A Closer Look at SUSE 10

SilentBob4 writes to tell us that MadPenguin is running a review of the recently released SUSE 10.0. From the review: "Novell has made some interesting changes in distribution and development since our last review of SUSE Linux. Many say it's for the better and I'd say I'm inclined to go with that theory. To tell you the truth, I never thought I'd see the day SUSE opened up it's doors to the community to help expand and concert development efforts, but here we are in a world where SUSE is open and still making geeks sweat every time a new release comes out"

Comments

Excusee-my-SuSE

[syntap]

SuSE 9.3 was the distro that finally got me seriously considering cutting the Windows cord, and 10 handed me the scissors. It's such a great, complete distro that's easy to install and maintain, easy to customize. It's the most polished distro I have used. Between SuSE 10 and Ubuntu the reasons for sticking with Windows and its licensing/upgrading hell are slim. Yeah I'll still need Windows for some things (mostly PHB stuff) but SuSE is my new default boot.

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[hyu]

That's funny. I had the same feelings about SuSE for quite some time. It's the only Linux system I'd run for more than a week without deleting. I had it as my exclusive system for a good month and a half with very pleasant results.

This weekend I picked up a Mac, and all that has changed. Now I don't want to use Windows or Linux. Mac OS X is too good, too slick, and truly does just work.

It's operating systems like OS X and SuSE that work intuitively to just about anyone willing to spend a small amount of time with it that will lead to Windows becoming an obsolete choice. I'd rather use OS X than SuSE, but I'd rather use SuSE than Windows.

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[vandit2k6]

Yea SUSE 10 is great. The gui is really nice. But it still is not my default boot. One problem is that it doesn't like my wireless card on my laptop and for me thats more than important.

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[Cenuij]

You know what? Suse is the distro that actually did make me cut the windows cord. The only thing i missed for a while was playing some games, but since I discovered cedega that's a no brainer now too. Windows free and proud.

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[MiKM]

I've never understood what "just works" means. From my experience, every operating system (Windows, Mac, *nix) always has some problem/missing feature that needs a workaround.

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[Rick Zeman]

I'd rather use OS X than SuSE, but I'd rather use SuSE than Windows.

That's a reasonable hierarchy. At home, I'll use my 4 year old powerbook running 10.4 ahead of my shiny 6 month old Dell dual-booting XP-P and SuSE 9.2 anytime..as I am now. It Just Works and Does It Well.

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[smartsaga]

I disagree on the polished side. Perhaps it IS the most polished distro you have ever used, but it has been my experience that while it is good it is not that good. Just as an exmaple, I installed SUSE 10 on my Athlon 3000+ with 768 DDR RAM with 120GB HD with 8MB buffer. SUSE's configuration for performace simply sucks, it kept leaking memory and using all the RAM all the time. Just opening and closing programs would increase the RAM usage, damn it even just moving a window would use up more RAM. That is just half of it, the system monitor would also indicate that disk cache was using half the RAM all the time. That was on a clean install. After installing the ATI drivers the RAM usage wnet down just a little, but still SUSE would eat RAM little by little until a reboot was necesary.

I am now a Ubuntu user and the performace out of the box is great. And even better after installling the fgrlx drivers for my ATI.

I do agree in cutting the plug for Windows, but until I get my money back from all the software and games I bought that only run on Windows or all my Windows games and programs run on Linux, I cannot get rid of my windows partition.

Have a good one.

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[oscartheduck]

I tried Suse 8.2 and ended up in dependencies hell, so I went to Debian.
 
However, since then I've picked up a sysadmin job and persuaded my grant administrator to give me a second hard drive with suse on it on every computer we have. I only chose suse because my colleagues really like it; looks like I'm going to be happy with the choice.

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[Anonymous Coward]

"Just opening and closing programs would increase the RAM usage..."

I've got two tickets for the next Clue Train. Be under it.

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[heinousjay]

Have some of this Koolaid. Why, it's Aqua flavor, of course.

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[gmuslera]

If performance issues worries you, maybe you would want to try SUPER (SUSE Performance Enhanced Release). Is one of the nice things of being open, that people start to build around it new approachs.

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[Anonymous Coward]

Ekhm, it appears we have another someone who is clueless about how physical RAM is being allocated nowadays.

See, what you saw was actually pretty good. If you pay for RAM, it'd better be always utilized to the fullest extent by the OS. Instead of being 'empty', your RAM was put to some use and acted as a disk cache. It's a totally weird misconception that free RAM is good. It's not good. It's your investment being used to heat up your room and for no other reason. Think about it. That'd be a pretty expensive heater you've got there.

Cheers, Kuba

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[IANAAC]

Have you used Yast2 and looked at the supplementary wireless drivers available?

If not, I recommend it. They've worked hard (meaning with third parties) on wireless support.

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[Jon-o]

I wasn't too pleased with it either - haven't used the most recent version, but I spent a little bit of time with the evaluation version last year. Seemed there were a lot of nice ideas, but a lot seemed kinda half-assed. Lots of stuff that would work really nicely if you used it just like they wanted you to use it, but then didn't support anything more esoteric. And then if you tried to go outside of the "standard stuff", you find undocumented and unfinished scripts and the like. I found it rather annoying... especially since it seemed relatively impossible to get help on it other than through the paid support, which I didn't pay for, of course. But it's really not the sort of distro I'm interested in - I much prefer the flexibility and transparency of Debian (fully realizing that half the transparency is a result of my knowing better where to look, having used Debian for about 8 years now). SuSE just seemed to have too much "do it our way, or don't do it at all!" mentality about it. But maybe if I used it more, I'd change my mind.

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[linuxpyro]

I used SuSE 9.0, and I have to agree with you: It is a very polished distro. I'd go so far as to say that the hardware support was better than on Windows... For some things; it was easier for me to get up and running with a Phillips Webcam in SuSE than under XP. The YaST package manager was nice too, but after trying Gentoo I think portage tops it, though not if you're new to Linux like I was when I was trying SuSE. It wasn't my first distro, but I tried it after RedHat.

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[vurg]

I actually got rid of Windows on my laptop too. Well, not exactly true since I need it for work (ASP.NET stuff), so I have it running inside VMWare. Now, I'm secretly learning Ruby on Rails at the office :) I'm more likely to build from source and set my own PREFIXes, but there are some convenience services that I easily set up from the Yast2 (e.g samba, firewall, etc.). The only thing I want to see is to have a very minimal Gnome install without some of the bloat.

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[swillden]

Mac OS X is too good, too slick, and truly does just work.

Unless you want to set up a raw print queue to a remote CUPS server.

OTOH, it says something that that is currently my only beef with my wife's iBook. It's a big beef, from her point of view, though, since printing is rather important to her. At present, if she prints to the HP LJ4 she gets the square of the number of copies she requests, due to a weirdness in the gimp-print driver Apple provides for that printer. To print on the HP PhotoSmart she actually has to unplug the printer from the desktop machine it's normally attached to and plug it into her iBook, because the OS X driver HP provides for that printer cannot be used for printing to a remote printer (via SMB, IPP or LPD). Both problems would be solved quite neatly if I could just convince OS X not to bother with drivers but instead to simply forward the raw postscript to the (Debian Linux) print server and let it handle the interpretation.

I guess my next step is to figure out how to tweak the LJ4 driver so it doesn't try to generate multiple copies and to find out how to build the hpijs driver that works so well on my Linux box for OS X. I just need a weekend to fiddle with it, tweaking config files, downloading tarballs, building drivers and then her OS X machine will Just Work, right? <grumble>

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[kubevubin]

Actually, if anything keeps him from being modded down, it'll be the fact that he said that he prefers a Linux distro to Windows.

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[Daengbo]

And everybody who responds to the mac troll gets modded as troll... Whew! When did the site shift to a Mac / Win fanbase?

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[swillden]

SUSE's configuration for performace simply sucks, it kept leaking memory and using all the RAM all the time.

Hmm. You say it "leaked" memory, but what you described doesn't sound like leakage at all.

Just opening and closing programs would increase the RAM usage, damn it even just moving a window would use up more RAM. That is just half of it, the system monitor would also indicate that disk cache was using half the RAM all the time.

Only half? A perfectly ideal operating system would use all of your system's RAM all of the time. The RAM not being actively used by running programs should ideally all be used to store stuff from your hard drive that you're going to need shortly so that it's quick to access it when you need it. Unfortunately, in the real world your OS has no way of knowing what data you will need ten seconds from now, so it has to fall back on just keeping in memory the stuff that you already needed, on the theory that if you needed it once, there's a good chance you'll need it again. After all, it costs nothing to keep that stuff in memory. If some program actually needs the memory, then the OS will simply "evict" the cached data to make room. This eviction process takes negligible time and requires no disk interaction so there's really no downside to it.

For example, my laptop has 1.5GiB of RAM, of which only about 100MiB is currently unused. The disk cache is presently consuming nearly 1.2GiB of RAM, all data that I've touched recently, I'm sure. I would be concerned if my disk cache *weren't* that large after my machine has been up for a few days, because it would indicate that the OS wasn't properly taking advantage of my system RAM. This is running Debian, BTW.

still SUSE would eat RAM little by little until a reboot was necesary.

So what you're saying is that just as the system really got around to making maximum use of your RAM to optimize system performance, you forced it to discard all of that information :-)

I am now a Ubuntu user and the performace out of the box is great.

Now this I find very odd. SuSE and Ubuntu both use very very similar kernel versions, and it's the kernel that does things like disk caching, so I find it difficult to believe that you'd see greatly different performance. Perhaps it's KDE vs GNOME? KDE may have more libraries that would tend to get cached, but I don't think the difference would be huge.

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[laughingcoyote]

Exactly correct-I notice my system performance -increasing- as it shows less free RAM and has been used for a while. This isn't a flaw, any more then CPU caching is. Now, of course, having too many programs open at once will eventually degrade performance, but the only way around that is to add RAM. Once you have enough RAM to accommodate the programs you normally run, however, it's not a Bad Thing for RAM to be utilized.

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, FWIW, I've been a SuSE user since 9.1; a little more than a year now. I recently upgraded my computer to an AMD64 X2-4800+ on an ASUS A8V (KT808) board. SuSE 10 was a bust. Unexplained slowdowns in disk I/O, weird keyboard errors (dropped haracters or rrrrepeated ones) (this was due I'm told to the 2.6.13 kernel and my old IBM Model M AT-style keyboard which Novell will have to pry from my dead cold fingers). I also got strange X errors; I could never cleanly exit the GUI. So I'm back to 9.3... solid as a rock for me and very few problems. Other folks' mileages may vary....

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[smartsaga]

To put it simply, even though you know all that stuff about RAM you did not pay attention to what I said. I said that SUSE 10 IS SLOW! I know that the intention of the developers was to optimize performace, but the darn thing (SUSE 10) was freaking slow and was consuming too much RAM when it was not supposed to. How do I know this? 'cause I have installed many Linux distros, and used them a lot, that have a better performance even when not using up all the RAM. I know that it is good to have things loaded in the oh so fast RAM, but what about new applications being loaded and trying to get a piece of RAM to run fast, too, huh?

Besides, if SUSE 10 had run as fast out of the box as Ubuntu did, or as Mandriva or Fedora, i'd still be using it. Period.

Now, I dare you to install SUSE 10, runs applications and then install Ubunto on the same machine and compare readings from the system monitor. See what you get.

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[smartsaga]

I know that what you say is the RIGHT concept. What I said is that SUSE sucks cause even though it follows such concept, it is SLOW! damn it, the word is SLOW!! I said S L O W

See, that's the problem of posting things on slashdot, people jump to the technically correct answer before thinking about what actually is that people right. I know how RAM is supposed to work, and please excuse my bad enlish as I am an ESL student (English as a Second Language).

Now, having put that aside. What I meant to say was that even thought my 768MB of RAM were being used to about 98%, SUSE would not release memory even after closing most every freaking program I had open, then when trying to open, say FireFox again, it would load EXTREMELY SLOW. Now tell me if that is how ANY distro is supposed to run, would ya?

Anyways, thanks for the informative reply.

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[smartsaga]

Again, what I said is that I don;t care if all my RAM is used to 100%, what I want is a system that runs fast. SUSE 10 does not run as fast as other distros. That is what I said on my first reply, and that is what I repeated. Now, I don't want to sound rude, but can't rou understand plain English?

And I a Linux, Mac OS X, Darwin, BSD, BeOS, DOS, FREE-DOS, kind of guy. I recognize good performance when I see it. I compared SUSE 10 to Ubuntu 5.10. Even though Ubuntu uses a different configuration for disk caching, memory allocation, etc, etc, etc, that does not use up all the RAM, it is still FASTER!!

Have a good one. Please do. Really.

P.S. But, please, tell me how you really feel.

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[smartsaga]

I hate it when I make spelling errors.

>_
Well, at least I have the excuse that my native language is not english.

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[some guy I know]

At present, if she prints to the HP LJ4 she gets the square of the number of copies she requests

The workaround is easy: request the square root of the number of copies that she actually needs.
For example, if she wants 5 copies, she should request 2.2360679775 copies.
Simple, no?

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[smartsaga]

I forgot to mention that in I used Gnome for both distros. And I, too, find it strange that even though the kernels are in the 2.6 range, developers might have included or exculded certain features when compiling.

I don;t know if it is the slashdot effect, the social part, but whenever posts are made, people start throwing chairs, coursing and stuff. I like the content of your post, I just hope that while replying to your post, and those of others, I did not put a rude tone when replying to your reply, swillden.

Have a good one.

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[Green Salad]

Games are my remaining use for Windows. I tried cedega about a year ago and couldn't get it to work. After about 6 frustrating hours trying to RTFM and Google for solutions, I decided to wait a year for cedega to:

1. Evolve into something a little more idiot-proof, or

2. Wait until some of my more fanatical friends got a lot of experience with cedega and could hold my hand.

(sigh)

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[Anonymous Coward]

NO, you did NOT say slow in the post he was replying to. Your post, other than a single vague reference to the performance of Ubuntu, focused on ram usage.

See, that's the problem of posting things on slashdot, people jump to the technically correct answer before thinking about what actually is that people right

Look, you said English is your second language and I respect that. But you need to be realistic about the limitations of your communication abilities in English. You did not effectively communicate in your original post that you were talking about speed. Your post emphasized RAM. Take some responsibility for your own limitations and don't try to blame other people for not being mind readers.

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[treff89]

Dude, you're a prick. Instead of saying "OMG, SUSE is slow, SLOW" then when proven wrong falling back on "ZOMGZ!! I DOTN SPREAK ENGRISH", why not actually (shock, horror) point out exactly what you mean by slow? Is it overall feel? Application loading times? Start-up times? Having run all major Linux distros available, and using SUSE as default boot (hooked by 9.2), I can safely say that SUSE is one of, if not the fastest available distribution (disregarding, obviously, a gentoo stage-1). So the problem must be yours twofold: firstly, that you haven't tried any more than one other distribution; and secondly, that you do not know how to configure your software for maximum speed (or, if no problem there, your hardware has issues). I'm confidently posting this logged-in.

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[Watts Martin]

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20040 101194202284

Does this FAQ help you?

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[Anonymous Coward]

Athlon64 X2 4400+, 2 GB of ram, using mostly for development (g++ 4.0.x never runs too fast!) and the performance is great (SuSE 10.0, frenshly installed as this wasn't OS upgrade but a new workstation).

Nothing but good experience here.. but I *do* believe you have a problem with your system, no one is denying that, just that your analysis of the possible cause doesn't seem very likely.

The memory used as caches -is- "free" when you explicitly allocate it, the replies you got had very good points.

You got issues with SuSE 10.0, you found distro that works for you, that's great news to everyone isn't it!? So chill out and enjoy the Linux!

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[Anonymous Coward]

Excuse me sir, but my computer is worst than yours and SUSE is FAST! damn it the word is FAST! i said F A S T!!! can't believe it? he

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[Anonymous Coward]

sir, you obviously didn't pick the right distro, see http://funroll-loops.org/ for a system that will suit your needs

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[moro_666]

It's the only Linux system I'd run for more than a week without deleting.

It seems like you havent tried out gentoo yet :)
It takes over a week to get it just running with all the bells and whistles :p (portage my love...)

Imho the biggest problem with "distro releases" is that they change stuff in incompatible ways. Thats why i fell love with gentoo. I dont have to upgrade to the next release to get the newest packages, they are always here with me (and they are newer than the ones that ubuntu/debian (and suse) offer), and i can always get software that is exactly optimized for my machine.

If you want to learn how your linux machine really works , try pure debian or better yet, try gentoo ... after hassling around with a low level distro (low meaning closer to pure linux than these rpm puppets) you realize that configuring all the "hard stuff" is actually really easy. and it often helps a lot if you know what you are doing instead of clicking yes|accept|i-guess-so buttons.

I had serious doubts when i saw debian at first. I had even more serious doubts when i saw gentoo (but the similarity to freebsd made it luckily easier for me). But now i'm quite happy that i have hacked both. I suggest you try it too.

/*Ofcourse if your hate configuring you machine to it's top level and you absolutely want to ignore the "spiffest" tuning stuff, stay with you Mac OS X, i dont mind :) */

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[vdboor]

I've never understood what "just works" means. From my experience, every operating system (Windows, Mac, *nix) always has some problem/missing feature that needs a workaround.

