SuSE Linux 9.3 Pro Released

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Posted by timothy on Wednesday April 20, 2005 @10:14AM from the crazy-upstart-operating-system dept.

InnerPhalanx writes "Today, SuSE Linux 9.3 Professional was released. After submitting the 9.2 update, I decided I should submit another article. The suggested retail price is $99.95 US. An update version is available for $59.95 US, in case you have an earlier version of SuSE Pro. More information, especially news about the product itself, is available here. As usual, there's a Live DVD release of SuSE 9.3 Pro as well as the 9.2 Pro Evaluation Version DVD ISO."

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MP3? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-04-20 10:27 · Score: 0

Doesn't say if they fixed the lack of MP3 support.
1. Re:MP3? by Mad+Merlin · 2005-04-20 10:32 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  Doesn't say if they fixed the lack of MP3 support.
  There's nothing to "fix" from a technology perspective, it's a legal/IP issue. AFAIK, the paid version includes such things out of the box, and the download version does not.
  
  --
  Game! - Where the stick is mightier than the sword!
2. Re:MP3? by syd02 · 2005-04-20 14:02 · Score: 0, Redundant
  
  I think it might be going too easy on them to say that it's only a legal/IP issue. Nobody forced them to do it the way that they did. With other distributions, you install a file and you've got mp3 support. The way SuSE has done it in 9.3, you need to recompile some things and then you lose the ease of package management for a bunch of your multimedia apps (updates, etc). If it's true that the paid version includes mp3 support out of the box, then I know now why they've done it the way they did...to differentiate the products in a really crappy way. Hello Novell.
3. Re:MP3? by Dot.Com.CEO · 2005-04-20 17:53 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  What are you talking about? First of all, the mp3 support is fixed by suse themselves when you first update your distribution. Second, updating the xine library from the packman repository and installing the w32codecs package gives you full video functionality.
  I really wish people stoped talking about things they obviously know nothing about, but then again, this IS slashdot.
  
  --
  Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
4. Re:MP3? by syd02 · 2005-04-24 04:59 · Score: 1
  
  What was I talking about? You know perfectly well what I was talking about, because as you say: SuSE had to fix the problem themselves and allow you to update it post-installation. I thought that they might do that after enough people complained (why did they do it in the first place?), but I wasn't sure that they had already because it's hard to research something that isn't widely available yet (not everyone wants to pay $100 for free software...I've been wanting to download it for weeks, checking every day, but 9.3 is only available as a live eval). Also: "Second, updating the xine library from the packman repository and installing the w32codecs package gives you full video functionality." Did SuSE do that for you, or did you do that? I wasn't complaining about you, I was complaining about SuSE. You sound like a big SuSE fan/apologist and I suppose most of the moderators in this thread are too.
5. Re:MP3? by Dot.Com.CEO · 2005-04-24 10:28 · Score: 1
  
  1. Linux and all free software is, well, free. Packaging everything and supporting it is not. Suse are notoriously open about their licencing, once you buy a copy you can install it on as many machines you have access to. I really cannot imagine it being better than that for a commercial distribution. If you have something against commercial distros, well there's free ones that you can use.
  2. You said you had to recompile stuff and then yast was broken after updating the xine libraries. This is wrong. Is the way suse go about it the best way to do things? Well, I don't really know, I don't own suse and I don't therefore have responsibility on their actions, I'm pretty sure management weighed the pros and cons of crippling suse and came up with that solution. I find it pretty easy to add a yast source and frankly if you search for "suse dvd" on linux you'll quickly come across this solution, or another that is equally elegant.
  3. Not everyone who disagrees with you is an apologist, as far as I am concerned I just pointed out you did not know what you were talking about, an assessment I maintain even after your flaming. I don't see why I have to justify my liking suse to a random /. user whose misconceptions I corrected, nor why I am a "fan" of a company when I point out that you have no idea what you are talking about. I enjoy all flavours Linux and, frankly, the only distro I actually have a strong opinion about is Mandrake or whatever the hell it's called, and that opinion is a negative one - I hate it. If suse is not to your liking, install whatever you want or Windows for that matter. But please go against the /. trend and actually form an opinion after you have experienced the product you are criticising.
  
  --
  Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
MP3 Support...it's there. by SSonnentag · 2005-04-20 10:36 · Score: 1, Insightful

SuSE 9.2 Professional supports MP3 playback without any problems. I haven't used the standard version, but I've been using SuSE Pro for several versions now and MP3 support has always been there.
$99.95 USD? by R.Mo_Robert · 2005-04-20 10:53 · Score: 1, Redundant

"The suggested retail price is $99.95 US." Isn't that a bit much, considering some other distros are free (free as in the kernel itself and the software typically built around it) or at least available for a reasonable price to cover the media, or at most the media and a reasonable support fee?

