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SuSE Linux 9.2 Professional Released
InnerPhalanx writes "Today, SuSE 9.2 Professional Edition has been released. SuSE writes: 'It combines a fast, secure operating system and more than 1,000 popular open source applications. It is the first complete Linux package to harness both the improved Linux kernel 2.6 and the recently enhanced GNOME 2.6 and KDE 3.3 user desktop environments. Ideal for Linux enthusiasts and developers, SUSE LINUX Professional 9.2 improves support for mobile users and delivers a host of essential tools.' More information at the SuSE website. The price is $89.95. The update version is $59.95. A live DVD image is also available on the SuSE website, for use by DVD. Have fun, SuSE Pro users!" Reader tannhaus submits an early review.
It's something I have always wondered. Do I not need to worry until they release v10? Or do I not even need to worry then because I can use apt to get the updates they make to Yast et al?
Or will the packages for 9.2/10 be in a different repository than those for 9.1?
i saw the baby, and the baby looked at me
You may be interested in this then:
9 07083_mz054.htm
Last January the borough of Newham in London reversed course on a planned change to Linux after a consultant's report said Windows would cost $600,000 less to support each year. The Finnish city of Turku also changed its mind about dumping Windows after a three-year experiment with Linux showed employees resisted the switch. There are reports of glitches and cost overruns from other Linux adopters, including Munich and the German Parliament, which had to revert to Windows servers temporarily in mid-October when a third of its 5,000 PC users couldn't access the Internet or get e-mail.
From http://businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_45/b3
Read it for additional information.
When enough people express an interest in buying one that it will be worth the trouble to change their factory process and build an image to put on it. In other words, not anytime soon.
"The avalanche has already started. It is too late for the pebbles to vote" -- Kosh
So you can download this for free of course, but its a DVD image? meaning those of us without dvd burners (i'm assuming alot of us don't own those) are forced into buying this if we want to try it out?
Reently I had to decide on a linux platform for my company. In evaluating the possibilities, I was seeking a distro that had both a lot of readily-available support, and the benefits of F/OSS.
Suse and Redhat, while perfect on the former count, DO NOT OFFER THE FULL BENEFITS OF F/OSS SOFTWARE.
Both RH and Suse offer certain configurations of their software which you cannot get without paying. I don't have anything against paying someone for software I use, if it's also available for free. But I do have a problem with software that you can't even look at unless you pay.
"Many eyes make bugs shallow." The more a peice of software costs, the less people will see it and contribute to it. The fewer bugs will exits in the end -- the better the software will be.
So I picked Debian. And I dig it.
I've always run RedHat and Slackware at home. We've been using RedHat at work for years. But with the new RedHat price structure, I decided it was time to look around more. I bought SuSe 9.1 Professional and installed it at home. Between things I was reading on the net and the positive experience we had with two Penguin dual Opteron servers that came with SuSe EL 8 preinstalled, I was psyched.
What a nigtmare.
The graphical installer refused to recognize the S3 card; I had to use text install. When initially installed, I could only find KDE. I reinstalled per something I found on the net-- installing just Gnome, then adding KDE after configuration.
My directory is automounted from a RH8 system. I can't get KDE or Gnome to work properly, so I go back to ctwm. Eventually I get both Gnome and KDE working, but Gnome is never quite right now on either the RH8 or the SuSe9.1Pro system. Works fine for root, but not for other users. ( realize the Gnome issues may not be SuSe's fault, exactly, but they did choose the version to include on the CDs.)
Overall, most things are slower, from booting and shutdown to popping up a new window. Yast2, in particular, takes forever to initialize. Granted it does some things the RH config tools don't, and it's much more consistent, but it's definitely slower. Maybe I wouldn't notice this on a new, fast system, but on my 400MHz and 500MHz systems at home, there's a clear difference.
Yast2 does a bunch of cool stuff, but that makes some of the missing things even odder. Why, for instance, is there no entry for a Logitech PS2 Mouseman when configuring a mouse?
I'll grant you things look really nice in SuSe. But I prefer substance over appearance. In some cases it has the substance, in others it doesn't.
To top it all off, my emails to SuSe support went unanswered.
I'm almost certainly going to switch back to RedHat (or possibly some other distro) at home. And SuSe is not at the top of my list for consideration art work.
I know there are lots of happy SuSe customers. I was one based on the Penguins. But 9.1 left a bad taste in my mouth.