You've got a good point here. Something can't be truely "just works" for every situation, but it can get really close to it.

I also advocate SuSE as "just works". I've installed it recently for a friend. All hardware was detected, the correct frontend software was installed to use the hardware (including wireless), browser plugins (including java/flash) are all working properly.

When you plug a scanner you get the option to install a scanner application. When you have bluetooth, the bluetooth software will be installed, etc..

IMHO, this is a huge contract from distributions like Fedora, where the support forums give instructions about compiling a new module against your kernel source to get wireless support.

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[suitti]

Mac OS 6.4 is the OS the let me cut the Windows cord. Oh, that's right, in 1987, PCs came with DOS. I never did dual boot my Mac, though I considered running 68k BSD.

At first, my PC, a 386/33 running Linux kernel 0.97 - Slackware, was used for browsing the internet. When Open Office became available, I slowly moved everything I cared about from the Mac. I hardly ever boot the Mac anymore. There still is the project to convert all my old Word docs to RTF or some other open format.

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[wolf31o2]

If you're playing Windows games, then you aren't Windows-free in any aspect. You are still supporting Windows and Windows gaming. Using Cedega is a win for Microsoft, not for Linux.

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, you're an idiot! Didn't you read his reply post? Get a clue! And yes, SuSe *is* S L O W because it sucks goat nads (as do most other bloated, non-standard, fragmented Linux distro's), plain and simple. There's other OSS OS alternatives to Linux, with much better design and better development models...

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[Anonymous Coward]

> what I said is that I don;t care if all my RAM is used to 100%
Fair enough.

> Even though Ubuntu uses a different configuration for disk caching, memory
> allocation, etc, etc, etc, that does not use up all the RAM, it is still FASTER!!
I thought you said it didn't care about the RAM as long as it runs faster?

The GP/GGGP is just saying that RAM used to 100% is good (I would add, as long as it doesn't start using significant amounts of swap as well.....). You either admit that your points on the RAM issue weren't valid, or bring out an argument that RAM is relevant. No point in dodging the issue by denying that you stated those points. Nobody trying to be personal, just that your statement on the RAM issue is misleading, and somebody took the initiative to put forward an well written reply to correct the issue.

Allow me to get a bit personal though: grow up.

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[Anonymous Coward]

No.

(2.2360679775)^2 = 5.00000000000094050625

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[doublestar]

I had been using Linux for a while .. mainly for servers at work etc ... but Suse 9.x was the distro that finally made me switch my desktop OS at home ... I don't want to spend my weekends compiling kernels .. or sorting out dependencies to get things running ... a. it's not what I would consider productive time b. I'd prefer to be spending my precious free time doing things I enjoy So now I have Suse 10.0 up and running and am loving every moment :) .. if Novell and the Suse community keep on their current course I can actually see Suse making some serious headway into Microsofts turf ...

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[buswolley]

I seem to remember it was the other guy whou said dumb fuck first.

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[jaydonnell]

I bought a imac, plugged it in, and everything worked.

I have a pc, and installed Suse on it. My internet was very very slow. I had to dig through docs to figure out that I needed to turn off ipv6. I had to install the flash plugin, java, and other things. Then one day I updated my kernel (via yast2) and my cd burner stopped working, my sound stopped working, along with other minor annoyances. I had to spend two days getting my system back to where it was before. I haven't had any problems with my mac. It just works.

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[object88]

I've never understood what "just works" means.

That's an excellent point, and I think "just works" is relative. I believe that it has to do with the amount of frusteration expirienced in performing some task.

A non-OS example: in order to get some coding done at work, I needed to set up a test workflow system so that I'd have real data to work with. I installed the various app, created the process, set up the process agent, scheduled the tasks, set up my worklists and archives, etc. Looks perfect, and was easy. But no matter what I did, I couldn't get scanned in documents to show up in my worklist. The scan app said they were importing, and my process agent was checking the scan queue, but no documents. Total frusteration. It "just didn't work".

So a day later, I asked one of the support guys to tell me what I was doing wrong. He poked my setup for about 15 seconds, and showed me that I had one last setting to enter. After that, it "just worked".

The point is that I had no problem going through the 30 steps, and some were rather obtuse (but easy for me). If it had run from there, I'd say that it "just worked", despite the large amount of work I had to put in to get it to that state.

Now, to jump back to OSs. From my expirience, Windows "just works". I can and have installed it numerous times, and have never had trouble with it (despite what people insist is a "difficult" install procedure). I can install Windows and a few apps, and have a very productive machine. I've not done it myself, but I hear people saying the same thing about Macs. Granted, I'm generally working with well-supported, ubiquitus devices. I did have a bad expirience setting up my old Palm m105 with Windows XP... that didn't "just work", even though I eventually got it to work.

My expiriences with Linux have been of the sort where I didn't really understand all of what was going on, and it MOSTLY worked out of the box, but perhaps not without a fight, so I can't really say that it "just worked". If I wanted to do any audio work, I'd have a lot of configuring and tweaking to do, and more importantly frusteration, and it would certainly not "just work". For someone who's done a bunch of audio device setups, I'd bet it does "just work".

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[swillden]

Does this FAQ help you?

Nope. I found that several months ago, after I had already independently worked out that that is how it ought to work. In practice, it doesn't. By performing an odd sequence of reconfigurations using both the Apple-provided configuration GUI and the CUPS web-based admin UI, I can sometimes make it work for a period of time, but after a few hours or a few days OS X starts reporting that it cannot print to those printers.

In many mailing list conversations I have not found one person who has been able to make raw queues work consistently and reliably... which is especially frustrating because it should be the *simplest* possible configuration. No filters, no drivers, no nothing, just deliver raw postscript from one CUPS engine to another via CUPS own protocol.

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[xrobertcmx]

9.3 Worked/Works wonderfully on my Inspiron 5150 laptop, but 10 couldn't even boot. On the otherhand my Athlon 64 3400+ loves 10 but 9.3 wouldn't even install.

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[smartsaga]

Dude, you're a prick. Instead of saying "OMG, SUSE is slow, SLOW" then when proven wrong falling back on "ZOMGZ!! I DOTN SPREAK ENGRISH", why not actually (shock, horror) point out exactly what you mean by slow? Is it overall feel? Application loading times? Start-up times? I'll say it again, Out of the box!! I compared SUSE 10 out of the box and Ubuntu 5.10, also out of the box. Meaning that I simply did a clean install.

AI also ran almost every freaking program the distros came with, played games, did a couple of hours of web browsing, used the GIMP, and even installed extra apps.

I have been using inux since RedHat 7.X, going through Mandrake's early versions to the newest Mandriva, k12OS, Knoppix, TurboLinux, DSL, etc, etc, etc. I have installed them on laptops as well as on desktops and servers with SCSI drives, RAID, etc, etc., firewalls, IDS, and what not. So I guess I have a pretty good idea of what to expect from a distro in terms of speed and performace.

Having run all major Linux distros available, and using SUSE as default boot (hooked by 9.2), I can safely say that SUSE is one of, if not the fastest available distribution (disregarding, obviously, a gentoo stage-1). It is not that you have ran all the distros in the world and that you say that SUSE is the fastest one, cause you just tripped right there even disregarding gentoo, which takes a while to compile and tune up to a user's "taste." Take for example, a slow Pentium II with 256RAM and a 10GB HD, install SUSE 10 and have it run, with a clean install and no extra configuration, run as fast as Ubuntu 5.10 would. Then tell me, 'cause I did my homework and did make a comparison between them. I tested them, I used them both like I would use any other distro I had used before and came to a conclusion. Now where is yours? So the problem must be yours twofold: firstly, that you haven't tried any more than one other distribution; and secondly, that you do not know how to configure your software for maximum speed (or, if no problem there, your hardware has issues). I'm confidently posting this logged-in. Now, if my hardware had issues Configure? ha! Why waste my time having to figure out what went wrong with one distro when many others have had no problems with my hardware? Huh? I'm confidently posting this logged-in. Ha!

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[smartsaga]

Your post emphasized RAM. Take some responsibility for your own limitations and don't try to blame other people for not being mind readers. Emphasis does not mean that that's the only thing I talked about. And if you seem to be so proficient in English, why didn't you pick that up? Don't get me wrong, I appreciate your pointint that out to me, but I did say that Ubuntu's performace was great:

I am now a Ubuntu user and the performace out of the box is great. And even better after installling the fgrlx drivers for my ATI.

Yes, I should have said that SUSE 10 was slow in overall performace. Thank you.

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[cloudmaster]

It's KDE, not your memory usage. KDE out of the box is generally pretty darned slow. Ubuntu uses a pretty clean gnome install by default. Try installing KUbuntu (just apt-get kubuntu-desktop on your existing machine if you have a little free space and bandwidth). You'll get the option to either log in to KDE or Gnome in the "sessions" dialog on the login screen. KDE will probably feel slower, because it's a heavier desktop - but it's also a little more tightly integrated (for lack of a better description). Granted, SuSE tends to have an even heavier default, but most any default KDE will be kinda heavy all around because most of the time it's set to favor eye candy rather than performance.

That said, I'm running Ubuntu on my wife's workstation, Gentoo on mine (will switch to Ubuntu eventually), Slackware on one server, Ubuntu on another, and SuSE 10 on still another. A couple of workstations netboot Ubuntu now, and I'm replacing a RedHat 9 machine with Ubuntu shortly. I always wanted to be a Debian snob, and Ubuntu's policy of releasing software versions that have been released in the most recent decade has finally made that viable. :) Now if only they'd support the m68k target so I could run it on my presently NetBSD machines...

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[smartsaga]

I thought it was you screaming as I was riding that train when its wheels made a mess outa your bones...

But seriously, a memory leak is what it seemed to me. I am not used to see RAM being used in such a manner in the system or memory monitors. Call it whatever you want, even stupidity if that is what better suits your own little world.

I really don't know what's with people these days calling every people stupid just because of a lack of communication skills. I would think that intelligent people with good communication skills would have understood that in my first post I had two paragraps, one about SUSE 10 and a reason why it sucks, and then another one about Ubuntu stating that it was great COMPARED to SUSE 10.

People, at least tell me that you know about parallelism and compararing things. I guess some of you, the ones who replyed to my post in a very offensive manner, don't really understand English. And I thought my Enlgish was bad, I guess it is not THAT bad after all.

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[spagetti_code]

I'll wait until printing is sorted out first.

There are very few xerox printers that actually work (Xerox is a mess internally and almost every printer has incompatible commands with every other printer).

Lexmark printers are well covered - most printers share a common set of commands. An N16 will work for an N32, an optra R will work for optra {R,S}* and so on.

HP printers are reasonably well represented, and share common commands.

I've really tried to love linux in the corp world, but until I can actually print a duplex rotated document to my high-end MFD, its a no go.

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[MadMaxLewsterMax]

Yes.
I love this distro 2.
I love Slackware as well.
And, I want to learn how to modify and compile my Gentoo distro.
Good bye Mr. Bill. . .

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[rtb61]

I like SuSe, now all I want to be able to do is order it online from Novell in Australia and have it delivered, no muss, no fuss. I have always paid for my Linux, for me it was never about free, it was all about about trust and reliability (it should always be available for free download and free re-distribution of course, bridging the digital divide is a must). I pay for it because I like the pretty manuals even if I never RTFM and the support even if I demand to never have to need to use it ;-).

Re:Excusee-my-SuSE

[LocoCoyote]

Much words...little fact. Pray tell, what is non standard about Suse? I am thinking you need to go back to your WinDoze ketboard.

Re:We're offering Suse 10.0 on dedicated root serv

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll bite...

Do you allow torrent trackers?
What is the cost if I want more than 80GB storage?
Physical dedicated server or virtual with something like Xen?
Any port/network restrictions?
Anything prohibited besides what's listed on the Legal page?

Thanks.

You're offering spam

[rebug]

I can't wait to tell my boss about the sweet deal Harry Balls can get us.

Re:You're offering spam

[Hosiah]

Harry Balls

Maybe somebody should scratch him.

Why do people always review the install?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do people always review the install? I mean seriously, who gives a shit. I haven't heard anyone complaining about an install since 2000, and even in 1998 it really wasn't that hard with some documentation scribbled on a napkin. There's even a howto for installing linux on the carcass of a dead badger.

Microsoft isn't pushing their OS for its easy install. You never hear about OS X's install.

Why is linux judged by it's ease of install!? Who gives a flying rats ass. Does it work after it's installed? Probably not every well.

Re:Why do people always review the install?

[saskboy]

I don't see how this got an insightful moderation, since it's just a troll.

How many people you know have bought a computer with Linux pre-installed, or comes with Linux recovery CDs? Macs come with OS-X already on it, so people don't tend to install it. If a Linux distro doesn't have a friendly install process, then its not going to be accepted by the masses. It's nothing personal against Linux, it's just a fact of the market place, and getting Linux's foot in the computer door.

Re:Why do people always review the install?

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows and Mac users only like to the OS that comes with their install. As opposed to say, some kind of independent thought, they love it when "stuff" gets rammed down their throat. In more than one way.

Re:Why do people always review the install?

[mwaggs_jd]

Um... maybe because nobody installs windows, or OSX on a blank box... but most everyonehe installs linux on a box that was either blank or had another OS preinstalled. Get a grip, the install is very important for potential new user. When was the last time you tried to install windows... for me it was 3.11... other than that, it has always been pre intalled.

Re:Why do people always review the install?

[i_should_be_working]

His point was that since every distro has a very easy install these days (with the exception of some distros that aren't meant for noobs) there's no point in talking about the install in a review. It's a waste of space and time.

For distros like SUSE, Mandriva etc. the only thing that needs to be said about the install is 'it's easy'.

Way too many reviews talk about the install way too much and then don't spend enough space talking about how it is to actually use the distro.

Re:Why do people always review the install?

[Anonymous Coward]

I hardly consider myself a noob (I'm actually been a single boot SUSE user since Feb) but the reasons I don't try a distro like Gentoo (and to a greater extent Freebsd) is because of the horror stories of the install process. Not knocking them, but having an easy install is important to some people, especially the demographic Novell is going after.

Re:Why do people always review the install?

[MTO_B.]

Easy and visual install is very important, especially for the partition area of the installation when you have windows installed and you want a dual boot.

Installs have improved very much, and among those that I have tested Suse has the best one in this area.

I am currently using Ubuntu, but there is no way I would have installed it if I didnt have a second hard drive. If I had only one hard drive Suse would be my distro, I need to be sure I will not erase my windows partitions and that is one area of installation I really liked of Suse last time I tried. I felt safe installing it.

If it's a pc where you will only have linux, installation interface doesnt matter that much at all. No risk and you dont really have anything valuable to destroy.

Re:Why do people always review the install?

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason Mac users get so devoted is that the Mac is sold as a lifestyle not a product. Once you've internalised that "lifestyle" image, it becomes part of their identity. Criticise the Mac and you criticise them. It's the oldest marketing trick in the book but it still works for people who don't like analytical reasoning and tend to react to things emotionally. Their little motto "think different" is ironic since so many Mac users see themselves as "artistic" and have largely rejected thinking as "boring".

Re:Why do people always review the install?

[j_w_d]

Microsoft isn't pushing their OS for its easy install. You never hear about OS X's install.

That's because compared to most linuxes, XP isn't easy to install. It's a pain in the ass. The only driver I ever need to install seperately with SuSE is the driver for my Nvidia GeForce and even that is semiautomated in SuSE. With MS every fiddly bit of crap that is attached needs it's own driver and most of them will just run under Linux. This is the main change in SuSE 9.3 that I don't like. Something about the hardware recognition is now broken and CDs and DVDs need considerable help to get them mounted.

Re:Why do people always review the install?

[BocaJuniors]

I don't think that "install" means to most people just "dumping the distro on the hard drive."

For most users it probably means a lot of other things too...like having a fully-functional system right out of the box.

And by that standard, Linux has come a long way.

Re:Why do people always review the install?

[nicktripp]

Why do people always review the install?...Microsoft isn't pushing their OS for its easy install. You never hear about OS X's install...Why is linux judged by it's ease of install!?

Because unlike the two OS's you compared it to, Linux doesn't come installed by default on 99% of computers. Most Windows and Mac OS X users never see the OS installer, if they're lucky. Almost all Linux users will see AND use the installer if they want to use the OS. That's why.

Re:Why do people always review the install?

[Anonymous Coward]

I see how.
It's a pain in the ass to read about nothing but "almost like a soft blue light glowing in the middle of the screen" on the first (out of 3) page of the review.

And then, buried at the end of the last page:
"One last thing..." No shit, Watson! Am I receiving your signal? ... still need DeCSS to watch the movies and mp3 stuff is not there?

I remember installing Slackware 3.0 back in 1996. I followed instructions in the README file and everything just worked. I think it's just the matter of will.

Re:Why do people always review the install?

[johansalk]

It isn't. I have installed a bunch of distros over the last two weeks and they were far from just the same. Also, installation is still not flawless for many distros.

Re:Why do people always review the install?