I know this is the Pro version, but still. I'll stick with Ubuntu, Fedora, and the Personal Edition, thank you.

--
R.Mo
1. Re:$99.95 USD? by houseofzeus · 2005-04-20 11:41 · Score: 0
  
  Well it's still free in the same sense as Fedora et. al. in that you can download it here: http://www.novell.com/products/linuxprofessional/d ownloads/ftp/int_mirrors.html Like most distros you can of course pay the money and get media + support. $99.95 is still pretty steep for this but you don't HAVE to pay for it.
2. Re:$99.95 USD? by EnronHaliburton2004 · 2005-04-20 11:42 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Fine. Then don't buy it. You're not really their target market anyways.
  
  Ubuntu is too unstable. Fedora is a moving target. If you're lucky, people won't yell at you if you ask for support in the IRC channels.
  
  With most Linux distros, people spend way too much time getting shit to work. SuSE Pro tends to work better then the free distros, and it comes with polished versions of Evolution, OpenOffice, Samba, Xen, etc.
  
  Some of us need to spend our time USING the software, not playing around.
  
  --
  94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
3. Re:$99.95 USD? by PCM2 · 2005-04-20 12:08 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  No ISOs available for 9.3 yet. Only 9.2.
  
  --
  Breakfast served all day!
4. Re:$99.95 USD? by Stevyn · 2005-04-20 13:08 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Exactly. And if you're a business, $100 to spend now is to save in productivity from bleeding edge distros or Windows. That's their market. The TCO savings from linux doesn't come from the cost of the software, but from increased productivity.
5. Re:$99.95 USD? by R.Mo_Robert · 2005-04-20 14:53 · Score: 1
  
  Looking at the download for 9.2, I see that the ISO (not the mini) is ... 3.2 GB?! Maybe this is something people would rather purchase.
  
  Oh, and did I mention I was on dial-up? :)
  
  --
  R.Mo
6. Re:$99.95 USD? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-04-20 17:30 · Score: 0
  
  > reasonable price to cover the media, or at most the media and a reasonable support fee?
  
  Do those other distributions also include 1000 pages printed documentation, both CDs and DVD versions, non-free commercial licensed applications and a 64bit-version?
  
  > I know this is the Pro version, but still. I'll stick with Ubuntu, Fedora, and the Personal Edition
  
  There is no SUSE Personal Edition anymore. Only Pro and to be released FTP edition.
7. Re:$99.95 USD? by managementboy · 2005-04-20 18:29 · Score: 1
  
  And you only buy ONE copy... after that distribute it in your comany x1.000.000! Share it over apt-get or ftp or nfs etc... that will do the job of amortizing the one time investment in a nice thick manual that comes with SuSE 9.3
8. Re:$99.95 USD? by Dot.Com.CEO · 2005-04-20 21:07 · Score: 1
  
  Suse 9.* does not have enterprise level support. Novell Linux Desktop fills that niche nicely.
  
  --
  Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
9. Re:$99.95 USD? by Eisenfaust · 2005-04-21 01:20 · Score: 1
  
  Considering what you get with some other software, $99 isn't too much for both CD and DVD media and printed documentation + tech support.
  
  --
  Grrrrr... don't bother me, I'm thinking.
10. Re:$99.95 USD? by EnronHaliburton2004 · 2005-04-21 04:32 · Score: 1
  
  SuSE might already have such a mechanism available, and it may cost less then you setting up your own repository.
  
  If you're talking about 10 copies at $99 each, I'd have a hard time justifying any sort of home grown solution.
  
  Time is money.
  
  --
  94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
11. Re:$99.95 USD? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-04-21 08:37 · Score: 0
  
  Attention moderators: How is this "Redundant"? No one has mentioned it before.
12. Re:$99.95 USD? by MrResistor · 2005-04-23 13:02 · Score: 1
  
  Suse Pro comes with the most excellent and useful printed manuals I have ever seen. Ever.
  
  The Suse manuals were absolutely invaluable when I was learning to use Linux, and are the primary reason I still buy the Suse Pro boxed set, instead of simply waiting a month and updating directly from their ftp site (which can also be mounted via nfs, if you like to swing that way).
  
  You see, about every 6-12 months some friend or family member decides they want to give Linux a try. At that point, I burn copies of the CDs and DVDs and hand them the entire origional boxed set. I find this dramatically reduces the number of questions they have for me, while dramatically increasing their level of confidence in being able to actually use it, which is the largest single factor in deciding if they will stick with it or not.
  
