracker, I'd be glad to seed for a while.

Under New Management

[slomr2]

Looks like just more of Novell moving SUSE in the direction of its own vision. Ximan Desktop, Exchange connector, GPL of Yast, etc. This isn't really that much of a shock. Though, it is another welcome change.

Downloading SuSE Pro

[Anonymous Coward]

I just downloaded the whole i386/9.1 tree minus the src directory and burned it to a DVD using mkisofs and an iso burning program, and it worked fine for me. It was a professional edition.

Not first time ever ISO

[Jidus]

This is plainly false. This is not the first time SuSE distributes their Linux Distro CD image. I remember back in 1997 or so, SuSE used to distribute their ISO's. That was even before their split their product versions in personal and professional. Last version I kind of remember they did that was 6.4.

Re:Not first time ever ISO

[Jidus]

I found this old story here on slashdot:

SuSE 6.4 ISO Now available

Correcting myself a little, this was back in April 2000. It was labeled as an "Evaluation version", which would be roughly similar to their personal version these days.

BTW, YaST was the main reason this distro had been attacked by free software purists (because of it being propietary), and it was very unclear as to whether SuSE could be legally copied and distributed because of it. I hope that their new ISO distribution scheme helps them become a popular and mainstream distro. I really like what novell is doing towards linux, and SuSE has been my favorite distro for years.

Or...

[Punboy]

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!

Re:Or...

[GigsVT]

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.

Re:Or...

[Punboy]

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)

Good news for linux beginners

[chrispl]

9.1 has to be the biggest threat to windows yet. I dropped the DVD in and everything *everything* I needed was there and ready to use. Even things like my Wifi network worked without any configuration and it played every video/music file I tried to open. On the install it updated all the installed modules from a local FTP server with nothing more than a mouseclick. These are the things that if they don't work out of the box can throw off people who are not willing to search google for 45 minutes to find out how it set up.

This is the first distro I have seen that I would consider the real "Windows Killer". The release of an ISO will put it into the hands of a LOT more people.

The only concern I have is that some of the more useful features may have been yanked due to space limitations. I believe the DVD is over 2GB, versus a 600MB ISO...

Re:Good news for linux beginners

[chrispl]

Xvid and Divx movies play just fine out of the box. With so many open source projects working on these codecs it would be unusual if it did not incude some.

I said "video files" not "video disks". Then again, DVDs do not play under windows without a 3rd party program either...

Can we legally copy this?

[nlinecomputers]

YaST is now GPL but how does that apply to the rest of the software in Suse personal and professional? I downloaded a copy of the ISOs for SuSE pro 9.1 from a private FTP site that I found on LinuxISO.org. But I've never been sure how legal that was.

A Linux Users Group that I am a member of was asked a couple of years ago to stop selling or even giving out copies of SuSE. They said they didn't mind if you copy for a friend but any organized duping they would take action against.

Has this changed? And could someone point to an offical statement from SuSE?

Re:Can we legally copy this?

[nlinecomputers]

As well as people have previously asked SuSE and they've said yes as long as you don't distribute for profit.

Well if the software is all GPL they can't enforce that restriction. YaST was under it's own license and that was how they enforced that request. Now I'm not as sure but I suspect you are correct.

BitTorrent Anybody?

[afriguru]

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"

Re:BitTorrent Anybody?

[dotcher]

Because the consumer side of the Internet tends to be asymmetric: upload bandwidth is more expensive than download bandwidth, at least with cable and DSL.

Until that changes (when everyone gets fibre-to-the-home, perhaps?), then BitTorrent and other P2P programs will cause headaches for ISPs.

Re:BitTorrent Anybody?

[AkaXakA]

You can find lot's of linux ISO's, including SuSE's at: TorrentReactor SuSE's are going quite strong :)

GPL YaST

[EdMcMan]

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

Re:GPL YaST

[Heraklit]

Come on, there is one more obvious place for it: in the source directory of the distribution (which is by the way offered for download). So:

ftp.suse.com/suse/i386/9.1/suse/src/yast2*

Here you are. So please stop trolling.