[jonesy16]

In your response you say, talk about how it is to actually use the distro. But let's face it: with over 300 distros, what separates them? I'll tell you, the hardware configuration utilities, server configuration utilities, installation, and package management. That's it folks. I've got news for you, Gnome 2.12 functions the same on SuSe as it does on gentoo, on redhat, yadda yadda. Yeah, maybe a menu moved, or a theme changed, but nobody is rewriting these things from the ground up to reinvent their distro and set it apart.

At the end of the day, what makes RedHat unique from Ubuntu, or Mandriva unique from SuSe is the easy of the install, installation of software and updates, and configuration of services. For SuSe, this means Yast. As a comparison, for a newbie, the install process on RedHat is a hell of a lot cleaner than it is on Ubuntu. Sure, they accomplish the same thing, but the mass public will feel better about the experience if it's polished.

Re:Why do people always review the install?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it's what they do - install, review quickly what its got and write review sooner better. Install makes big part of overall experience for them ;-) Silly me, XP Pro was preinstalled on my new notebook, can't compare quality of nowadays Windows installer at all. And SuSE was great all around, but wireless before 10 - they say this release targeted that. Competitive they are!

Re:Why do people always review the install?

[Anonymous Coward]

The answer is no

I think the answer is yes. "OSS hippies" (as you call them) tend to be less materialistic (in my experience) and therefore aren't so easily swayed by a hip marketing campaign. They tend to know about other OS's to a much greater extent than Mac users and their choice of OS is, as a result, more considered.

OSS does have some lifestlye and socio-political elements but this represents genuine tendencies of the group not an image externally promoted by a large company, it is also much more open to variation.

The two are very different.

Re:Why do people always review the install?

[beforewisdom]

  I don't see how this got an insightful moderation, since it's just a troll.

A troll is someone who has no legitimate interest in the subject of a forum and who posts inflammatory messages with the intent of disrupting that forum.

Having an opinion someone doesn't like doesn't make that person a troll.

I felt that the other poster had a legitimate point.

GNU/Linux installers used be very unfriendly ( some still are ), but that is in the distant past making it past the time for people who write reviews to move and let go of that idea.

Re:Why do people always review the install?

[saskboy]

Perhaps he wasn't a troll, but he just put his point in a rude way. And it is a weak point at best since nearly everyone has to actually install Linux for it to be on their computer, when that's not the case for Windows or OS-X.

Re:Why do people always review the install?

[Decker-Mage]

I have to agree with GP. The whole long drawn out article was mostly about the install and could have been tossed off in a paragraph if I were writing the article. Hell, a sentence would do it. I have a real problem with articles that waste my time wading through fluff to get to the meat which was sadly lacking in this case. There's a lot more to SuSE than YaST, a tool I happen to really like. I'm more concerned with integration of the various packages, ease of maintenance, and issues like does it pass the "Grandmother test."

Which distro to recommend ?

[Taco Cowboy]

My friends want to learn Linux. They are computer literate but have no experience in the world of unices, nor DOS.

Which distro do you recommend for people like them ? Ubuntu ? Suse ? Mandriva ?

Your opinion is much appreciated. Thanks !

Re:Which distro to recommend ?

[b3x]

If they want to learn Linux, then I recommend Slackware or Gentoo, those distros will offer the most learning experiences. However, if they just want to ditch windows, and use Linux instead, then SuSe or Ubuntu will be satisfactory.

Re:Which distro to recommend ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows XP with Mavis Beacon typing tutor.

Thanks for coming out. Please go home now.

Re:Which distro to recommend ?

[Hakubi_Washu]

I'd say hand them a Knoppix or similar LiveCD (doesn't really matter which) to fool around with and get over the initial shock.

Then, if they are Win PowerUsers (aka don't sweat poking .lnks and the occasional cmd), hand them any Distro you like (I personally have a sweet spot for SuSE though it has some horrible decisions in directory structure, etc. and I openly hate Ubuntu, which I consider an absolute interface-nightmare in the default, LiveCD configuration. Debian, Gentoo, etc. are probably too arcane, let them discover the fun of that later on their own). Let them do installation, etc. on their own, but babysit them.

If they are simple users (no experience in unix or DOS doesn't make that so, but if they've never used a cmdline it gets tough) the first thing to ask is, honestly, do THEY want to learn Linux or do YOU want them too (I've myself been guilty of that)? If it's actually them you should probably install the LiveCD they had to play with, so they're not confused by another change so soon. And make damn sure they come to you before trying to install some software (people get nervous breakdowns when first encountering the "Linux way")

Re:Which distro to recommend ?

[Anonymous Coward]

sure, SUSE is easy and well done. Plus all the tools that come with it are great. www.opensuse.org is the place to go to get the install discs.

You'll enjoy this :)

Re:Which distro to recommend ?

[Malor]

Tell them to try LiveCDs first, just to tinker. They let you play with Linux with zero commitment. Just be sure to explain that a 'real' install will be a lot faster, because it runs from the hard drive.

When you're ready for a hard drive install, I've been recommending Mandrake/Mandriva for new users for several years now. I started using it in the 8.X series, and after a short readjustment period, it was a total Windows replacement for me. I felt a lot MORE productive on Mandrake than on Windows, once I'd figured it out. It had some rough edges, but overall worked very, very well.

I've used a lot of Linux desktops over the years (Ubuntu, Debian, Redhat up to the 7.X series, Slackware, SLS), and I've always thought Mandrake was the best. (though Ubuntu is pretty nice too... you might want to try both.)

I don't have any experience with Suse, because for a long time you had to pay to get the best install options. The free version was purposely awkward to install, so I never bothered with it. Suse's loss, too... I liked Mandrake and I've sent them, geeze, three or four hundred bucks by now, probably. I just didn't want to pay BEFORE seeing the product. Now that they're more GPL-ish, they may be a very good spot for new users to tinker. I'll download and play with this one and see what's up with it.

For your friends, though, definitely start them on LiveCDs. They're easy to use, cheap to download and burn, and if they aren't impressed, all they have to do is shut down and eject the CD.

Re:Which distro to recommend ?

[cpthowdy]

I'd say SUSE 10. Here is a link to download it, especially a Live-DVD image, so they can either run away screaming, or go all the way and install it to disk (they'll need to get the other ISO's here.)

Re:Which distro to recommend ?

[guitaristx]

I must disagree. We run SuSE at work for all our servers, and so when I moved from a job where I was required to use software that was only available on Windows, I thought, "well, gee, it'd be nice to be running the same OS as the servers, since my code will eventually live on the servers..."

A half-day's frustration later, I said to my nearest FreeBSD zealot, "Okay, show me this FreeBSD thing." An hour and a half later, I had a fully-functioning desktop. KDE even played nice with all the apps that I installed. I will say that FreeBSD isn't as GUI-friendly as SuSE in the area of administration, but for a minimal CLI effort, you get to rid yourself of a lot of the package management nightmares that SuSE brings to the table.

Re:Which distro to recommend ?

[Glonoinha]

SuSE 10 (the one we are discussing here today) has a Live DVD also.
I know, I'm using it right now and I love it.

Download the iso here, burn it to DVD, leave it in the DVD drive, and reboot.

Enjoy.

Re:Which distro to recommend ?

[Anonymous Coward]

My friends want to get married. They have read about it but have no experience with women.
Which would you recommend for people like them?
Redheads? Brunettes? Blondes?

Your opinion is much appreciated. Thanks !

Re:Which distro to recommend ?

[MobyDisk]

I felt a lot MORE productive on Mandrake than on Windows, once I'd figured it out.

I've been waiting for someone to say this for a while so I could ask this question. What do you do with your computer that made Linux more productive for you? I'm also curious what aspects you had to "figure out" in order to make Linux productive.

I asked this at a the Baltimore Linux Users Group a while back, and I was surprised at the answer. (I'll divulge that after I see your response, I don't want to put words in your mouth).

Re:Which distro to recommend ?

[Anonymous Coward]

100% agreed. I have heard that Ubuntu is great and will try it RSN but my "productivity" machine runs Mandrake very happily (much more so than in it's "Mr. Ballmer" alter ego state). The live CDs also give you an idea how hard it is going to be to actually install Linux: if, as it usually does, the boot goes flawlessly and all of your devices are recognized, the HD install is probably going to work (and if it doesn't, you have a reference to work from).

Re:Which distro to recommend ?

[Malor]

First, you have to realize that I'm pretty geeky... my experience may not translate well to Grandma or Uncle Joe.

My transition was almost accidental. I'd taken on a new job administering a network of Linux servers. I was provided a Windows desktop and several spare machines that I could use for whatever.. the prior administrator had liked to tinker with things. The Windows machine proved to be unreliable, and I was unable to determine if the company had paid for my Windows license at the time, so I just installed Mandrake on a spare box. I'd originally intended it as a secondary machine, but I ended up being happy enough that I never switched back, at least for work. (I still run Windows at home, mostly for gaming.)

After getting past the initial learning curve, I felt more productive because I had instant access to a huge range of powerful utilities. One of them, interestingly, was the humble bash shell. After settling in permanently and learning how to script properly (which I had never actually done before, though I'd been using Linux for years...I'd just not needed the ability sooner), I was able to automate a great many administrative tasks. That would have been much harder with Windows. I would have needed Cygwin, which is essentially Unix anyway. And screen and ssh were incredibly useful as well. I don't mean just the basic command-line ssh, but the remote-command, piping, port redirection, and proxying capabilities. That kind of thing is harder to do in Windows, and you definitely have to pay for it. (unless, of course, you use Cygwin, but it's still not native to the platform in quite the same way. If you're going to use free software anyway, might as well do it right.)

From a desktop perspective, I prefer Evolution to any other email client I've tried. It has the look and feel of Outlook, but is all Unixy underneath, so gluing in other programs is trivial. Adding in spam detection took very little time, for instance, and cost nothing, quite unlike the commercial alternatives. I loved the sorting rules and the ability to transparently support multiple email aliases (so I could be postmaster, webmaster, support, and my 'real' email address, without having to think much about them.) And I prefered Konqueror to any other browser I'd used up to that point. It ran faster, had tab support, and just in general struck me as superior to IE, except when it failed to render something. Fortunately, that wasn't terribly common, and Mozilla was there when Konqueror couldn't handle it. (Firefox wasn't out at the time I was making the transition.) And I absolutely loved the High Performance Liquid theme in KDE.

Multiple workspaces was a big productivity boost once I figured out how to organize it.... web browsing in one screen, email in another, remote jobs in a third (abstracted with the 'screen' utility so I could check up on things from home if I wanted), music player, network monitoring, and various random things (nethack!) in a fourth.

It's been quite awhile, so my memory has dimmed, but I believe but the rough edges were mostly determining how to get the hardware configured. Screen resolutions were a real pain. Getting sound working properly was also hard, and then determining/shopping for the best program to use for the different available functions. (I had quite a bit of experience with server Linux, but desktop Linux was pretty new to me.) A lot of this stuff was hard simply because related settings were spread all over multiple screens... they were organized by how the software was built, rather than by how people thought about the problem. Even now, the interfaces to system configuration stuff tend to be much harder than they should be.

Overall, there just weren't any artificial barriers between me and the system. It was still easy to use, but it was easy without hiding the power underneath. Windows abstracts things but then makes it very hard to get down to brass tacks, past the abstractions. Linux isn't like that. If you want to see ho

Re:Which distro to recommend ?

[zenslug]

OS X.

They'll be able to tinker with a commandline without requiring it. I work on Solaris via Windows all day, and coming home to OS X is great. I get my GUI and my commandline.

Re:Which distro to recommend ?

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you do with your computer that made Linux more productive for you?

Several things but the real winner is data analysis.

For me:
1) The Unix toolset. Simple combinations of simple commands like "grep Error logfile.txt | wc" might look like Greek to the new user (try "man wc" if that's you) but it's probably faster to learn it the first time than to achieve the same result futzing around with Excel for the hundredth. The various nix toolsets available for Windows(I've been using Cygwin lately...two thumbs up) do a great job of providing the tools but they still have to deal with Gimpy in the corner who won't do anything unless you keep poking him with a mouse.

2) Bash. This is part of (1) but it is so important. Given MS's propensity for arriving late with half a bag of chips, the very rumor of Monad should be sufficient argument for the value of bash. DOS CLI never grew with Windows. Bash is literally the product of 40 years of evolution of the command line. Super fast, stupidly powerful. Here again Cygwin gets a couple thumbs as software that actually exists making it happen under Windows.

3) User scripting. (1)+(2)=(3). If I can execute the basic instructions on the command line and the app doesn't need a gui, then I'm 95% of the way to having a useful custom app. A couple of those and a text file and you've got a nice little database. For data analysis I use these little scripts to organize and archive files and to clean, filter and sort the data.

These are the main things that make me more productive under Linux. There are other things (multiple desktops and some nifty ways to use multiple computers) that also help sometimes but they are more task specific.

Re:Which distro to recommend ?

[M1FCJ]

DesktopBSD and/or DragonFly just work but they lack the "ready to use" feeling. In this day and age I would guess almost any distribution of UNIX will just work. Solaris 10 just works. FreeBSD 4/5 just works. NetBSD just works. With the most common hardware and the smallest set of commons (KDE/Gnome apps), they tend to work. When you have an obscure hardware or require some strange software (a webcam/printer no one ever heard of or a driver for a multi-IO serial card no one used in the last 20 years), then you run into problems. Same for the cutting edge technology. For example SuSE 10 comes with XEN. The documentation for XEN+SuSE virtually doesn't exist. When you are new to XEN and something happens, you just can't know if it is your or distribution's fault. Once you have an other distribution (Ubuntu/Fedora Core) and experience (or not) the same problems you will figure it out. The result should be a public wiki, somewhere and indeed XEN web page has a wiki for such work.

I wouldn't go for "this distro beats that" type of argument, Slackware just works as well and has its reputation for years. FreeBSD, of course, works. No one should claim it doesn't. That'd be stupid. The main question is "when you run into a problem, will you be able to get the solution by calling a number/visiting a web page/visiting an IRC channel or is the distribution completely obscure and there is one more person trying to use it.

Free/Open/NetBSDs and almost any major Linux distribution passes this criteria therefore they are useful.

The rest of the distinction is taste. I don't like Gnome desktops and I dislike some aspects of Ubuntu's ideology for the userland. I like SuSE, Kubuntu (to a degree) and Slackware. I also have FreeBSD-installed disks for experimentation.

This message is written on a SuSE10 system communicating via a Debian proxy server on a network firewalled by a FreeBSD-based firewall. They all just work.

Re:Which distro to recommend ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have a core stuck in your ear? He's asking what distro should he use to learn about LINUX. He specifically wanted the name of a distro and even stated the reason as to why he wanted a name of a distro (because he wanted to learn Linux). Therefore, there is absolutely no room for your lovely insertion of off-topic criteria into this thread.

Re:Which distro to recommend ?

[Rakshasa Taisab]

s:use:lackware:

Re:Which distro to recommend ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd go for a brunette, it works for me.

Re:Which distro to recommend ?

[BritneySP2]

Lackware - not a bad name for a new minimalist distribution.

Re:Which distro to recommend ?

[MobyDisk]

Wow. Your answer is almost the same. I think that answer is prevalent amongst Linux users.

First, you have to realize that I'm pretty geeky... my experience may not translate well to Grandma or Uncle Joe.

I'm a geek too, and years ago I realized something: I actually use my computer for real life things. I use MS Office to manage my software development business. I encode videos. I play games. I realized that being a geek doesn't make me different from Grandma or Uncle Joe. I want my computer to work, and when it doesn't work I get unhappy.

I always imagined that the engineer who invented a new type of can opener liked to eat canned food. And that Betty Crocker liked to cook because she liked to eat. I code software because there are tasks I do everyday and I want to make them easier and better.

But I keep meeting computer geeks who don't actually have a reason to use their computer. When asked what they do with it: they hook it to a network and administer it. They are like mechanics who work on engines, but have never driven a car. They know all about the means and the technology, but they have no applied use for it.

A friend of mine had "Norton Utilities" under Start - Programs - Applications. Norton Utilities is not an applied use for a computer. Microsoft Office is. Even a game is. This guy didn't actually have a reason to use his computer. Now there is nothing wrong with that of course, but it does make it difficult to trust that person's experience and apply it to the real world. There's that word again: "apply."

What did the Baltimore LUG have to say?

A buddy of mine asked the Baltimore LUG what these guys used Linux for that was better than Windows. My friend liked to create music using Live! and a few other music programs. Nobody at the LUG made music. I was coding some cool 3D stuff, but there were no developers there. I also ran my business using Microsoft Office, but nobody there had a home based business or used any serious office features. After a bit of discussion, I realized that none of them knew what an applied use of a computer was. Except email and browsing the web -- they got that one right away.

I felt more productive because I had instant access to a huge range of powerful utilities

When I asked them what was better about Linux, it was the themes, or the shell, or the low-level details. You list lots of nice things about Linux. Personally, I like that Linux treats everything as a file. And I like the binary package formats and the way dependencies are handled. But I can't actually think of a way that Linux makes me more productive. It's not easier to develop on, surfing the web is about the same, it surely doesn't help me do my taxes.

So over the past few years as I've learned about Linux and ported some code and stuff I've learned a lot about how the engine runs and I like it: But the car just doesn't get me to my destination. I keep hoping to find someone who has applied it, so I can learn from them.

Re:Which distro to recommend ?