  To put it bluntly, every person I've known that has started their Linux experience with Suse was using Linux primarily or exclusively within 2 years, without exception (they may switch distros, but they do stick with Linux). Every person I've known who has started out by downloading free Mandrake or Red Hat ISOs has given up on Linux as a "toy OS" within a few weeks. YMMV, obviously, but that's been my experience over the past 5 years since I started using Linux.
  
  The manuals change from time to time, but typically there is a n00b guide (what apps to use for common tasks, and brief how-tos for them), a user guide (more in-depth user documentation for the apps in the n00b guide, and many more that might be of interest to a more serious user), and an admin guide (which IMO is far more useful than any other "Using Linux" style book I've seen, and I own several.)
  
  So, that's why Suse Pro is $99.95, and IMO, as a Linux advocate, it's well worth the price. If you don't want to pay that, fine; wait a month and install it directly via ftp/nfs for free.
  
  --
  Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
13. Re:$99.95 USD? by R.Mo_Robert · 2005-04-24 11:30 · Score: 1
  
  Finally, a good explanation. Thank you. Too bad the moderators will probably never see it anymore.
  
  Speaking of moderators, I'm still trying to figure out why my original post was "Redundant" when it hadn't even been mentioned before (you know, sort of like those people who rate posts "Overrated" before they even have a rating?) ... I mean, I could understand "Flamebait" (even though it wasn't) but not "Redundant." :-) Oh, well...
  
  --
  R.Mo
14. Re:$99.95 USD? by MrResistor · 2005-04-24 12:03 · Score: 1
  
  I think the moderation instructions suggest reading posts in reverse order so you see newer comments first. I guess it's supposed to counter the first post advantage, but I think they forget sometimes when they get to the end and see the same post they've seen 15 times already that it was actually the first, and all the others were redundant.
  
  --
  Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
15. Re:$99.95 USD? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-04-25 21:52 · Score: 0
  
  If you want it FREE, wait some months and it will hit the ftp servers for FREE.
  
  If you want it NOW, then pay for the privilige.
  
  The books that come with SUSE 9.3 Pro Full & Upgrade are well worth spending that little bit on the disto.
Perturbed by erichill · 2005-04-20 11:10 · Score: 1

I'm still perturbed (or insert stronger word) that they stopped supporting the PPC.

--
Credo sim. - I think I am.
1. Re:Perturbed by NullProg · 2005-04-21 08:48 · Score: 1
  
  How about POWER5 support instead:
  
  Linux on POWER;
  
  Enjoy,
  
  --
  It's just the normal noises in here.
Re:Soooo... by yahwotqa · 2005-04-20 11:26 · Score: 2, Interesting

My friends using SuSE swear by YaST, suse's configuration tool. I have heard (also from elsewhere, not just from these friends), that it is very user-friendly, yet powerful.
Student edition by antikristian · 2005-04-20 11:41 · Score: 2, Insightful

I'm waiting for the student edition, same price as upgrade, but with the manuals. If I were suse/novell, I would be less strict with the versions that have odd numbers, and make people pay up if they want the even-numbered distros a couple of months before it hits the ftp server. Oh, and it is worth the cash, ubuntu is getting closer, but nothing can really rival suse on laptop-support.

--
A computer is a tool, but I am not. I use Linux
1. Re:Student edition by suezz · 2005-04-21 00:04 · Score: 1
  
  I tend to disagree with you - I tried to install suse on my laptop and it locked up on the splash screen.
  
  went back to ubuntu - it installed without a hitch.
  and anything that comes with suse is just an apt-get away with ubuntu.
  
  so I would ubuntu does rival and surpass suse on laptop support.
2. Re:Student edition by MrResistor · 2005-04-23 13:48 · Score: 1
  
  and anything that comes with suse is just an apt-get away with ubuntu.
  
  Nope. The Suse boxed set usually includes some proprietary apps as well.
  
  Anyway, YMMV obviously. I've used Suse for years, and the only time I've had problems installing it was IIRC Suse 6.3 on an old Pacard Bell Pentium machine, and even then it was just that the video card was unsupported, anything non-graphical worked fine. I've never successfully booted one of their live CDs or DVDs, though.
  
