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SUSE Linux Enterprise 10, a Closer Look
Tripperfish writes "Mad Penguin's Adam Doxtater has published an in-depth review of SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10, Novell's alleged 'Vista Killer.' From the article: 'SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 is a very capable, industrial strength desktop which is ready to take on basic desktop chores in the corporate environment, and for the price you simply cannot go wrong. ' The review comes complete with screenshots and Flash movies of the install, new GNOME interface, and Beagle in action."
In no article I've seen has any writer actually suggested or "alleged" that SUSE Enterprise 10 is going to be a "Vista killer," as the story submitter (and transitively, /. editor) purported. Gotta love the FUD.
/. killers, and YouTube killers and now apprently Vista killers...
You certainly wouldn't hear Novell utter those words. I believe that a company that's been around as long as they have has more sense than that and knows that the best they could ever hope for is "Vista competitor." It would be interesting to know just how much of a margin Novell would have to take of Microsoft's sales in order for them to consider the maneuver to be a success.
On a side note, this "killer" stuff is getting way out of hand, with iPod killers and Flash killers, and
Please folks; enough with the killing.
Can't we all just get along?
Falun Dafa is good!
This does look like a nice desktop solution but I do not see any mass migrations to SLED in the enterprise. With the existing installed base of windows & apps in the companies I consult for, it will take alot more than this to replace the windows based systems. It is realtively easy to get some backend server moved over with proper justification but most dont want to disrupt the installed base of users with the change and associated complications, beside windows does not cost $300 dollars in the enterprise. Corporate licences are very reasonable and may even be cheaper in the ong run.
They used Suse Linux on the Enterprise? I guess I never saw that episode.
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
Say what? Microsoft isn't supporting NT 4 now. Are companies migrating en masse to Fedora 5 or whatever version it was in 2000? And I am sure that Novell is just chomping at the bit, waiting for 2011, when MS stops supporting XP.
I have a SLES Admin job, and if we weren't sticking with 9 for support reasons (Dell is staying with 9 for the forseeable future 1Y+) I'd be excited to support 10.
KDE is gone - practically erased from the experience. There is a QT4 interface control panel, and a few mentions of Kthis and Kthat, but you hardly ever see it. YaST (GUI) is GTK2/Mono, the Zen software manager is Mono, the Desktop is Gnome.
The usability is almost there.. I give it until version 11, and if HP and Dell get behind it like they say they are, you can validate the 'Vista-killer' remark, no matter how stupid it is.. There will finally be two real alternatives for Intel desk/laptops: Leopard and SLED.
OK. I read the article. The replacement for the start menu is interesting (even if it is, in many ways, like the start menu in XP). I'm glad to see they like Beagle (which I haven't read much about). The fact that single sign-on works with Active Directory is also interesting. But that's not what I take away from the article.
It was written by someone who has no hopes of ever being a journalist and should stop writing to try to convince people.
After reading that article I don't want to try the new SUSE version. I probably wouldn't have if it was written well. But instead, I get an article that is mostly good with a few VERY odd bits thrown in. Like I was reading along about something on the second page or so and came across something along the lines of "... and Mac users (dirty rotten hippies all of 'em". Do you have ANY IDEA how much that makes me respect the author?
That's stupid enough, but he then goes on later to talk about Spotlight and how everyone should try it and how great it is. Last I checked, there was only one way to use Spotlight: on a Mac.
There are other little bits too. Like on the last page when he says that you don't have to worry next year when "Windows ME 2.0 is released" because Linux already has all the features. First, it doesn't. Biggest omission: DirectX 10. Now I know that's not the fault of anyone involved in Linux, but the statement is wrong. More importantly, it is a cheap shot.
If the article was all fan-boy ravings, that would be one thing. If the article was all high-quality overview, that would be another. But the author can't seem to decide which of those he is. In fact, the author couldn't even decided to take a middle ground.
This kind of stuff only hurts the community. I see next to no honest reviews of Linux. I tons of "Windows is dead!" reviews that just don't take everyday use into account for the average user. Here's a great OS. It's perfect for your little sister. But only one of her 12 games will run, that will take work. And you can't buy games for it so you are basically giving up playing commercial games on your computer. Yes, you can dual boot Windows and play games that way. What's that you say? So why bother with Linux?
This kind of stuff is just juvenile. You can point out SUSE has features of Vista now without calling it "Windows ME 2.0". You can point out people use Macs without calling them all dirty hippies.
And you can guarantee I'll never read an article off that site again.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Like a few people have already pointed out, I don't see mass migration towards Suse either.
On the other hand, you have the Munich experience which are going to a homegrown red hat based solution, and there is also the big Ubuntu bubble building up.
I don't see Suse easting up any kind of market no matter how much they improve it.
I'm currently a dirty rotten hippy mac user, but I did a live boot off of a CD of Ubuntu not long ago, and it seemed interesting enough. Now I see this new one from Novell, and personally I think it looks even better. So my question, what's the difference between the Enterprise version that costs $50 and the regular freely downloadable version? I'm thinking I'll get a cheap PC and play with stuff on it.
Or would I be best to just use Ubuntu?
This is just me but fancy ass desktops mean shit to me, I still love the pre XP look on windows. I dont need no fancy graphics What I need is for linux to be able to run aps like Photoshop natively. NO I dont want to buy CrossOver office or use GIMP. Linux companies need to get software makers and electronic manufacturers (for example camera makers) to mave their equipment plug and play.
You got to give everyday joe windows user a reason to switch with out having to be forced to use and learn new alternatives for hir/her favorite software. Shit start with the default browser and make its home page Hotmail. Make people comfortable first and then you got them. How about making Firefox look like Outlook express?