[Malor]

Well, from the standpoint of a programmer or an administrator, it's very good indeed at getting to destinations. For the stuff that I do professionally, Windows just doesn't cut it, at least not without adding in a lot of other stuff. Unix is very popular in the sciences too, for similar reasons.

As far as your particular goals go... I haven't done that much with video encoding, but I was under the impression that Linux was pretty good in that area? It's certainly very good at working with music files. For instance, I have all my music stored as CUE/BIN files. When I bought the Squeezebox2 (a great music player, btw), I found that it would natively support CUE/FLAC. So I took about 45 minutes to whip up a script to recurse through my entire directory hierarchy, encode to FLAC, and massage the CUE files to point to the new FLAC files instead of the WAVs. (took several days to actually run, but I just left it going under screen, so I didn't have to fool with it.) I would have had a hard time doing that under Windows.

I don't have personal experience here, but I'd assume that most of the video-encoding programs should work under Linux the same way. You could easily script something, for instance, to encode a raw dump whenever you saved one, even to several different formats if you needed that. That kind of thing is hard to do with a GUI... not impossible, but usually awkward.

I think, in reading over your post, that perhaps you haven't stepped up to the next level yet, which I didn't do until I was forced to use it full time. Linux gives you an awesome array of tools, but it's still mostly up to you to assemble them into what you need. But once you have cobbled together a script to do something, expanding it, or replacing pieces of it, becomes quite easy.

For years, I was poisoned by the Windows Way, which is basically "use other people's applications in the way they intended". Linux doesn't work that way, so much. I think it's when you realize you have an incredible amount of control, and that you can very often build your own custom solution to a problem in a fraction of the time it would take under Windows, that your productivity really starts going up.

I think trying to use Linux the same way you use Windows is a perfectly good first goal, but if you stop there, you'll never exceed your Windows productivity... in fact, you'll probably not even match it. I think that may be where you're stuck. Treat it like Windows and that's all you'll get out of it. Treat it like Unix, and you can do magic.

The single best piece of advice I can give you is to find people who use Linux a lot (and that you like) and hang out with them. An awful, awful lot of Unix is arcane lore, passed on from person to person.... powerful ways of approaching problems that aren't ever mentioned in the documentation. Unless you have a truly extraordinary mind, far better than mine, you'll find learning it on your own to be an uphill battle. It certainly was for me. Linux/Unix is a mindset as much as an OS, and it's much easier to learn it from people who already know it, rather than having to invent it all yourself.

"hands down" and a real question

[Hakubi_Washu]

Jeesh, yes we understood you learned a new phrase, now get over it :-P

One real question though: Up to and including SuSE 9.1 I have always had one major complaint (That does not stop me from using SuSE, but is an absolute showstopper when thinking about recommending it to friends). Everything is fine as long as you only install the default packages and a few select ones, but very often packages (which are distributed with SuSE, I'm not talking about external rpms) would install just fine, but never show up in KDEs menu. For someone used to that there's no big deal to add a link manually, but it's hardly something I can tolerate in a commercial distro... So, my question, is that problem still there in 10.0? What happens if I add LyX for example?

Re:"hands down" and a real question

[superpulpsicle]

I think that is more of a KDE thing. However, all linux distros could really use an upgrade path. If I had a datacenter box using SUSE 9, I should be able to put the SUSE 10 CD in, and get an "upgrade" entire version button. Apt-get do work to some degree, but the CD networkless method seem more natural in a giant datacenter. Or maybe someone has a better way out there?

Re:"hands down" and a real question

[kikensei]

Here are 10 or 11 repositories of SuSE compile RPM's: http://www.opensuse.org/Additional_YaST_Package_Re positories Here's how to install then as sources for YaST: http://www.novell.com/coolsolutions/feature/11504. html I recommend Packman's excellent package site, from the first link. Once you add the sources, YaST performs essentially the same apt-get (or synaptic), resolves dependencies, and doesn't break stuff when you add new packages.

Re:"hands down" and a real question

[IANAAC]

However, all linux distros could really use an upgrade path.

I successfully "upgraded" from Suse 9.3 to 10.0 last week.

It was the first real upgrade that's actually worked hassle-free, as opposed to upgrade, meaning backup-everything-and-selectively-restore-after-a- fresh-install.

Well, I did have to go into Sax2 and redo my resolution, but that was it. All my settings and programs continued to work just fine.

Re:"hands down" and a real question

[AJWM]

What happens if I add LyX for example?

I just tried it (Suse 10.0 on an AMD64) -- the link for LyX shows up in the KDE menu under the Office->Word Processor items. The couple of other apps (eg K3B) I've installed after the initial install also show up with new links in the menu. Looks like that's now a non-issue.

(I've been a SuSE user since about 6.1. My only gripe with recent versions is that they don't include my two favorite viewer apps, kuickshow and mplayer. No big deal to download and build them, and my preference is probably because they have good command-line interfaces, something many people won't care about.)

Re:"hands down" and a real question

[Hakubi_Washu]

Thank you, maybe I should give it a try then :-) Kuickshow is a real loss, I agree. Have you (or anybody else) tried running Inkscape? That was difficult on the 9.x series as well...

Re:"hands down" and a real question

[Just Some Guy]

very often packages (which are distributed with SuSE, I'm not talking about external rpms) would install just fine, but never show up in KDEs menu.

If that happens, run "KAppFinder". It looks for all the applications on your system that aren't in your KDE menu and provides an easy way to add them.

Re:"hands down" and a real question

[Grishnakh]

You CAN do this. Put your new SUSE 10 DVD in your drive, go to Yast2, and select "Update System" in the first menu. There's a few selections inside that, but it's basically pretty easy to use this to update to a newer SUSE version.

Re:"hands down" and a real question

[Grishnakh]

Kuickshow should still be there, as part of kdegraphics3 (maybe -extra).

Mplayer isn't there, but that's no problem. Add the "Packman" repository to your "Installation Sources" in yast2, and you can install Mplayer, the codecs for it, and lots of other good stuff as well which SUSE can't put in their distro because of stupid legal reasons. SUSE even has a link to the Packman repository on their site.

Re:"hands down" and a real question

[AJWM]

Thanks. The comments in the Suse 10.0 kdegraphics3 package claim kuickshow is there, but I couldn't find it (and rpm -q -l didn't show it). I did find an RPM (kdegraphics3-imaging) out on the web (under ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/kde/stable/3.4.3/SuSE), and also one for mplayer, under ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/misc/suser-jengelh/SUSE-10.0 /.

Thanks for the tip on the Packman repository.

Re:"hands down" and a real question

[Anonymous Coward]

"YaST performs essentially the same apt-get (or synaptic), resolves dependencies, and doesn't break stuff when you add new packages."

Actually, I just had YAST break itself when I updated...

linux:~ # yast2
Command: /sbin/yast2 sw_single &
Segmentation fault at Encoding.ycp:3 /sbin/yast2: line 207: 7296 Segmentation fault $ybindir/y2base $module "$@" qt -geometry "$Y2_GEOMETRY" $Y2QT_ARGS

*sigh*

What a media-rich Distro Review

[BlueRayMan]

http://madpenguin.org/images/reviews/suse10/siia/s use10install.html

I've never seen a Flash movie of a Linux distro install before! Nice.

I tested the boot.iso on an XP box, until it failed to detect that I was using a MN-510 (a usb wireless networking adapter made by Microsoft.)

So thumb's up on this review -- but the distro is not a smashing success, because it fails to properly embrace the MS switcher. The test is not can we install it--it's "can the previous generation..."

Re:What a media-rich Distro Review

[Anonymous Coward]

A little amusing that whoever made the movie didn't even bother to read the EULA ;)

And I cringed when they selected KDE over GNOME.

Re:What a media-rich Distro Review

[TheMadPenguin]

Heheh that was me who made the movie. The only reason I didn't "read" it was to conserve time and ultimately filesize :) It was meant as more of an example of an actual install than anything. We plan on doing more "media" in the future, but not just the installer. We've got some interesting things up our sleeves as far as that goes. Traditional reviews will soon be a thing of the past...

Re:What a media-rich Distro Review

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is a flash movie of a Gentoo Linux install: http://webpages.cs.luc.edu/~gkt/GentooDemo/

Re:What a media-rich Distro Review

[MoogMan]

Well, to be fair, my parents haven't got a clue what a device driver is, neither could they install Windows XP from scratch. I wouldn't be suprised if a huge majority of other parents were similar.

Re:What a media-rich Distro Review

[cyclomedia]

hooray, the 1954 x windows background and pointer showed up for a second there, something for me to gripe about... cue: x windows client+server overhead/lag rant

suse 10 install

[Anonymous Coward]

I just installed SUSE 10.0 last night, the install is very easy...there are just a few things I wish they did to make it even easier (like recommend kde or gnome) the partitioner is ok...I like it better than the Fedora one...YAST is also so easy to use that I have my friend (w/ no linux experience) using it with no problem..I have used suse 9.0, 9.1 and now 10...while I can't weigh in on its stability, I really can't complain about any changes Novell did...(putting things in the right place would be nice...but suse has never done that)

I will still stick with kubuntu on my main machine...but only because I really like apt and am lazy and don't feel like messing w/ my radeon again...but it will stay on my test machine... Highly recommended first distro..easy..installer a bit better than ubuntu's but that's because it is graphical and the installer help is actually helpful makes it very easy to cut the windows cord..

wireless cards

[michaelbuddy]

I'm wondering if SUSE will support wireless PCI cards out of the box, or even better, wireless USB. I've got both and neither work automatically with Fedora,

Re:wireless cards

[Stevyn]

I think mandriva is one of the few major distros where wireless will work out of the box. I got wireless running on my laptop with gentoo, ndiswrapper, and a lot of freakin patience. It works, but it's no where as easy as with windows. But I believe most of this is because drivers aren't open source and there are difficulties in making them open source.

Re:wireless cards

[Why Login]

I know Linspire 5.0 detects Wi-Fi cards. Wonder how Suse 10.0 handles Wi-Fi?

Re:wireless cards

[Pelleas777]

I have Suse 10 running on several machines, including a laptop, all with different wifi hardware and it has all worked out of the box. The different types of wifi hardware: Intel 2200 wifi (detected and setup during install), Netgear USB wifi (detected and setup correctly during install), and netgear MA401 pcmcia wifi card (detected and setup correctly during install). So I would say you have many different options to choose from. I have been tinkering with Suse since 8 and 9 was the version that finally made it my primary OS. It has just gotten better with each release. I have definately noticed a strong push for hardware support since 9. I hope you give it a try.

Re:wireless cards

[nintendo_is_a_cereal]

I installed it on my laptop (presario 700) and my card (Belkin something or another) shows up in Yast, but I don't have infrastructure mode available to me in kwifimanager and the two wireless networks I've tried connecting to give me nothing. I've read some stuff for SuSE 10 on how to get my particular card working but being a student with little free time I haven't sat down to download all the packages, drivers and set about recompiling stuff.

Re:wireless cards

[Anonymous Coward]

Installed it onto an old celeron with a D-link 520 (ath_pci) and absolutely no problems.
Wireless file server in 10 minutes... (not including some samba oplock / filesystem type issues.. but lets just ignore that)

Re:wireless cards

[BootNinja]

it didn't like mine,(dlink 520 atheros chipset) but then again, that was because I was using amd64 and madwifi contains 32bit binary code. yet, gentoo managed to work right away after emerging madwifi.

SuSE is great but...

[Buelldozer]

Your ardor will cool when you try and install it onto an HP ze2000z with AMD Turion.

My screen doesn't work right (won't adjust over 800x600 without fragging up) and my built in Broadcom B/G wireless doesn't work at all.

On the upnote it absolutely SCREAMS when you install the 64 bit version...which would be nicer if you could see what you were doing and connect to the network while you were doing it.

I like SuSE but it doesn't always "just work".

Re:SuSE is great but...

[Anonymous Coward]

On the other hand, SuSE 10 is the only distro capable of working 100% correctly with my Toshiba Equium A-80 (Intel Centrino plataform), even Mandrake 2006 wich is supposedly "Centrino certified" messes up quite badly... and SuSE 9.3 worked almost perfectly too.

SuSE 10 is the distro the allowed me to throw Windows off my notebook.

As i've learned from past mobile linux experiences if there's a distro wich you can exepect to work out of the box on your notebook, it's SuSE.

Re:SuSE is great but...

[The_Candyman]

I have the HP ZV6000, I had no problems getting my broadcom B/G with bluetooth working all it needed was ndiswrapper and the windows driver.
More than likely, your laptop has an ATI video card. ATI has linux drivers out here for their video cards but the newer ones just are worthless. I recomend you use a tool called Google, and search for forums... heck, I found a whole website dedicated to my laptop!

Re:SuSE is great but...

[Buelldozer]

Thanks for the smart ass reply, it's typical of someone who considers themselves a Linux "power user". :::thumbsdown:::

I have the screen in my lt working, I shifted over to a generic LCD@1024x768. I also have the ATI Video card working however I still do not have the AirForce 1 integrated B/G card working. Since you're so smart perhaps you could tell me where to find a 64Bit driver that I can use with ndiswrapper? (Don't say my Windows Install cd either, my LT came with an AMD Turion64 and it didn't ship with Windows 64 bit)

My point was, and is, that no matter how great SuSE is it doesn't always "just work" as the reviewer stated it does. If you can't handle a little nitpicking about a distro perhaps you should grow some thicker skin.

FYI I fixed-up a Radeon 9500 Pro under OpenSuSE using the ATI installer about 2 weeks ago...worked great. Perhaps you should TRY something before you blindly accept everyone elses opinion on it?

Responses, and attitudes, like yours are what turn new Linux users off. If you didn't have anything of value to say you should have just scrolled right by my post rather then stopping to drop a wheelbarrel load of negativity and bullshit.

Cheers!

Re:SuSE is great but...

[The_Candyman]

you are right, but then again most things don't work right out of the box in windows either. I was just meerly giving my experiences that I had. Windows has the dominant market, developers are more inclined to work on windows drivers first, because they know where the $ comes from. They leave the linux drivers for the liunx developers out here that want to do it.

Since you didn't give me the exact model number of your wireless card, I searched google and figured it was the BCM94318 series from broadcom. the same one that acer puts in their ferrari notebooks. follow this like to find the driver what should be compatable with your AirForce One. Oh and yes, it is the 64 bit version.

ftp://ftp.support.acer-euro.com/notebook/ferrari_4 000/driver/winxp64bit/80211g.zip

DuDE!

[commodoresloat]

Microsoft isn't pushing their OS for its easy install. You never hear about OS X's install.

That's because 99% of users never have to install Windows or OSX. It comes on the computer and they don't futz with it. Whereas probably 90% of linux users have to install it themselves, on widely varying hardware, for which your instructions on a napkin may not apply. When I was using linux (before osx was available) I installed it many times, always on irregular hardware, and had various issues with the install process -- hardware not detected correctly; misleading impressions of what was installed and where, etc. I haven't installed linux in a few years so most distros are probably a lot better with this issue, but it's clear that the reason reviewers always comment on the ease of installation is (1) chances are the user will have to actually install this OS, and (2) the installation process is not always (at least historically) point and click and it just works.

Details & Packman's!

[mpapet]

I've got Suse 9.3 (KDE) running at home but it still has minor niggling missing features that hinder widespread adoption.

KDE: I'll say it again, from Kmail there's no print selection feature. My hope is KDE 4.0 will have that feature.

Hardware issues: I've got a usb keyboard that doesn't kick-in on boot sometimes. The wife just resets. I've got an Epson printer/scanner/more (Linux drivers hosted in Japan!) that goes to sleep and cups can't start it.

OpenOffice.Org:
Had I known how unstable OOO was when I installed 9.3 I wouldn't have done it. At the time, the wife had some old version OOO documents that would crash in the shipping version. Updates since then took care of the issues, but 100+MB of OOO update was not easy on dial-up.

Packman:
That packman site is *exactly* why MS has nothing to worry about. If in the next 10 years MS screwed up their monopoly and they have to prosecute Linux, they only have to do an RIAA-style sweep of individuals violating one right/patent or another. It won't threaten IBM and they'll "put the chill" on desktop tux.

All is not lost however. I got my neighbor onto a mac mini for their first (yes first) computer and they were confounded by the thing.
-What's a .wmv and how do I open it? (Had to download the archive unpacking application first, then install WMP.)
-The bluetooth mouse falls asleep and loses connection.
-I set up their mail. (they are struggling with the sooo simple mail client)
-Show me that search bar thing again?

So, even in the slicker world of Macs, they are still far from perfect and Linux is definitely in the running for a desktop OS.

Re:Details & Packman's!

[Anonymous Coward]

dial-up?!

Ladies and Gentlemen, let us welcome the esteemed representative from Uzbekistan!

Re:Details & Packman's!

[10Ghz]

KDE: I'll say it again, from Kmail there's no print selection feature. My hope is KDE 4.0 will have that feature.

That's a roadblock on Linux'es way of "widespread adoption"? there's no "print selection" feature in Kmail? Uh, OK....

Hardware issues: I've got a usb keyboard that doesn't kick-in on boot sometimes.