Does 9.2 resolve any of these issues? Not that I'm really considering tossing another $60 at SuSe to upgrade...
... centrino wireless networking drivers? ... NTFS drivers (read only ok) ... Mono/ASP.NET? ... an X config that supports 1920x1200 displays
.net implementation.
I'd love to have a liveCD that has this so I could run my company's demos on my CEO's laptop without resorting to that other company's
Any other key features people waiting to see on a liveCD?
I've been looking at replacing our Microsoft Exchange Servers with Suse and Novell Groupwise. Has anyone had experience with this?
I'm needing software that encourages collaboration between our staff, but also allows integration with custom software through Open Standards. Will the most version of Groupwise allow this?
Is Groupwise an easy to administrate package?
---
Brandon Petersen
Get Firefox!
For those of you that live around Bloomington, IN. Suso Technology Services will give away free copies of the live CDs (Gnome and KDE) versions. They should be ready later today like around 5pm. We'll be open til 7pm.
Pick them up at:
Fountain Square Mall, Suite 008B
101 W. Kirkwood Ave.
Bloomington, IN
I am one of those people who installs stuff for free whenever possible.
So, I had SuSE 9.0 and SuSE 9.1 in the past installed from one of those public image CDs. My experience is that once you get SuSE installed, you keep updating the security fixes.
When you want to totally upgrade your system to
support newer hardware, you basically have to install/upgrade your system from scratch (such as
SuSE 9.0 -> SuSE 9.1) rather than just upgrade the
pieces you want (kernel, modules, etc.)
Technically you can upgrade the kernel from RPM but if something goes wrong, you really don't have any idea how to make it work afterwards. I was
looking into upgrading SuSE 9.1 kernel from 2.6.5 to 2.6.9 but several emails adviced me otherwise.
I switched to Gentoo. So far I am a very happy camper even though the initial installation was very frustrating and time consuming for all the devices. Now I no longer care if the next version
is 9.3 or 10.1 because I can get the latest and
greatest stuff anytime.
Again this view is from the home user perspective when I want my computer to support all the hardware I have. From corporate perspective I can see that IT Helpdesk will have much easier time supporting pre-packaged solutions such as SuSE 9.2.
Additionally while SuSE doesn't distribute their "professional" version in cd image format, net installs are of the professional distribution and are very easy to do. They offer a boot cd image (or a floppy disk set) to get the net install started. There are a lot of mirrors around the world and the net installs are usually pretty speedy.
Dunno about Dell, but HP will ship an NX5000 laptop with suse preinstalled right now.
I use SuSe 9.1 (downloaded) on an Inspiron 5160 here at work. Everything worked except the integrated Broadcom wireless (802.11g). I had to perform an unnatural act to get it working.
As a matter of fact, I've had much better luck installing/upgrading SUSE than I've had upgrading XP Home to XP Pro.
While nobody was looking (or they were focusing on RedHat/Fedora) SUSE's become a top-notch distro.
Ah, the "Linux Technical Resource Kit." I did get one of those a couple months ago (though, it took about 2 months from request to actually receiving it). Very nice to be able to check out SLES8 and Openexchange Server (though both products are now available for download at http://www.novell.com/products/ it seems, wish I knew that before I went and waited a couple months for them). I'm not 100% sure how I feel about Novell, but that was definitely a nice gesture. The link for the resource kit was http://www.novell.com/community/linux/order.php but that doesn't seem to work anymore.
However, if you read a few HOWTOs, you can install the source RPM, change a #define to turn it back on, recompile and reinstall. I think it's a big improvement, but people seem to have varying opinions on whether the patented or non-patented hinting looks better.
Personally, I prefer MS Verdana over any of the fonts supplied with SuSE (although the Bitsream fonts are a close second). Luckily, Microsoft was generous enough to release their fonts with a perpetual free redistribution license, so getting them is no problem. SuSE also includes an RPM that automatically downloads the MS fonts (the license doesn't allow actual bundling with the OS). I've never experienced any instability caused by the fonts.
I've heard that the personal version is now going to be free[1]. If this is the case, then it may be that isos will be released at the same time it's available by ftp to the general public. Which is generally $RELEASE_DATE+2Months, iric.
[1] I forget where the heck I read this, so don't bother to ask.
RandomAndInteresting.comdefending the world from stupidity since 1979
.. Or is the SUSE 9.2 Pro Live DVD only good for evaluation.
- No Sig for you!