  --
  Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
It's crippled. by generalleoff · 2005-04-20 12:28 · Score: 0, Redundant

I have installed SuSE 9.3 and yea alot of stuff has been updated, fixed, and improved. The little changes they made to the istaller are great, but due to the software patent problems with all the linux media players right now, SuSE 9.3 is sevearly crippled. It chips with almost no media support out of the box and installes a crippled version of the xine media player and I havent been able to get totem to play anything at all so far. It also ships with a known buggy version of GCC that Mplayer has blacklisted so compiling Mplayer is a pain. I have got Xine working 100%, Totem is still dead and Mplayer has yet to compile correct.
1. Re:It's crippled. by antikristian · 2005-04-20 12:40 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  open the "change installation source" (or something similar, I use norwegian on mine) choose add - http type in packman.iu-bremen.de in the first field, then type in suse/9.3 in the second. now remove xine and kaffeine with add/remove packages, then you can install xine, mplayer, w32codecs, divx, xvid ++++
  
  --
  A computer is a tool, but I am not. I use Linux
GPL by Free_Trial_Thinking · 2005-04-20 12:45 · Score: 1

How does charging for this comply with the GPL?

I can see how they're allowed to charge for it, but aren't others also allowed to distribute Suse for free?
1. Re:GPL by r_jensen11 · 2005-04-20 12:54 · Score: 0
  
  I would imagine it's more for the documentation and support, more than anything else. That, and possibly non-OSS software that they have to pay royalties to. Like people have pointed out before, there's still Personal Learning editions and the like out there.
2. Re:GPL by mstandfest · 2005-04-20 13:07 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  actually, it is legal to distribute suse for free. i contacted them about a year ago about it. (i bought a box set of 9.0 pro and we wanted to install it on a box at work just for fun, and to hand out copies to my co-workers.) i eventually got in touch with their licensing/legal department and found out that it is ok. it's not legal to sell it because of the old YaST licensing, but it is legal to give copies away for free.
3. Re:GPL by Erik+Hensema · 2005-04-20 18:42 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  How does charging for this comply with the GPL?
  I can see how they're allowed to charge for it, but aren't others also allowed to distribute Suse for free?
  The DVD edition of suse pro also includes some commercial software which can't be distributed. The FTP version (available in a month or two) won't include that software and will be completely free to distribute.
  
  --
  This is your sig. There are thousands more, but this one is yours.
4. Re:GPL by MrResistor · 2005-04-23 13:35 · Score: 1
  
  How does charging for this comply with the GPL?
  
  Try actually reading the GPL yourself. You clearly don't understand it.
  
  aren't others also allowed to distribute Suse for free?
  
  They can and do.
  
  --
  Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Re:Soooo... by Anonymous Coward · 2005-04-20 13:11 · Score: 1, Funny

Gentoo users? Crazy?

I'll come up with a witty response for that as soon as mozilla-firefox finishes compiling.
Well? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-04-20 13:13 · Score: 0

Where can I download the free version? ... Linux is always free, right?
1. Re:Well? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-04-20 17:33 · Score: 0
  
  You can download Linux for free at http://www.kernel.org/
Re:Soooo... by Anubis350 · 2005-04-20 18:11 · Score: 1

as a combination debian/fedora/suse user (and a dabbler in other distros) I can tell you that, indeed, yast is unrivaled in config ability and usability. It's simple, easy to use, provides a central place to configure everything, and integrates incredibly well inot the distro

While I prefer debian as my main desktop (for other reasons), a number of my other machines run suse and it is comparitively so much easier to configure them that it's incredible.

on a related note, I heard that suse open-sourced yast a little bit ago, anyone know about the progress in porting it/parts of it to other distros?

--
"goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
SUSE LINUX 9.3 screenshots at OSDir by Anonymous Coward · 2005-04-21 00:31 · Score: 0

-> shots.osdir.com
Clan Install for Upgrade by widderslainte · 2005-04-21 01:05 · Score: 1

I own 9.2. Do I need that installed on a machine before I upgrade to 9.3? Anyone know?
1. Re:Clan Install for Upgrade by wagemonkey · 2005-04-21 01:32 · Score: 1
  
  I haven't tried 9.3 yet but for all previous releases the only differences between Pro and Upgrade were that the Upgrade has fewer printed manuals (which are on cd/dvd anyway) and 60 rather than 90 days installation support. I believe the cds/dvds are the same. So if 9.3 follows the same approach the answer to your questions would be: No, and Yes.
YaST is what makes SuSE great. by Aldric · 2005-04-21 02:03 · Score: 1

There simply isn't another Linux configuration tool that can even come close to matching it. It was made open source ages ago but none of the other distros seem to want to use it.
You compile brainially? by DFJA · 2005-04-25 03:55 · Score: 1

In other words, your compiler runs on the same CPU as your wit generator?!

--
43 - For those who require slightly more than the answer to life, the universe and everything.