My experiences are completely the opposite. I too have an USB-keyboard (Apple Keyboard in fact). I plugged in in to my Gentoo-box while it was running. System detected it without any problems and I could use it right away. What happened in Windows? I plugged it in, but I couldn't use it. It needed to install some drivers. I installed the drivers, and the machine rebooted. But I still couldn't use the keyboard, I had to plug in my old PS2-keyboard so I could log in! It installed even more drivers and rebooted. And it STILL did not work! It installed even more drivers and THEN it started to work!

No, it doesn't stop there. What happens if I unplug the keyboard and re-plug it in to a different USB-port? In Linux, it just works. But in Windows, it wont work untill I reinstall the drivers! Hello?! it's the same keyboard, only on different port!

I am now 100% M$ free.

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to be quasi-m$ but with the release of SuSe 10, I don't even bother to dual boot any longer.

If there is an app that doesn't work with SuSe then I bin the app and go looking, easy choice really.

I wake up my pc and no longer feel dirty or slimy, freedom is it's own reward.

Keep up the good work Novell and SuSe, looking forward to a future free from Microsoft, which is where I want to go.

And my customers, and my friends, and all the peeps I install free/OSS software for and all the future peeps I can turn from the dark side and .... well you get the idea.

For every one techie Microsoft pisses off, one hundred customers get converted.

rgds

Hardware support

[applecrumble]

I always find it unfair when Linux distros are labelled poor because they don't support somebody's hardware, like their wireless card not working. The Linux developers would happily develop drivers for software if they were given the hardware specs to do so, but that isn't the case and drivers must be created with little help from the manufacturer. For example, I'm sure Novell would love to have native drivers for every wireless card out there, but if the companies won't co-operate, the best they can do is the ugly hack of using the win32 driver wrapped in an emulation layer. It's similar to complaining about why you can't play Playstation 2 games on Xbox hardware; the latter was never designed to work on the former and Microsoft wouldn't offer any help to get it working, but that doesn't mean Playstation 2 games are rubbish.

Re:Hardware support

[Anonymous Coward]

I always find it unfair when Linux distros are labelled poor because they don't support somebody's hardware, like their wireless card not working. The Linux developers would happily develop drivers for software if they were given the hardware specs to do so, but that isn't the case and drivers must be created with little help from the manufacturer.

I think the more common complaint is that a given distribution doesn't support certain hardware out of the box that other distributions do. If distro X supports my wireless card, why doesn't distro Y?

Re:Hardware support

[dedazo]

Well, one of the things that's going to come out (maybe) of this big business push with Linux is the licensing of more hardware specs to companies like Novell and IBM.

If you're Hardware Maker X and some dude in Wisconsin send you an email telling you that you 'suxxorz' because you won't release your specs or at least a driver you'll likely just chuckle and hit 'Del'. When someone from IBM does that on the other hand...

Or maybe just the incentive of having a corp pay for driver development (through bounties or whatnot) might be enough to get the reverse engineering juices flowing.

Re:Hardware support

[justins]

I always find it unfair when Linux distros are labelled poor because they don't support somebody's hardware, like their wireless card not working. The Linux developers would happily develop drivers for software if they were given the hardware specs to do so, but that isn't the case and drivers must be created with little help from the manufacturer.

In many cases the manufacturer would happily develop drivers if they could make a closed-source Linux driver without the exercise turning into a total buttfuckathon.

Re:Hardware support

[fossa]

Perhaps... of course, even ignoring what I assume you mean by "buttfuckathon", it's still much easier to make binary drivers for Windows since x86 is essentially the only architecture. The manufacturer should be happy to do whatever the customers want, which for me would be to release all specs (and possibly a reference driver for x86 Windows or maybe even Linux) so that free drivers could be made for any OS on any architecture, but apparently not enough other customers feel that way.

Re:Hardware support

[Lucractius]

thats one of the fortunate things im looking forward to in freebsd. the manufactureres of wireless hardware are very happily supplying not only help but paying some people to be writing drivers for wireless hardware for FreeBSD 6.0...

Ill be mean and throw the grenade now. Its cause its BSD not GPL. They can benifit more from the BSD liscence than they can from the GPL. Dont flame me bout it im just pointing out an example. And im happy with it, it means that theres going to be open source drivers, and they can change them for their own purposes without hassles of releasing their changes. Think about what that means if your writing drivers for hardware... a windows driver derived from a gpl one would need to be redistributed as source wouldnt it, a BSD one wouldnt.

feel free to correct me if im wrong bout that.

on the side note this is one thing that will mean i never use Debian. bunch of GNU freaks they are, bitch slapping the OpenSolaris kernel and not supporting or even helping building a GNU userland for it purely because its licence. *grumbles*

Re:Hardware support

[swillden]

the manufactureres of wireless hardware are very happily supplying not only help but paying some people to be writing drivers for wireless hardware for FreeBSD 6.0

Interesting. Can you provide a specific example? Although in theory I can see that BSD licencing might make it easier for manufacturers to provide closed-source drivers, in practice those that care can pretty easily provide closed-source drivers for Linux. The problem is that most of them don't really care, because of the tiny market share held by both OSes... and of course the Linux market is orders of magnitude larger than FreeBSDs.

The one case I can think of where the BSD licence might really help is if a company wanted to pay some open source developer a pittance to develop an open source, BSD-licensed driver, which they could then use as a basis for their Windows driver. That also seems unlikely, though, given the fact that the primary focus will be on getting the Windows driver out as early as possible, since you basically cannot sell hardware without it.

I just can't see it. That makes me very interested in seeing some company who is doing this and reading about their rationale.

Re:Hardware support

[justins]

Perhaps... of course, even ignoring what I assume you mean by "buttfuckathon", it's still much easier to make binary drivers for Windows since x86 is essentially the only architecture.

The CPU architecture isn't the issue at all. Having to rebuild the driver every time the kernel changes, or build some kind of hacky not-so-reliable wedge like Nvidia does, is the issue.

The manufacturer should be happy to do whatever the customers want

In principle I agree, although of course we'd need to pay for it. I'd fear a little if Nvidia (for example) calculated the cost to themselves of making their excellent OpenGL implementation public and then passed the cost on to us, the consumers.

apparently not enough other customers feel that way.

Good point.

Re:Hardware support

[DrSkwid]

And yet when someone from Bell-Labs, part of AT&T (you have heard of them no?) drops you an email for spec on stuff for their oS it just drops into the "Deleted Items" folder too.

Re:Hardware support

[utlemming]

Agreed. I actually, dropped MS this past weekend in favor of SUSE 10 (which, I might add is a major, major step, considering the fact that I am a huge FreeBSD fan, but FreeBSD doesn't have the software support base for the desktop). I got feed up with the six month reinstall cycle of Windows. And frankly, I am far happier than I ever was with Windows. Sure I am a little frustrated that my wifi card in my laptop doesn't work. However, the stability and the fact that I don't have to worry about half the problems that I had to worry about with Microsoft Windows is enough to live with out the inconvience of a wifi card. Besides, if I really want wifi connectivity, then I will simply fork out a little extra money for a wireless ethernet to wifi bridge and call it good.At least for me, the software aspects are more important than the the convenience. I would rather be tethered to a wall and have stability than be free roaming and crashing all the time. That is why I made the leap over to SUSE 10. Also, the other thing that finalized the switch, was that VMware is having a Workstation 5.5 RC 1 Beta testing for FREE right now. So I figured why not. I gave it a shot. I have learned two things from running SUSE. 1.) VMware under Linux on an AMD 64 runs Windows XP faster than native hardware, and 2.) I am not using Windows at all. Anyway, for anyone who is thinking about making a switch, go ahead and wonder over to the VMware website, and download the beta. Normally I wouldn't touch a release candiate. However, it is extremely stable, and I haven't noticed any bugs. And I have learned that I Linux has everything that I need in order to be happy in OSS. In fact I am wondering right now why it took me this long to make the jump.

Re:We're offering Suse 10.0 on dedicated root serv

[Harry Balls]

>allow torrent trackers
No.

>more than 80GB storage
Not immediately - what are your needs?

>Physical dedicated server or...
Physical dedicated server.

>port/network restrictions
No.

>prohibited besides what's listed
No, but the "prohibited" list is subject to change at any time.
In case an observed use violates the updated "prohibited" list, we simply will not renew the lease agreement once it comes up for renewal.

geek sweat

[BushCheney08]

...but here we are in a world where SUSE is open and still making geeks sweat every time a new release comes out

I'm fairly certain the geeks would still be sweating regardless of whether a new version of SuSE came out...

And totally unrelated, how cool would it have been if Digital Research had owned SuSE at one point? I would have loved to have a machine running DR-SuSE sitting around the office.

Re:geek sweat

[Sinter]

A close relative of mine currently works for Novell, and you wouldn't believe how many people mispronounce SuSE. It is pronounced (by the German employees, at least): Zoo-suh, not Seuss, not Suzy. Just wanted to clear that up.

Re:geek sweat

[DrSkwid]

if it was supposed to be pronounced Suzy they should have spelt it properly.

As far as I am concerned is it Sues, a distribution of Lie-nux

=)

Re:geek sweat

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't remind me: my boss wanted to call our new production webserver "drsuse". At least he could've had us pick a sensible name like something from D&D.

He was fired before we deployed the machines, thank god.

Blame the manufacturers not SuSe.

[Anonymous Coward]

As said elsewhere, SuSe would have the drivers if the manufacturers would release the specs.

I wonder why they dont?

rgds

Re:Blame the manufacturers not SuSe.

[moro_666]

hmmm , broadcom cards work with ndiswrapper ... my laptop is running ubuntu at 32 bit mode and the broadcom card works just fine ... have no idea if the ndiswrapper dudes at http://ndiswrapper.sf.net/ have found the clues to cut through the 64 bit hassle.

anyway, good luck.

and really, suse has no real fault in this item, except maybe they could suggest to the user that it should download ndiswrapper and attach a proper windows driver for it :D (since they are supposed to be user friendly n stuff like that)

I think I can sum you up better than your sig.

[Anonymous Coward]

100% Redundant.

Re:I think I can sum you up better than your sig.

[strider44]

I agree. If the guy doesn't like a program, or it doesn't work on his system, he should just use another program and not blame it on the operating system! That goes for each of the three main operating systems.

Suse 10 Rocks!

[canuck57]

Novell has made some interesting changes in distribution and development since our last review of SUSE Linux

I plugged Suse 10 Eval into my Sony portable and damm, the wireless 54G with my D-Link G650 shone bright! Noisy too, the sound card worked like a charm. Plugged in the WEP key for the G650 and on the air I was.

This is a smooth install for average users.... developers will have to head back and load gcc and stuff but what a hoot. Get to use Evolution with PGP, will not need 63 patch bundles and installs quickly. Office (openoffice) tools are included, but a few were missing on the intial install but were on the CD.

Now off to get MythTV....

Another review & a guide on DVD playback

[Anonymous Coward]

Getting DVD, MP3, and WMV playback on SUSE 10 OSS.

Another SUSE 10 review.

Re:Another review & a guide on DVD playback

[Hazelnut]

Actually it's simpler than that article states to get MP3 and (unencrypted) DVD playback: All you need is w32codec-all and libxine1. You don't need to install mplayer or realplayer to get this.

the breaking point

[wwwavatar]

im a linux idiot... suse 9.2 sold me on the idea of really breaking away from M$ , that was about a month ago. Suse 10 did the job. I cant think of a good reason for using my xp boot up atm....

Upgrading was a pain and other issues

[AaronW]

I ran into several issues when I upgraded from 9.3 to 10 last weekend.

In some ways I think SuSE 10 is worse than 9.3... I ran into a number of issues, usually with YaST.

First of all, the SCSI device list changed and it would not mount my RAID drives... a quick edit of /etc/fstab fixed that, but YaST was useless. What I hate is that the new YaST install would not allow me to go in and fix it during the upgrade process. I believe I was able to edit this in previous versions.

Second, the YaST printer tool refused to work properly... it would just hang every time I tried to run it, as did lpoptions and just consume the CPU. I finally managed to get that working after manually deleting a number of configuration files and rebooting. For the life of me I still can't figure out why rebooting worked.

Third, I ran into more YaST problems with my sound card. YaST somehow got corrupted and would not allow me to edit or delete my sound card settings to reconfigure it. After deleting a bunch of configuration files and reinstalling I got that working.

Fourth, Like 9.3, SuSE does not work with my TV capture card... it used to work with the 8.2 and I think 9.0 and worked, though without sound, in 9.3. It's a Pinnacle PCTV Studio PRO capture card based off of a standard BTTV chip.

And last but not least, SuSE no longer includes a DVD with all of the source RPMs. This wouldn't be so bad, but I've spent the last two days trying to download the Xorg source RPM from their incredibly slow FTP site so I can apply a patch to it to use my Logitech MX1000 mouse properly... I applied the patch to previous versions to enable the Linux event mechanism from a Gentoo patch I found. This is what really pisses me off. Also, it looks like all of the DVD and CD ISOs are mirrored, but not the source files.

I still have a ways to go to see how the upgrade went, but this is my first impression. Oh, and during the upgrade it barfed on the quicktime library include files... renaming and moving /usr/include/quicktime fixed that.

I've upgraded a few other machines which have much simpler installs that went a lot better, but still not without a couple of incidents.

Part of the problem with YaST is just trying to figure out which files each part of YaST is trying to use and is barfing on.

All in all, so far I think SuSE 10 is a little less reliable than 9.3... I was hoping it would be better because I really need to upgrade my home server which has been running over 2 years without a reboot running SuSE Professional 8.2, which as far as I can tell is their best release to date in terms of stability. Sadly, SuSE has pulled all of their patches and is no longer supporting this version, or if they are I certainly cannot afford it for a home machine.

Hopefully for 10.1 they'll have things better stabilized as well as have support for S.M.A.R.T. for SATA, which is another thing I want for when I rebuild my server.

Some things worked quite well, but there is still a long way to go.

-Aaron

Re:Upgrading was a pain and other issues

[nystire]

With regards to your mouse problem, have you tried submitting your patch to the development team? That way you wouldn't have to re-apply it constantly.

Using openSUSE 10 @ Home

[mymaxx]

I have tried several distros: Fedora, Mandrake/Mandriva and Ubuntu to name a few. So far, openSUSE 10 is the first to support both my Intel Pro/Wireless 2200 B/G wireless card with WPA support. All I had to do was download the firmware from the Intel site and use SUSE's wizards to get WPA configured.

Upgrade process from 9.2 Pro to 10.0 ?

[epohs]

A while back I installed 9.2 pro as dual boot with WinXP on my dad's machine. After skimming this review I'm excited to upgrade him to 10.0. Is there an easy way to upgrade from 9.2 to 10.0? I've been an ubuntu user for a while now, is there an analogous way in SuSE to swap the repositories and upgrage to 10.0? Or, can I just choose "Upgrade distrobution" in YasT and it'll go from there?

Re:Upgrade process from 9.2 Pro to 10.0 ?

[builderbob_nz]

Just choose the Upgrade option. But be warned... I tried this earlier today without thinking and ended up seriously f'ing up my display driver settings so I couldn't see to finish the end of the upgrade and had to reinstall.

I am using a Nvidia 6600DT graphics card. I would suggest that if you use a propiatary drive like Nvidia's or ATI's that you either disable X before upgrading, or revert to a SVGA/VESA driver.

YaST and SuSEconfig

[rsax]

I deal with RHEL and CentOS quite a bit but I don't use the GUI provided tools to manage servers. I always prefer editing text config files and managing them using Subversion. Are there any SUSE pros here that manage their servers completely without YaST or SuSEconfig? Anyone know of websites that show the text config file equivalents of their GUI counterparts? It's easier to do so with Redhat considering the sheer number of websites devoted to that distribution.

Re:YaST and SuSEconfig

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry for posting as AC, but I have spent some modpoints here and do not want to see them go to waste.

Anyway: As with any other LSB distribution, with SuSE you can also configure it via the files in /etc/sysconfig. So you don't *have* to use Yast2. But I am curious -- since you say you are working with RHEL, Which is also LSB based, as far as I know. And any other questions that you have might probably be answered at www.opensuse.org.

Re:We're offering Suse 10.0 on dedicated root serv

[Danger Stevens]

A better question: why are you using exclusively Pentium-M's for your servers? Is this an array of high-latency laptops?

Works for me

[l0perb0y]

I've been using 10.0 since about the 8th and I've got to say it's pretty nice.

Easy, Quick install
Nice auto-update features
Pretty console
Easy to configure firewall
Not too hard to figure out where they hid the config files

The problems I've had so far:

A crippled libxine is used EVERYWHERE. I've tried pakman's and super's xine but still can't get all the media to play that I could with Gentoo.
The last two security patches (firefox and snmpd) have broken their respective programs.

This is my first Suse. I've been running Gentoo for the past 3 years(compiling everything gets way old). I think I'll keep it for a while. Hopefully Novell doesn't let it go to waste.

Re:Works for me

[Hazelnut]

As I just said in another comment above, installing libxine1 from packman does the trick for me - should auto install the crippled Novell libxine.

Still doesn't support my Wireless card

[frankcow]

despite the increased hardware support, my wireless pc card (DWL-650 revP) still doesn't work with it... must I buy a new card to use suse?????????

Re:Still doesn't support my Wireless card

[Stevyn]

Have you tried using ndiswrapper and the windows drivers?