Now the missing piece of the NOVELL puzzle...

[guerby]

...is Ximian/NOVELL GNOME Desktop for SuSE 9.1. Laurent

Re:Other architectures

[twener]

No, there doesn't exist an x86_64 SUSE 9.1 Personal version.

Just A Question...

[Steinfiend]

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.

Re:Just A Question...

[iantri]

The fact that the Pro version includes the only usable DV Editor software for Linux IMHO is also a nice bonus.

It's only the demo version (it watermarks the video). And it doesn't capture.

Rekall is a demo version too.

Re:Just A Question...

[Heraklit]

If you look at the amount of printed documentation in the boxed set, you will find that this is easily worth the money...

Re:Just A Question...

[Jidus]

Trying to put some distinction between one distro and another is hard. I guess SuSE's strongest points are/were their administration and configuration tools. YaST is pretty amazing. There are certain downsides to it, but in overall it is very useful and intuitive.

I remember while I started liking SuSE in the first place. It was because other distro's tools were not at the same level by far (it has been a long time since I've stopped trying every distro I could get my hands on). Back when I started using it (1998 I guess), it was impressively ahead of the competition in this regard. I couldn't say how it holds up today if we were to compare current distros though.

Other than that, I just get a very professional / polished feeling about it, unlike some other distros I've used over time. This is very subjective, but I guess more than 1 person can say the same.

Re:Just A Question...

[gmuslera]

Nice printed manuals, mastered CDs/DVDs instead of burned ones, sometimes nice merchandising included too (stickers, mousepads, etc), some not so free programs included, and the feeling that you are helping them to continue doing its good job.

Indirectly, too, you are helping other OSS projects too, SuSE/Novell is actively developing and helping i.e. reiserfs, kde, Openswan, etc.

So the advantages a bit depends on you. You don't need help and the manuals are ok for looking them online? ok. You have enough bandwidth to install it from the net? ok. You want it to keep coming? then think on doing something for them in return.

Of course, you can do something too for Mandrake, Fedora, Gentoo and Debian, if you happy with any of them any help you can give them probably will end in you getting a better distribution in part because your contribution.

Re:Just A Question...

[Jadrano]

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.

If you can't download they will send you a CD

[badzilla]

Novell order form

It is nice!

[ErixTr]

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.

NFS or FTP works well also

[Fiz Ocelot]

You can just wget the whole 9.1 directory and use that to install using NFS or FTP over your own network. It's fast and no need to swap out CD drives to systems that don't normally use them.

Dumped SuSE 9.1 Pro and back on Slack 9.1

[AetherBurner]

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.

Suse versus Mandrake?

[bcrowell]

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.

Miles between Personal and Pro

[miyako]

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.

GPL doesn't prohibit for-profit distribution.

[jbn-o]

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.

Re:GPL doesn't prohibit for-profit distribution.

[ahillen]

This 'not for-profit distribution' restriction came AFAIK from the Yast license. The Yast license allowed free (and only free) distribution, selling Yast for profit (or even small fees) was not allowed. Now Yast is GPL that should be sorted out. I don't know about the restrictions imposed by commercial software on the ISOs.

SuSE ISO torrents

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone at OSNews.com posted that tux.org has SuSE ISOs, and I found torrents here.

http://www.tux.org/pub/distributions/SuSE/i386/i so /

Torrent at http://tracker.tx.se - link below

[cybe]

SUSE-9.1-personal-iso.torrent

Torrent link inside.. (was: BitTorrent Anybody?)

[cybe]

SUSE-9.1-personal-iso.torrent

Alternatively...

[XeRXeS-TCN]

There's also a tutorial on the forums on Linuxiso.org Here which details how to download a copy of the FTP mirror, and create a full bootable DVD from the mirror, which contains everything the professional DVD has, barring the proprietary stuff.

Re:Speed....

[AstroDrabb]

Use Azureus and download the torrent. I am downloading this torrent at around 2Mbs right now on my cable modem. FTP servers and mirrors just cannot compete with a torrent.