Slashdot Mirror
SUSE Linux 9.3 FTP Version Released
twener writes "Nine weeks after the official release of SUSE Linux 9.3 Professional Novell has made available the FTP edition for everyone as a 4.2GB DVD ISO image (both i586 and x86_64) or 5 CD images (stripped-down, i586 only) on their mirrors. Additionally, all until-now missing RPMs have been uploaded, so you can also do a network installation using the 57MB netinstall ISO." Update: 06/27 19:37 GMT by T : Yes, that's RPMs, not RMPs. Sorry!
What's an RMP? And, why do I care if they're missing?
How has the takeover by Novell affected your perception of the stability of the system? I stopped running SuSE somewhere around 8.2 when a binary driver from Adaptec, certified on both SuSE and RedHat, ran stabiliy on RH 9.0 and locked up under load on SuSE. I was sorry to let it go, as RH's desktop at that point seemed to unfinished in comparison.
I had always liked the overall polish of the system, and stuck with it even after they abandoned rc.config for the standard (sigh) sys-v init.d scripts. It was, at the time, similar to RH in being cutting edge, without taking that last step over the cliff.
the more accurate the calculations became, the more the concepts tended to vanish into thin air. R. S. Mulliken
It's very nice to see Novell getting wise to the community. One of the biggest complaints I've always heard about SuSE was that they never made ISOs available to download. I think this a reasonable compromise - waiting several weeks to make ISOs available via FTP. That lets early-adopters buy the boxed copies and allows everyone else to wait a few weeks for an ISO download. I think this is commendable.
On the technology side, I've been using 9.3 Pro since it was released - and I've never been more impressed with a Linux distro. All of my complaints about 9.2 Pro and Novell Linux Desktop have been answered... there's better KDE/GNOME integration, enhanced YaST modules, and drivers for more recent hardware. Add to that new apps like Beagle, and I think 9.3 Pro is a glimpse of things to come in the next Novell Linux Desktop and SuSE Linux Enterprise.
Well done, guys. Keep up the good work!
"Adventure? Excitement? A Jedi craves not these things."
If you install using the 5cds you can still access all the packages from the full mirror simply by adding a mirror as a yast source, see http://susewiki.apanela.com/tutorials:yastsources
Already had the 5 CD set downloaded, burnt, and installed as of last Thursday from a bit torrent version that had the blessings of Novell. Yes, it indeed took several days to get it via Bit Torrent at 44kps. But it was so worth it to beat the slashdot crowd!
Yes, getting multimedia up and running is a bit of an effort. No, it's not hard:
How To fix multimedia in SuSE 9.3
Yast Update Online - install the "multimedia pack 1, 2, 3" updates.
But it doesn't have....no, wait...SuSE users frequently find additional rpm packages on Packman that meet their additional needs:
Packman
Have lots of fun!
At work, we're starting to use SLES8 and 9 on some of our servers. As my experience is on Red Hat and Fedora I tend not to know my way around a SUSE system. A lot of things are where I expect to find them, but there are some subtle differences. To that end I'd like to install SUSE on a spare machine at home so that I can learn its ways. Is SUSE Pro similar enough to SLES to allow me to do so? If it was Red Hat, I could always grab a copy of CentOS and use that. Is there an equivalent project for SLES?
I've got a fever and the only prescription is more COBOL.
When I followed the FTP link given in the summary, I noticed that the DVD iso was named something along the lines of "eval". So, is this an installation DVD or an evaluation DVD? Do they just call it evaluation to trick you into buying the boxed version?