Re:Still doesn't support my Wireless card

[Anonymous Coward]

i have got the usb version of this card working with linux, so it would seem odd to me that the pccard doesn't work...

Re:Still doesn't support my Wireless card

[Rutulian]

You just need to grab the madwifi drivers. I'm kind of surprised Suse doesn't already have them because Debian/Ubuntu and Gentoo have had them for at least a year and a half. Of course the problem might not be the driver, but rather the encryption. No linux distribution I have tried yet handles WPA out of the box. You still have to mess around with wpa_supplicant which is kind of a pain. Not sure why this hasn't been integrated into the network control panels yet like everything else.

Re:Still doesn't support my Wireless card

[Chaotic Spyder]

Infact ndiswrapper comes WITH SuSE.. great tool Espically when they added the 64bit support!!

Re:Still doesn't support my Wireless card

[frankcow]

I was under the impression that ndiswrapper was for PCI wireless NICS, not PCMCIA laugh if you must, I just vaguely remember trying it with suse 9.3

Just installed SuSE10 last night

[Billly Gates]

Pro:
- Very easy to use.
- Great distro for geeks who want to work in linux and not on linux spending a weekend or two to set everything up.
- Its a more professionally and less buggy compared to past versions of the distro and Novell brings a corporate appeal.
- SuSE10 automatically mounts windows paritions by default and sets up icons to the drives automatically no matter which wm you use. Great way to save time
- SuSE10 devfs automatically mounts devices and creates desktop shortcuts to the device such as my ipod-mini. No need to do it manually and adding a shortcut errr link

Cons:
- SuSE intentionally crippled its media player citing patent concerns on some codecs
- Nvidia can be added but the drivers are known to not be as stable as the windows versions. Bad if you are a cad user
- Software such as XFCE4 and other classics have been removed from the software repository. This means you have to install it yourself.
- Buggy still but alot better. I can't log into another other wm but gnome. If I create another user account I can do it with that account. Just not the one I setup. GDM/KDM will always pick gnome no matter which wm I select. Also my MS scrolling mouse which worked in previous versions of SuSE no longer works.
- KDM/GDM is hiddin and automatic logins are the default. This drove me absolutely mad as I like to log into different wm's. GDM configuration was removed from the gnome menu's. After pulling my hair out for 15 minutes I found it under the add user in yast??
- Yast is still slow as always.

So its a mix for me. I am keeping netbsd for serious work and SuSE in the meanwhile to do my regular work in since I dont have a good 2-3 weeks to configure NetBSD for my tastes.

Re:Just installed SuSE10 last night

[Anonymous Coward]

XFCE, postgreaql and other "missing softwares" are found in suse mirrors and in the boxed dvd. So buy the dvd or add an installation source to install from a internet mirror and be happy.

There are lots of information about suse many consider unatural (but ask and you will find out). Now really, there are lots of suse resources that people doesnt know. Ask to suse people and that will probably save you time and resources :)

Re:Just installed SuSE10 last night

[Billly Gates]

No they are not.

I looked. I found third party mirrors with full multimedia enabled players but no luck on postgresql and XFCE. Unless of course I am blind?

I refuse to pay for rpm based distro's because they go obsolete in a matter of months leaving you to rpm hell if you want to upgrade. Its just a way to keep you on the pay treadmill. I spend hundreds of dollars on distro's before highspeed internet access and before I discovered FreeBSD which I could get for low cost at cheapbytes.

Re:Just installed SuSE10 last night

[Anonymous Coward]

I can find xfce for suse 10 just fine.

`--> apt-cache search xfce
gtk-xfce-engine - Port of xfce engine to GTK+-2.0
gtk-xfce-engine-debuginfo - Debug information for package gtk-xfce-engine
libxfce4mcs - Multi-channel settings management support for xfce
libxfce4mcs-debuginfo - Debug information for package libxfce4mcs
libxfce4util - Utility library for the XFce4 desktop environment
libxfce4util-debuginfo - Debug information for package libxfce4util
libxfcegui4 - Various gtk widgets for xfce4
libxfcegui4-debuginfo - Debug information for package libxfcegui4
xfcalendar - Time-managing application for xfce4
xfce-mcs-manager - Multi channel settings manager
xfce-mcs-manager-debuginfo - Debug information for package xfce-mcs-manager
xfce-mcs-plugins - Plugins for multi channel settings manager
xfce-mcs-plugins-debuginfo - Debug information for package xfce-mcs-plugins
xfce4-appfinder - Appfinder for the XFce4 Desktop Environment
xfce4-appfinder-debuginfo - Debug information for package xfce4-appfinder
xfce4-desktop - Desktop manager for the XFce Desktop Environment
xfce4-desktop-debuginfo - Debug information for package xfce4-desktop
xfce4-icon-theme - Icons for Xfce
xfce4-panel - Next generation panel for xfce
xfce4-panel-debuginfo - Debug information for package xfce4-panel
xfce4-panel-plugins - Plugins for the XFce 4 panel
xfce4-panel-plugins-debuginfo - Debug information for package xfce4-panel-plugins
xfce4-session - Xfce Session manager
xfce4-session-debuginfo - Debug information for package xfce4-session
xfce4-toys - Various tools for xfce4
xfce4-toys-debuginfo - Debug information for package xfce4-toys
xffm - Filemanager and SMB network navigator for XFce4
xfprint - Print dialog and printer manager for XFce 4
xfwm4 - Next generation window manager for xfce
xfwm4-themes - Additional themes for xfwm4
gtk2-engines - Engines for GTK2 Themes
mail-notification - Mail Notification is a status icon that informs you if you have new mail.

It wasn't that hard to find.

Re:Just installed SuSE10 last night

[Billly Gates]

apt-get is not recommended as versions of debians packages could conflict with identical versions of the rpms that are already installed or will be installed.

Unless apt-get knows about the existance of rpm's I think it may cause more dependancy problems and it makes me weary.

If you want to apt-get than you should use debian in my opinion.

Re:Just installed SuSE10 last night

[ahillen]

apt-get is not recommended as versions of debians packages could conflict with identical versions of the rpms that are already installed or will be installed.

apt-get is available for SuSE, complete with corresponding (RPM) repositories. Although not officially supported, apt-get is even available on your CD. For more info (including repositories), e.g. look here. So the packages listed by the parent posters probably are indeed packages for SuSE 10.

Re:Just installed SuSE10 last night

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all, of course you are blind:

http://www.novell.com/products/linuxpackages/profe ssional/xfce4-desktop.html
http://www.novell.com/products/linuxpackages/profe ssional/postgresql-server.html

Ok, mr I-know-it-all-master-of-the-universe?
I can tell you all the other clients (like xfce-mcs, xfce4-session) are there too. In fact, Im posting from a SUSE with XFCE right now. So next time, please do exactly what I said, and go to a mirror, add it as installation-source and do "yast -i postgresql", "yast -i xfce4-desktop", ok? Or, as I said too, get the boxed set and will be all there. The boxed dvd is easy for people with poor knowledge of the distro, and saves you time and problems, not to mention you wouldnt post incorrect information, ok?

I see you are not very knowledgeable in package management. apt-get just manages RPMs.... It cannot "cause rpm hell by conflicting with identical versions". Your phrase almost make me laugh. Said that, I dont recommend using another manager when you already have yast and y2pmsh.

What do you mean with "distro go obsolete in a matter of months"? You want SUSE to start upgrading madly to the new version everyday? This is not debian testing. This is a stable release. You dont get the release cycle thing? Since you dont, now you can also use SUSE 10.1alpha3, to stay on the edge.

I thiink you are a debian fan boy. Sorry, but its all it seems. If you want debian, go debian, but stop this non sense comments. If you refuse to pay, dont pay. If it keeps "commercial", certainly its not caused by usig RPM (or I cant have a commercial distro with .deb's).

How does this get insightful, 2, when all I see is wrong information, and a little rant on "rpm distros"??

gosh

Eewww!

[jkinney3]

The thought of making "sweaty geeks" is really kind of gross! I mean, bathing already takes too much time away from reading /. and playing games and coding.... What we need is an open source air freshener...

Re:Eewww!

[Anonymous Coward]

That "open source" thing is called "outside". Just open a window to get some fresh air.

No, don't look for the window on your desktop! I'm talking about that square thing on the wall, one that looks like a high-resolution 3D virtual reality wallpaper.

vaseline-free please?

[quentin_quayle]

Linux is easy and can do everything Windows and Mac can, with some exceptions such as games - for people who like anti-aliasing. For those who can't stand the fuzzy fonts, Linux is far from usable.

On Windows, if you like clear fonts, you just find the little check-box for anti-aliasing, uncheck it, maybe reboot, and the interface is *beautiful*, *perfect*. Every letter is crisp with clean, sharp edges, and well-formed, well-hinted at any size.

On Linux, if you can't tolerate the blurry look, you're in for a long ordeal to even try to get readable fonts without anti-aliasing. Getting rid of the a-a, and getting decent hinting are *both* daunting tasks even for techies.

Most "newbie" tutorials are on trivial things like changing the background images or playing media files. You have to locate relatively obscure pages like this and this.

Then you have to find out how to first tweak, and then compile source packages on Linux. Then you have to somehow get the system to use the one set of fonts and version of X rather than the other.

I'm beyond expert status on Windows, yet I still haven't got fonts looking readable after hours of messing with Suse 10. For the non-technical user it's unrealistic to imagine they would ever figure it out, or even find someone to fix it for them.

Evidently most people like anti-aliasing. And that's fine for them. For the rest of us, Linux has a *huge* obstacle to usability.

Re:vaseline-free please?

[yaogzhan]

I like anti-aliasing too, so I can't leave Xp at the moment ...

Re:vaseline-free please?

[swimmar132]

AFAIK, there's an option to turn off the AA for fonts in the gnome control center window for fonts.

Re:vaseline-free please?

[quentin_quayle]

I've never tried Gnome. Unchecking the anti-aliasing checkbox in KDE has no effect, and reportedly (page linked above) the maintainer says it's intended that way.

Re:vaseline-free please?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is a step by step guide for KDE:

Enter the menu (click on the cameleon)
Select "Control Center"
Select "Appearance and Themes"
Select "Fonts"
Check or uncheck "Use anti-aliasing for fonts"

Re:vaseline-free please?

[Hazelnut]

I agree that this is a major problem with Linux. There is a pretty easy solution, but Novell and others would do well to sort it out "out of the box" so to speak. (although maybe they have - I have installed openSuSE using net install)

Anyway to get the fonts looking like windows you need to follow the instructions here:

http://www.opensuse.org/Optimal_Use_of_Fonts_on_Su SE/

You have three choices of font source:

1. Windows install (thats what I used)
2. Webcore MS fonts (were/are freely availible, but I don't know where from since I used 1)
3. Free fonts that are rendered well without AA at low point sizes. (this link should help.. http://avi.alkalay.net/linux/docs/font-howto/Font. html/

Hope this helps someone. :)

wireless usb

[Kludge]

To get wireless usb running with Linux, buy a wireless dongle with a Ralink chipset in it and use the drivers at http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com/wiki/index.php/Main _Page

For example, I bought one of these,
http://newsite.pagecomputers.com/store/Product_acc essoriesx.asp?catalog_name=Unclassified&category_n ame=32g32c302s1287&product_id=624257 , grabbed, compiled (very easy), and installed the rt2570 sources, and the thing worked perfectly as a network device under both Suse 9.3 and Fedora 4.

The rt2x00 web site said that the drivers would soon be integrated into every kernel release, so it may be in Suse 10 already. Check subdirectories of /lib/modules for the existence of rt2570.ko. If it's in there, then you shouldn't have to download/compile anything -- the usb dongle will just work.

Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

What is diffrent between this and the simply mepis with KDE that i have dual booting? Will it actualy run at native resolution for my laptop? (mepis wont work at anything higher than 1024x768) better programs? why are there so many diffrent linux versions? why can't you all just get on the same page?

Re:Why?

[water-and-sewer]

Wow - it wasn't so long ago that people were complaining Linux had no chance because it *didn't* have antialiasing. While your complaint is certainly valid, I'd venture you are in a very sharp minority of people who prefer unaliased fonts. I've been using SUSE since it was SuSE. I bought version 7.1 and was thrilled to upgrade to version 8.0 because it offered antialiased fonts for most KDE applications. And what a huge difference it made.

Very very few users will complain about lack of antialiased fonts. That doesn't mean SUSE shouldn't deal with the issue; it just means it's not exactly a showstopper compared to many other issues.

And if you get even CLOSER...

[Junior J. Junior III]

It all starts looking like a bunch of 1s and 0s.

Youre' right...Sort of

[katharsis83]

You're right, I'm sure Linux developers would be happy to work on driver support if the manufacturers were more forth-coming. I'm also sure that most Linux developers are also saints who donate to UNICEF, help old ladies across the street, and also only say "LOL" when they're actually laughing. None of that's relevant.

The problem is that none of this matters to the end-user who's giving Linux a shot for the first time. It doesn't matter whose fault it is that their digital camera doesn't work, or why their laptop's sound card can't play back sound. You just lost a customer.

Re:Youre' right...Sort of

[killjoe]

All you have to do is to educate the user. Just tell them that they are complaining to the wrong people and point them in the direction of the company that makes the hardware. Maybe if the complaints went to the hardware manufacturer they would make drivers themselves.

If a user leaves linux because there is no driver let's at least make sure he/she understands who is at fault.

Re:Youre' right...Sort of

[The Bubble]

The problem is that none of this matters to the end-user who's giving Linux a shot for the first time. It doesn't matter whose fault it is that their digital camera doesn't work, or why their laptop's sound card can't play back sound. You just lost a customer.

The difference here is that, in most of the open source community, the concern is not that we have greater sale rates, but that we write better software. When hardware can't be driven by the Linux kernel, the open source user base is less likely to complain at the Kernel developers, and more likely to complain at the manufacturer that stands in the way of better, more capable software.

People need to stop seeing the conquering of Microsoft, or the desktop, or whatever, as the goal. We are more concerned with having better software, so long as it's better for us. If Windows gets better in competition, it's better for them, and better for consumers. Typically that would drive even further improvement in the 'Nix world, and the cycle would continue.

Would I like better wireless support in my SuSE system? Sure. But for now, my Prism2 card works just fine. I'd like a standard wireless stack, too, but growth comes with time, and my software will continually improve as long as we remember that that is the goal.

it *scared* me

[rubycodez]

my Xeon workstation has some win-sound card built in, and for the first time it made music after I installed SuSE 10 - never before used my main server for multimedia but now I can. Later that night it scared me again with BSOD screensaver finally coming up in the random selection. I also installed it on my Thinkpad T22 with wireless linksys card, it's all good. Used to be a paying RedHat customer from RH 5.0 to 8, but "crossed over" to SuSE at 9.0 and haven't looked back.

Re:Enhanced swap

[Anonymous Coward]

Knoppix actually has made itself faster by seeking out Linux Swap Partitions, providing a means to easily create a one, or provides a means to create a swap-file al la MS Windows style.

So, there are ways to tweek it to running faster. Once I added a swap-partition on my computer, speed increased about 3 fold, if not more.

typical

[recharged95]

ok, typical of SuSE, it's a wonderful release (I'm using 10.1alpha2). They have the distro nail ed for an admin, business or power user.

What they lack is good multimedia integration, and few minor nits (like filec shell stuff too SLOW, etc..) and as everyone else said speed in general, especially against Gentoo. Also their their screen savers are a bit unstable (my laptop froze 3 times from it already). Also, if you repartition other drives (and extended partitions) in MS Windows and reboot, the boot sector gets mangled and grub fails, such that a rescue CD or reinstall is on order.

Installation was a snap, setup was a snap, and operation is pretty stable, up there with the best.

One other thing: 10.1's (alpha) license agreement at install has no reference to being FOSS, but a NOVELL license agreement(??).

I just installed 10

[pair-a-noyd]

I just built a new machine, Athlon 64 3500+ (939) with a gig of ram.
Installed the Suse 10 eval DVD iso I downloaded and burned on my 9.3 box.
Install went smooth, no problems. Fast too. Much less than the predicted 1.5 hours.

Everything was detected properly. Only complaint I have, and this isn't a Suse or Linux complaint, I have an Epson GT-10000 scanner and it uses evil proprietary 32bit ONLY drivers. Ruh roh.. So now I am stuck using the sucky iscan program.
Oh joy. Also, I can't seem to find a copy of tleds that works on 64bit. Ugh, I depend on it heavily.

Outside of that, everything is hunkydory. It really smokes. Once I discovered it was automatically throttling the system down and I forced it to run in high performance mode it's nice.

The install was so simple even a windows user could handle it.
OTOH, I've installed XP and as I recall, you have to do countless reboots and download a gob of patches and reboot after each patch is installed.
Drivers are fun too on M$.. I've played the game so don't try your Jedi mind tricks on me. I quit M$ because of the constant HELL and the constant bleeding to death through my wallet.

I put a patch on the hemmorage to stop the bleeding. The patch is called LINUX..
Insert disc. Wipe drives. Install Linux. Don't look back..

BTW, I've switched totally to Linux back around Suse 8.2 but dabbled with it for years. I have a factory original Redhat 3.0 CDROM.. (I also still have a factory original IBM DOS 1.0 package. yay..)

Re:I just installed 10

[mcrbids]

Drivers are fun too on M$.. I've played the game so don't try your Jedi mind tricks on me. I quit M$ because of the constant HELL and the constant bleeding to death through my wallet.

And this is probably the biggest irony for Windows users - after years of saying "it just works" with Windows, the Linux camp gets easier and easier every year, while the Windows camp gets more and more painful - viruses, worms, trojans, driver hell, etc. Ever notice that you can usually bring a Linux system completely up to date, including all software installed with a single command, eg: "yum -y update" and a single reboot, while a Windows system takes DOZENS of boots?

The lines have crossed, IMHO. Recently, we had a server go out. Motherboard and PS fried. HDD was ok, though. So, we ran to a local computer store, bought a generic cheezeball P4, threw the HDD in, and booted up.

The total time sorting out the drivers amounted to pressing "Enter" maybe 10 times. All the network settings were migrated to the "new" network adapter, the new Video card, etc. were all recognized, the system booted up, and the mail relay was back up!

Total downtime (including running to said local computer store) was about 1.5 hours. Hard to beat that with *ANY* flavor of Windows...

PS: My claim to fame is an original working copy of MS Windows 1.00. Yay.

Re:I just installed 10

[Anonymous Coward]

OTOH, I've installed XP and as I recall, you have to do countless reboots and download a gob of patches and reboot after each patch is installed.

If you are referring to Windows patches, you only have to reboot once after you install them. The whole process of installing XP doesn't involve many reboots at all.

Copy basic files over to start installation, reboot.
Graphical installation to copy and install rest of files, reboot.
Install newest service pack, reboot.
Install all other patches, reboot.

Although it might require more reboots than the newest SUSE, it definitely isn't countless reboots as you proclaim. Of course years ago it might have with their horrible update procedure, but if you really think each Windows patch requires a reboot, you haven't used Windows in a long time.

Questions

[pinkocommie]

Two questions regarding suse i've been wanting to start switching over for a while but never actually got into it beyond using a redhat and/or suse box as a server. Is there a site that has 1:1 mappings on which windows shortcut is equivalent to what in suse (kde?) as in winkey or crtl etc = start menu, what do i use to pull it up instead of having to use the mouse? I mostly use my laptop as a dumb terminal to logon to my windows / linux machines but I don't know of an RDP equivalent in linux? I was able to remote single applications but thats not what I was looking for, basically a simple client that allows me access to the desktop as if i was natively there. I just installed suse 10 this past weekend and noticed that there's a VNC option that I haven't been able to setup correctly (yet) but my (personal) issue with VNC is it doesnt mimic the desktop experience as closely as RDP (keyboard shortcuts, simple full screen mode, sound/printer mapping etc) and on an unrelated note, love softraid - at least the idea of it pretty big selling point for a newbie home user automatic backup

Re:Questions

[NoahsMyBro]

I haven't tried it yet myself, but the article mentions FreeNX, and claims it works well and is similar to Remote Desktop.

SUSE 10 boot time?

[Jeremi]

I remember reading somewhere that one of the new features for SUSE 10 is reduced boot time. Can anyone confirm or deny that? For reasons I don't think are worth going into at the moment, it would be very useful to me to have a SUSE machine that can boot up quickly, say in 30 seconds or less. Can SUSE 10 do this, or be configured to do this?

Re:SUSE 10 boot time?

[watermel0n]

My two machines run SuSE 9.3 an SuSE 10 and I used RH 9 before installing SuSE 10.
I can not see huge differences. Probably SuSE 10 starts KDM earlier so you can log into KDE before some services started.

Unfortunately, Truetype BCI patented by Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

The Freetype software itself has the hinting code already to improve font quality but this code cannot be included by any distro based in the U.S. because software patents are in force. Previous versions of SuSE had it included but now that Novell owns them, I dunno the status anymore.

In my case, I'm using FC3 and had to find and install a separate RPM myself to include the Truetype BCI code. Fonts look great now. I'm sure the distros themselves would like to include it but not if everybody has to pay Apple $$$.

that goes for this esteemed representative....

[kevinthered]

from Egypt too, after my fucking ISP took all of my money and hundreds of others for a year's worth of ADSL service then cut our service and closed the company!

Guys, help

[carcosa30]

I installed this, now how do I access the bindery?

I'm a CNE, so if you tell me where the bindery is I should be ok.

Re:Guys, help

[VON-MAN]

Well mister CNE, try google, enter "bindery novell suse" and hit "i'm feeling lucky".

Re:Guys, help

[carcosa30]

Thanks, that helped, but that talks about emulation.

Does this mean I have to run it under VMware?

Better make installing simple.

[Crouty]

Installing an OS is something the majority of users (as opposed to ./ audience) does not even consider, except when the pre-installed OS got corrupted. So linux installers better be foolproof in order to bring linux on the desktops. (And please provide an expert mode for the savvy.)

Uh, and [i]most[/i] distros' installations sucked quite a bit back in 2000 as far as I remember. There were even distros that required you to know the chipset of your video card, horizontal and vertical timings of your monitor and the protocol of your mouse.

Re:Better make installing simple.

[trewornan]

I installed Debian on my Thinkpad only a few weeks ago and still needed to know all the details you just mentioned and had to edit the xorg.conf file by hand. I also needed to know that my wireless chipset wouldn't work without the 2.6 kernel (not default) and how to install the ipw2200 drivers.

On the other hand I had previously installed Mandrake without any X configuration problems at all.

Re:We're offering Suse 10.0 on dedicated root serv

[Harry Balls]

>is this an array of high-latency laptops?
No, Pentium-M based blade servers similar to the ones used in all the winning vehicles of the Darpa Grand Challenge - see http://www.intel.com/technology/techresearch/resea rch/DARPA-race-2005.htm/

Xeon-based blade servers produce to much heat density (about 15 Kilowatts per rack) and conventional data center cooling systems cannot remove 15 Kilowatts per rack, only about 4 to 6 Kilowatts per rack.

Firefox and Googlebar issues

[serodores]

After recently installing SUSE 10.0 (KDE/Konqueror version, vs. Gnome), including the latest available version of Firefox from the 5-disc CD set, installing all the updates (via Yast), and finally installing the Googlebar (directly from toolbar.google.com), only to find out several problems with the toolbar. First, in the options settings, the checkboxes have icons in them, making it difficult to see if a box is checked or not. Secondly and more importantly, the text box where you enter in the text to search for is too short, only showing the top 25% of the text you type, although the dynamically generated Find boxes are displayed fine. I'm uncertain if this is a SUSE problem, a KDE problem, a Firefox problem, or a Google toolbar problem at this time, and I currently haven't tested the good old-fashioned open source googlebar to see if it has the same problems yet.

Works in Kubuntu 5.04

[Anonymous Coward]

AA on/off/subpixel hinting or not all works in KDE on Kubuntu.

Novell did it?

[VincenzoRomano]

Novell has made some interesting changes in distribution and development since our last review of SUSE Linux.

So if I buy NASA I'll be the one who brought the mankind on the moon!

Suse 10.0: ok, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi everybody, this is my first /. post :-)
I recently had to format my laptop and I decided to try some distros: Suse 10, Fedora 4, Debian, Ubuntu. I really like Suse 10, it's easy to use for a non-techie user and it impressed me a lot: suse engineers did a great job.

Please forgive me if I say something wrong, but IMHO what I feel it is missed is the contrib (or "extras" in fedora). For example, Suse 9.2 had gemplus gpr400 driver support and 10 no more, mod_security cannot be found, etc...
Although is the ONLY distro that has pcsc lite included (Fedora doesn't in the default cds), I feel that the suse community has really small add-on packages, mostly of which are available for Fedora.

I am a long-time debian user and I decided to go for Ubuntu, not because is easy to use but for its contrib (or "universe") repositories, for the security updates and for the up-to-date packages: debian fails on this, going more towards the stability.
Yes I know I can compile everything, but .... I'm more lazy than geek :-D

At the end of the day, I strongly recommend Suse for end or power users, but is not suitable for really-power users.

Just my 0.02 Eur :D
Bye,
      Gippa

that's an awesome story...

[YesIAmAScript]

Do you think it's any solace to hear it when your hardware isn't working?

I think the level of hardware support is an important factor when rating releases, because if a release doesn't support your HW, it's going to be a hassle.

FreeNX Comment...

[Chicane-UK]

From TFA: Microsoft has tried a similar approach with their remote desktop support built into Windows XP but, as usual, it's only a half-assed attempt at something the rest of the free world is doing properly.

Strange.. I find Remote Desktop on Windows one of the most easy to use and fully featured remote desktop systems on any operating system? Could someone please elaborate and tell me exactly what is so half arsed about it when compared to the competition?

Re:FreeNX Comment...

[Anonymous Coward]

First glaring problem: only one connection at a time per machine... it's pretty lame as far as terminal servers go dude.

Re:FreeNX Comment...

[ekgringo]

What kills me is that you could have a console login and a Terminal Services login simultaneously in Windows 2000 Server, but they cut it down to only one login (console or TS) in Windows 2003 Server.

Re:Youre' right...Sort of (But it works both ways)

[NerdJock]

If being without linux drivers means less installed Linux around the world, it also means that when time comes to buy hardware, the hardware manufacturer loses a sale. I'm fairly certain that a sale is more important for the manufacturer than an install for the Linux community. This has been the case for my latest purchases and I think for most other Linux users. I've decided upon a printer/graphics card/mp3-player only to discover that they do not support Linux, in which case I throw out that option and go with another brand.

Antialiasing???

[pato101]

I'm pretty happy with my aa fonts in my ubuntu box.
Five tricks:
1) Use gnome. (Sure a KDE guy may give you similar reciepes, nevertheless)
2) Use "bitstream vera sans" for GUI and "bistream vera sans mono" for terminals.
3) Use proper DPI value at "Details..." at gnome-font-properties dialog
4) Enable Subpixel LCD at LCD displays, also there.
5) Enable "RenderAccel" option at xorg.conf if you are using nvidia card with nvidia drivers (just for performance issues)

My fonts look better than my wife's XP.

Re:Antialiasing???

[Anonymous Coward]

Use proper DPI value at "Details...

I like the look of your advice but JUST how do I get the proper DPI values ???

Re:Antialiasing???

[pato101]

how do I get the proper DPI values ???
Several methods. The easiest one is just to measure the screen, convert to inches, check your resolution and divide. Take the mean between horizontal and vertical values.
However, 70 or 72 would be OK for 15" monitors with 1024x748 (including most laptops) and something close to 90 would be OK for 19" monitors with 1400x1024... YMMV.

Random thoughts on SUSE 10

[DrXym]

Some random thoughts

1. Installation is a no brainer. For some bizarre reason it showed me a winter scene with penguins. Weird. One oddity is that during bootup there is an option to "Press ESC for more details" fine, except once you press ESC no way to switch back to the less details mode.
2. SUSE offers GNOME or KDE. GNOME is 2.12, it works great but integration with SUSE is horrible. The menus are cluttered with crap (e.g. do I really need the choice of 4 console apps in a default GNOME install?), Beagle isn't enabled by default and other niggles pervade. It almost feels like an afterthought. The SUSE crew might not like GNOME, but Novell owns Ximian so its hard to fathom why it looks so sloppy. Novell really has to start cracking a whip and get its teams working in the same direction.
3. YaST is a very powerful configuration tool. It's not exactly task sensitive or user friendly but it does a good job. It had no problem detecting my hardware although configuring a monitor was considerably more difficult than it should have been. To get a decent refresh rate I had to manually change the vertical and horizontal refresh rates of the settings. How many people are going to bother with that?
4. YaST is an ugly, ugly application. It doesn't look like a GNOME app. It doesn't even look like a KDE app. I think it's been statically linked to QT a default an ugly theme. I can understand that static linking removes dependency hell but the least they could do is make it resemble the default theme.
5. SUSE looks a lot better in KDE. I hate KDE to be honest, but I think I'm going to have to get used to it.
6. I finally got a chance to play with MonoDevelop. I just couldn't get it to work on FC4 but it works fine here. To be honest it's got a long, long way to go. I wonder if Mono shouldn't be looking at #Develop which is miles better but needs porting first.
7. I have an NVidia card. "For legal reasons" I discovered the software installer downloads the driver manually. This process could be improved, such as offering to restart X after installing your new driver.
8. FreeNX - yippee! Requires manual configuration including new firewall rules - boo!
9. OpenOffice 2.0 - I like. Ximian seem to have had their hands in here since it is the "Novell Edition" with different icons.
10. SUSE 10 contains a lot of Java stuff (including my favourite editor JEdit) but Eclipse is strangely not included. Also weird is that it ships Java 1.4 rather than 1.5.
11. The software update system works a lot better than FC4. It could be my imagination, but is it really using incremental patches? If so well done.
12. By default SUSE is set to boot straight into my normal user account without prompting for a password. I don't like this. I switched it off manually. Perhaps it was an option in the installer, but it wasn't something I noticed or would expect to look for. Perhaps the first time you start it should ask you if you want to continue with that behaviour or use a password from now on.
13. In common with most dists, multimedia is a complete disaster zone. If certain codecs can't be supported for "legal reasons", at least put in a dummy codec for the format which says this and tells you a link that you can go to. In other words make it a no brainer to get codecs. After all, SUSE do something similar with NVidia and other drivers.

Over all I like SUSE 10. It works fine, but I still don't think it is ready for a novice user. GNOME is a mess and there are rough / jagged edges around configuration and multimedia which would easily catch out a novice. As a power desktop it seems to be a very nice environment.

Re:Random thoughts on SUSE 10

[watermel0n]

In common with most dists, multimedia is a complete disaster zone

I agree. I had to remove xinelib an all dependent apps and install xine manually to play DVSs.
It strange that xmms could not start in a fresh installation. It just stops with a qt error and yet I haven't been able to figure out why.

Re:Random thoughts on SUSE 10

[Anonymous Coward]

Why the "hate" for kde? It is highly configurable. You could easily make it behave like gnome. Hell you could easily make it behave like OS X. Plus from amarok to kontact to konqueror you might grow to like some of the tight integration and functionality of all their apps.

I myself am a recent switcher from gnome. I didn't hate kde, but I never gave it a chance because it looked kind of silly when I started it up.

Re:Random thoughts on SUSE 10

[DrXym]

I hate KDE because the K stands for Kitchen sink. I don't believe a desktop needs a zillion configurable options (all mixed in with the common ones) to be usable. On top of that, I don't believe the KDE team is making half the effort towards usability that GNOME is. I want my desktop to be simple, and minimalist - to sink into the background while I get on with other stuff. Now GNOME has it's faults (e.g. the spatial navigation and the umpteen file pickers with each release), but at least usability is driving their development.

A major example of bad usability in KDE is the godawful ande default single-click-launches-apps behaviour. Microsoft got tarred and feathered when they (briefly) tried it with IE4. The reason is that it is all too easy to inadvertantly click on an icon and find yourself waiting 30 seconds for app to launch and shutdown again when all you wanted to was move the lousy icon over a bit. Microsoft soon reverted back to the old model.

Yet SUSE and probably KDE still use single-click it as the default behaviour. I hunted for the setting to switch to double-click behaviour for ten minutes. As KDE has a Desktop settings icon (under which are more than half a dozen more icons) I thought it would be there. Perhaps under Behavior ("You can configure how the desktop behaves here")? Nope. Eventually after trawling through all these settings with all their tabs, I resorted to Google and I discovered it was actually under the Peripherals | Mouse.

I'm sure that someone will riposte that it's "obvious" to look under the Mouse settings, but no it isn't, especially when Desktop | Behaviour is presumably there for the reason its name and description implies. It also contains other mouse settings, but not ones for app launching.

This is just one example but there are plenty. What the fuck are "OBEX Devices" when they're at home? Why not say "Bluetooth and Infrared Devices"? Why is "Bluetooth Services" in a different place and what's this daemon it is complaining about? What does the "KDE Resources" panel do? etc.

It's not just control centre it's just like this all over the place. Other KDE apps has menus, toolbars and dialogs that are full of noise. Konq has six menu items starting with "Configure" under one drop down. Many core apps contain advanced options and infrequently used features mixed in with the common ones, often with tabs and subdialogs to confuse things even further. Apps also exhibit poor default behaviour. The first thing Konq did when I went to Google to search for help about the single-click issue was ask me if I wanted to accept cookies from Google. As a power user this is an annoying question. As a novice this is mind boggling question especially since no help explaining what a cookie even is.

This sort of thing is what gets me about KDE. Now as I mentioned with SUSE, the choice is practically made for me since the level of effort they've made with GNOME can be best described as token. Perhaps I will grow to love KDE, but somehow I doubt it. More likely I'll learn to live with it, "training" myself to workaround the noise and crud it flings at me as I try to work.

Of course in an ideal world (a world Linux will have to get to), there should be no distinction between KDE or GNOME. Ultimately users shouldn't have to give a crap what the desktop is running with. They're running SUSE Linux, so what the hell is this KDE / GNOME stuff anyway? Why do they have to choose and how are they even meant to choose without knowing what they are?

Re:Random thoughts on SUSE 10

[Anonymous Coward]

The GNOME desktop in the Novell Linux Desktop edition is far suprior to the one in the regular SuSE 10 release, so I would argue that the SuSE engineers are the incompetant ones (or else they purposely make it bad to make GNOME look bad).

Re:Random thoughts on SUSE 10

[halfnerd]

I finally got a chance to play with MonoDevelop. I just couldn't get it to work on FC4 but it works fine here. To be honest it's got a long, long way to go. I wonder if Mono shouldn't be looking at #Develop which is miles better but needs porting first.

MonoDevelop is a port of SharpDevelop. The problem is, that mono doesn't fully support System.Windows.Forms, so it had to be rewritten in GTK#. Also the GUI-designer won't work, because it uses the same Microsoft libraries as Visual Studio .NET. The libraries just happen to come with the .NET SDK, not Visual Studio .NET

Re:Random thoughts on SUSE 10

[poofyhairguy82]

This sort of thing is what gets me about KDE. Now as I mentioned with SUSE, the choice is practically made for me since the level of effort they've made with GNOME can be best described as token. Perhaps I will grow to love KDE, but somehow I doubt it. More likely I'll learn to live with it, "training" myself to workaround the noise and crud it flings at me as I try to work.

Or use Ubuntu. Its what us Gnome fans are all doing nowadays. Welcome to the party.

Of course in an ideal world (a world Linux will have to get to), there should be no distinction between KDE or GNOME.

So in an ideal world one of the two would not exist? I hope to never see that world, if "there could be only one" it would be the one you and I don't like -KDE. Its more popular.

Plus, lets be honest. Desktop Linux is for nerds. As far as regular users go, Linux invades their life in their cell phones, TiVo, and routers that protect their Windows based PC. Its a nerds OS, and will be till the desktop dies and is replaced with computer appliances. Nerds enjoy all the choice (some days I love XFCE) and so such choices will stick around. Its fun to pretend that Linux will be on every desktop, but even nerds have to wake up eventually. Sure Linux can do fine on a non nerds desktop if a nerd sets it up and basically turns their box into an internet appliance- then KDE or Gnome doesn't matter then either.

Re:Random thoughts on SUSE 10

[DrXym]

So in an ideal world one of the two would not exist?

Not at all. They'd still be there, but there would be not a single indication that from the user's perspective that they were running something called KDE or GNOME. They'd just be using their desktop. It is a complete irrelevance from the user's perspective what the name of the component is.

I don't care what the Win32 desktop is called, or the Mac one. It's just the desktop. In the real world, I don't care who makes my car's steering wheel or pedals either. I could find out but to most people it is of supreme unimportance.

It doesn't stop someone knowledgable from swapping out KDE for GNOME or XFCE using a command but this is an irrelevance from a user's perspective. Secretaries, operators, receptionists, home users etc do not need and should not have to know any of the inner workings of their operating system unless they themselves choose to find out more. That is the default position for XP & Mac for good reason.

Re:We're offering Suse 10.0 on dedicated root serv

[Anonymous Coward]

what about us not logged in people? we want $45/mo unlimited bandwidth dedicated servers, too.
www.?

A question for the Suse-useies

[Hosiah]

I'm looking to upgrade the "family PC" (it's Red Hat install is creaking with age) and was thinking of Suse. I read through all three pages of the review and didn't find the answer to two of my biggest concerns:

Other desktops? I like Fluxbox and Window Maker and despise KDE and am even impatient with Gnome.

And numero-uno: Can I actually INSTALL something on it? Starting with JUST a TARBALL? Good compiler support, *complete* library/header files/developer packages, basic development/scripting tools (Perl, Python, Tcl/Tk, libc)? Is "compile", formerly a given in the Linux world, considered a bad word in a Suse forum? I hate being limited to what packages are available just for the distro or worse yet, being stuck with a whole system structured around a package manager that puts me through dependency-hell half the time (and treats me like a dunce the rest of the time). Which is why I run Slackware on my "home box". Also why I rarely touch Mandriva on the "kid's box". And why I've even tinkled around with Linux-From-Scratch. Hacker-friendly won't matter as much on the family machine, but when the Missus wants her Yahoo-chat-avatar-designer plugin that is available only as source code, I want to be able to get in, slap it in, and get out, not sit there for two days downloading an entire programming infrastructure for each little thing. It would be nice if my own custom programming solutions (simple Tkwish, Python apps, C++ SDL proggies, etc.) ran here, too.

And by the way, do you pronounce Suse like Dr. Seuss or like Suzy Creamcheese?

Re:A question for the Suse-useies

[halleluja]

Other desktops? I like Fluxbox and Window Maker and despise KDE and am even impatient with Gnome.

spec files are available for years. Prepackaged WM are usually compiled with all the gnome/kde support.

While offering a complete and nice solution, I usually end up removing tons of packages such as apmd, nfs, kludzu, vim etc. which I'm sure I won't be using.

As a rule of thumb, if you're customizing and compiling your own kernel, you're most likely better off with a more flexible distribution, such as Debian or Gentoo.

Re:A question for the Suse-useies

[IANAAC]

Can I actually INSTALL something on it? Starting with JUST a TARBALL? Good compiler support, *complete* library/header files/developer packages, basic development/scripting tools (Perl, Python, Tcl/Tk, libc)? Is "compile", formerly a given in the Linux world, considered a bad word in a Suse forum?

Yes, you can, easily. The one thing that'll throw you off: Even if you select "Everything" during the install, it won't install a lot of the dev libraries. No worries. They're on the DVD. You just have to either go back and install them after the fact, or during initial install, after checking "Everything", go into each individual group and make sure everything is checked off.

Re:A question for the Suse-useies

[Bambi Dee]

And by the way, do you pronounce Suse like Dr. Seuss or like Suzy Creamcheese?
Approximately like ZOO-Zeh, I'd say, at least in Germany. Can't think of anything English that it'd rhyme with.

Easier to redistribute as well

[Anonymous Bullard]

SUPER sounds like a grand idea to spread the SUSE community wider outside corporate confines.

1-CD Installs (performance-patched with Minimal, KDE and GNOME-centric sets) in particular are very welcome as the official SUSE and SUSE-OSS DVDs or 5-CD sets are on the heavy side and most users don't need anywhere near the full set of packages included there. The 1-CD Install set, as Ubuntu has already shown, keeps the user experience simple (while allowing for future expansion) and lowers the barrier for user-to-user proliferation of the distro.

The growing community around the OSS distro versions also helps Novell/SUSE to grow the momentum and mindshare of their commercial and supported releases. It'll be easier for Novell/SUSE to sell systems and support to businesses and other institutions when there may already be people around who are familiar and comfortable with their widely available free-for-all offerings. It'll also encourage third parties to pay more attention to making SUSE compatible packages.

I hope they'll get around to creating the planned liveCD version of SUPER as well, as an easily redistributable alternative to the current liveDVD offering.

FWIW, since Ubuntu stormed the scene I've mainly promoted it to people interested in trying out Linux, but for the technically-inept I've still recommended a SUSE box. These new OSS versions, and in particular the planned liveCD version, would dramatically lower the barrier of trying SUSE out but I'd still recommend a box set for the inexperienced users due to their better QA, less breakage and availability of official support.

Be grateful

[FishandChips]

I've used SUSE for more than four years now in successive versions. IME, SUSE is head and shoulders away the best of the big, all-rounder distros for those non-techs who don't want to poke around too deeply under the bonnet and appreciate GUI config tools like YaST. So much of SUSE "just works" and its hardware detection is second to none. I haven't found 10 to be any different, just incremental improvements over 9.3 which in turn showed incremental improvements over 9.2.

Besides here is that rare thing these days, in any industry: an outfit that takes obvous pride in what it does and stands behind its products. This, to me, is what wins customer loyalty and deserves support. You can't just sling together a good distro and a satisfying desktop. It requires huge work and attention to detail through a hundred little touches here and there. SUSE are very good at this and always have been. Ubuntu is a great distro too but I think they could learn a lot from the awesome thoroughness which SUSE show, right down to the documentation which is the best in the industry.

So many people criticize SUSE for its multimedia limitations out of the box. So what. This is a Linux-wide problem not limited to one distro. SUSE have made it as easy as possible to restore full functionality via some straightforward downloads. Why should they lay themselves open to legal troubles and possible litigation? The folks who criticize them for this are very often the same folks who demand free downloads of everything - freeloaders, in other words. If you really want free everything, then go Debian or Ubuntu and live with any consequences. The vast majority of computer users will never fall into this camp. They are happy to exchange convenience and time-saving for a little money. It's not SUSE's fault that the entertainment industry is obsessed with making life as difficult as possible.

So be grateful for another great distro, easily the rival of WinXP I'd reckon. So many posts in this thread show a rather unwholesome ingratitude towards a product you can have for free. Just my 2 cents.

I liked Open SuSE (with a few cons)

[zentara]

I learned on SuSE back in the early days and switched when they went to yast2 because my lower powered computer was too slow for it. I recently upgraded and tried OpenSUSE. I liked it. Mind you, I tried the beta, 2 weeks ago, so some of these bugs may be fixed.

Pro

1. The expert installation options give you full control over the process. Things like the partition resizer, encrypted partition setup, and password-encryption-type all work great. I've yet to see this in other distros.

Con

1. The Xorg server seemed to have permantly disabled the Alt-F1-F6 keys to prevent you from switching from X to a console. It could not be overriden in Xorg.conf.

2. The KDE was patched somehow, and my Perl/Tk apps lost the "maximize" window manager control. It is fine under Gnome. It is fine under Slackware's KDE

3. One minor nit, was during installation, it was very difficult to get lilo to work as a replacement for grub.

4. The install process must be watched very carefully. I have a dual boot system, with a second harddrive(with plenty of data on it), and the default install recommended that I format my second drive and install there. Yikes!! I'm glad I didn't just "click thru" all the "Accept" buttons. READ CAREFULLY.

All said, I would recommend OpenSUSE to anyone who had a machine fast enough for it, probably at least a 1600 Mhz processor and 512 Meg ram, but that is easy to get nowadays. Also, if it is a multiple boot install, be very careful and read the screen carefully.

Re:I liked Open SuSE (with a few cons)

[k-sound]

1. The Xorg server seemed to have permantly disabled the Alt-F1-F6 keys to prevent you from switching from X to a console. It could not be overriden in Xorg.conf.

try Ctrl + Alt +F...

One Major Issue with Suse 10

[Anonymous Coward]

I have an Athlon 64 3200 using a DFI Lanparty UT Motherboard with built-in Marvel Yukon and Nvidia network interfaces.
All worked well in windows and Fedora. I had the machine up and running in windows and browsing while I copied the dvd
to my install server. Shut the machine down and installed Suse 10 across the network. Once all was installed i played with it a few minutes and then rebooted back into windows to play wow. No go. Windows now thought the network cable was unplugged on the Marvel port. Checked all the cables and tried a reboot into Suse. Network port works in linux. I powercycled the machine and it was still dead in windows. The only way to fix it was enable the Nvidia port and spend an hour searching for a newer driver.
The latest DFI drivers didn't work but the latest from Marvel fixed the problem. I can only assume the Linux driver made some permanent change to the nvram on the card.

Re:One Major Issue with Suse 10

[Anonymous Coward]

The Marvell Yukon drivers in the linux kernel are maintained by Marvell, so it's not just some linux hippies that decided that the chip needs an NVRAM update. Of course it is unfortunate that the update causes problems, but they probably had a good reason for it.

Re:Youre' right...Sort of (But it works both ways)

[wolf31o2]

Agreed 100%. I am also not a complete zealot, like some Linux users. I will gladly take half-binary/half-source drivers like NVidia's or ATI's. I will gladly take a binary-only driver, provided it is a userland driver. The only reason I wouldn't like a binary-only kernel driver is because it likely won't work with many kernels.

I just want my hardware to work and I want the company that I am buying it from to support me.

Of course, I would love for the company to release specs, or create their own open source drivers, but in the absence of these, I just want a driver that works.

Windows and OS X are proprietary OSs, SUSE is not

[Da VinMan]

It is ALWAYS going to be more satisfying to construct your operating environment from the ground up so you can understand every nuance, every feature, and ensure that it is fully optimized for your situation. However this is, for the most part, something only an IT geek will enjoy.

Think of it this way: Car geeks are never satisfied with a stock car straight from the factory. They will always tweak it at the very least. They may even rebuild it from scratch. Most folks won't bother though, they just want to get in the car and go.

And that is where a distro like SUSE fits in. It gives you an alternative to a proprietary OS like Windows XP or OS X, but doesn't require much knowledge to get running.

Let me reiterate a key point above: Windows and OS X are proprietary OSs and to be avoided at all costs by anyone who holds dear the ideals of OSS. OS X is not an open system. If you think it is, then go ahead and try to port it to another machine architecture. Should you succeed, Apple will quickly remind you of the proprietary nature of OS X.

Suse 10 live-cd/dvd question

[Threni]

I tried Suse 9 but couldn't get online. Since then I've got broadband, which might make things easier. I don't want to go through the trauma of partitioning my XP hd and installing Suse again just yet, but I'd be more than willing to give the Live Suse 10 disk a go. Can I use it as a regular OS and install apps, use email clients etc? Where does the data go - to a partition on my disk, or does it let you use a large Windows file or something?

Re:Suse 10 live-cd/dvd question

[poofyhairguy82]

Can I use it as a regular OS and install apps, use email clients etc?

Yes, but it will be slower running off the CD than the hard disk.

Where does the data go - to a partition on my disk, or does it let you use a large Windows file or something?

Your RAM, and maybe to a pen drive or a blank CD if you can swing it. It does not touch your harddisk unless you tell it to, and if its a NFTS disk it won't be able to write to it no matter what.

Sorry I can't give a better answer, but I saw you had none. Linux nerds always install the OS, the Live CDs are for saving Windows machines and test driving an OS for 30 minutes or so and thats why no one else replied. I know no one doing a day to day tasks in one.

OT: "USAPATRIOT" act

[DrJimbo]

some guy I know's sig:

--
The "USAPATRIOT" Act has nothing to do with patriotism, so I pronounce it "the you sap at riot act" to avoid confusion.

Please allow me to explain. I agree that the Patriot Act had nothing to do with patriotism. It was named after the Patriot Missile, which famously never hit its intended targets and instead rained friendly fire on innocent civilians and soldiers.

Re:OT: "USAPATRIOT" act

[Anonymous Coward]

There are an awful lot of people in Kuwait that would disagree with you. Patriot missiles intercepted nearly all of the much feared Iraqi SCUD's, mishaps were rare.

gcc-4.0 and binutils cant compile linux kernel

[warrior_s]

The default gcc 4.0 and binutils package that gets installed with suse-10.0 can not compile linux kernels 2.6.10 and old. However its really easy to remove those and install older versions using yast. I think they should have stuck with gcc-3.x version. Its too early to adopt gcc-4.

Re: .94050625e-12

[some guy I know]

Even at 1200 DPI, .94050625e-12 is less than a pixel.

Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!
Reason: Too much repetition.

All right; here is some non-repeating stuff:
It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood,
A beautiful day for a neighbor.
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?

Oh, crap, that repeats, too.

OK, how about this:
She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah.
She loves you, yeah, yeah, no, that has lots of repetition, too.

Well, let me try submitting again, anyway.

Nope.
All right; time to get serious:
Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation.
We, the People of the United States of America, in order to form a more perfect Union, do ordain and establish this constitution, which politicians will shred sometime in the early twenty-first century.
Once upon a midnight dreary,
while I pondered, weak and weary,
I ended up missing Firefly because I spent to much time pondering.
I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieveing the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.

Oh, for some diety's sake.
Alright, I'm going to change 0.00000000000094050625 to .94050625e-12, and see if that works.

Woohoo! It worked!
I don't know why the AC could use that standard form of the number, while I have to use scientific notation.

service pack?

[xpyr]

Can't they just put it in the form of a service pack like Microsoft does? That way they have a downloadable service pack that works to upgrade the previous version to the newer one, while if you want to do a clean install, then downloading the install cd's would do that. I've never liked having to do upgrades every 6 months. That's why I prefer Microsoft's approach of a new windows version every 2-3 years or so. Stability in the architecture in that it won't change. That's one thing I don't like about linux. And I wish linux would do for once.

driver support

[xpyr]

Sure linux wins when all the drivers you need for your hardware are already included and you don't gotta do a thing to install them when the setup takes care of all of that for ya. But what if you wanna install the drivers that have full 3d acceleration support from nvidia instead of using the ones that came on the linux distro's cd? Can you do that all in the gui without having to resort to the command line? I hope someone can answer me yes.

Kind of useless, kind of not

[xrayspx]

Useless in that I'd already had to use SuSE 10 to rebuild a server that I had to rebuild for various reasons. I had already had problems with RAID and stuff, but thought that overall it seemed slick. I liked the fact that they now offer ISO images, albeit ISO images with no Flash, etc.

The not-useless part was that the review got me to download and install FreeNX, which is crazy great. It's just as fast as Terminal Services, which I use constantly with RDesktop. I wish it could handle local virtual desktop changes, but it seems to flake out with multiple monitors in such a way that makes it convenient. It always spawns the client window in the "primary" montior, then if I go over to another screen, it freaks out and minimizes. That makes up for the fact that I can't figure out how to make it respect local keybindings.

SuSE 10 seems like a good product, and this is a good run-down of it.