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Mozilla = Mosaic Killer, dating from long before you ever pushed a mouse. Relax, it's an olde tradition.
Did I click on something wrong?
I think Novell's strategy with SLED isn't to bill it as a wholesale replacement for XP in the general desktop, but for "edge" workstations, like help desk people. I personally think it'd be great for a developer machine -- if you were a Java or Web developer, at least.
But if they want to be successful at all, they'll need to nail these two things:
1) Marketing
2) Alleviating fears about training and support.
And Novell has been known to suck at (1) -- and it's going to be all uphill for (2). But good luck to them, because we need more variety in computing to keep MS on their toes and valuing their developers more so that they actually have to compete on merits for a change.
random underscore blankspace at ya know hoo dot comedy.
One of the main reasons I stick with SuSE is because of bleeding edge KDE builds and bleeding edge builds of every KDE/QT based package (Amarok is very important to how I live). Is this going to be some kind of Grand Plan going forward, or is this "GNOME is easier for the average desktop user, so that's our Enterprise desktop product" because KDE has too much customization for the corporate desktop? Give SuSE's history with KDE, I would really hate to see them fall out of the K mainstream. I don't think I could live with GNOME's limitations on my customization of my own experience, it's very important to me that I can make my desktops do exactly what I want them to do for the way that I do my job.
I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop when Novell bought out Ximian, is this that shoe?
I like music
If you don't like Linux because of its inconsistency and hackish feeling, try the BSDs. They might not have all the bleeding-edge features, but when (not if) they get them, they work, and consistently.
Like it goes: BSD is designed, Linux is grown.
Where is SuSE's wireless support? I like SuSE, but am on an encrypted 802.11g network with a wireless card with a broadcom chipset... I know it's broadcom's problem the chipset isn't open, but I can't use SuSE without wireless support.
I've been on the beta the entire time and I have to say that I'm very happy with what they've done. Yes, I work quite a bit with Novell so I'm biased but having tried to support desktop Linux deployments using other solutions has been miserable. The amount of time and money that's gone into making SLED 10 enterprise ready is impressive. They even have an intro video with clips for all the major pieces of the desktop for helping new users (similar to the Windows XP new user intro) so that it's as easy as possible for new users to get up and running. The gnome menu interface is very slick with the beagle integration and the end result is a very clean desktop. For anyone who is interested in trying it out you can get it from Novell (you have to fill out a survey first). I highly recommend just giving it a try to at least see what Novell's been up to.
Always take these kind of reviews with a grain of salt. It just isn't possible to get a feel for a system after using it for just a couple of weeks.
1. Package management is very important. Can the package manager automatically handle conflicts and upgrade as many packages as possible without screwing up? Will I have to use some weird command line incantation like "yum --resolve-pkgs xyz-1.0 -f -v -qr ~/.yumrc" when things go wrong or something equally horrible?
2. Is it forward compatible? That is, does SUSE have an equivalent to "apt-get dist-upgrade"?
3. Where are the DROP SHADOWS?!? The screenshots show the Compiz WM presumably running on Xgl, so there should be drop shadows in there.
4. Since the WM used is Compiz it means you have lots of cute effects, like wobbly windows, transparency and shadows. It also means you don't have all the useful features that a mature WM like Metacity has; like proper workspaces (the desktop cube isn't fully developed yet last I looked at it), accessability options, lots of different themes to choose from, configurable keybindings etc.
5. Why Gnome 2.12? Gnome 2.12 wasn't a very good release for me, speed wise it was a noticable regression from 2.10. Thankfully most of those regressions have been fixed in 2.14 so I'm very surprised to hear about this SUSE shipping with 2.12. One would hope that the upgrade path to 2.14 would be smooth and painless, see point 2.
In short, SUSE 10 has some very exciting new features, Windows-like start menu, Beage integration, very good looking icon set and Xgl. But I doubt it is a Vista killer or even an Ubuntu killer because of the aforementioned points. I'll stick with Ubuntu, but I really hope that the Ubuntu devs will copy all the cool features from SUSE 10.
If an average user can't find help in the OS and an average user can't locate how to run a newly installed app, it's not 'Vista Killer' material. With MS Office now available at Costco for 75$ (Student/Teacher edition) and new PCs with or without Windows costing ten/twenty dollars difference, Windows X with Office is not costing the average user $500 either.
Wanting it to best MS at the desktop game doesn't make it true. Those rose colored glasses make you look a little goofy.
If you don't like Linux because of its inconsistency and hackish feeling, try the BSDs. They might not have all the bleeding-edge features, but when (not if) they get them, they work, and consistently.
How can features be added since BSD is DEAD?
Some folks code for the fun of it, and other folks profit from their labors ? SIGH !
though to much WAK-ing could send you blind
...I obey the laws of physics....
I can't believe they aren't going to use gnome 2.14 and xorg 7.x. In my experience, both have made linux incredibly MORE responsive. I haven't used SLED10 yet so I can't compare to gentoo with the above, but I know moving from 2.12 and xorg 6.x it was 100% different as far as responsiveness on my *older* laptop (PIII 850/192MB/ram).
The actual OS that will kill Vista will be Windows XP.
Nobody will upgrade via actual choice, just having it on their new computers, as forced by their hardware vendor. And that doesn't actually get MS any more money for developing Vista over XP (unless they raise prices).
Care about electronic freedom? Consider donating to the EFF!
On a side note, this "killer" stuff is getting way out of hand, with iPod killers and Flash killers, and /. killers, and YouTube killers and now apprently Vista killers...
/. lovers, YouTube lovers, and apparently (to highlight the spelling error ;) Vista lovers
Please folks; enough with the killing.
Can't we all just get along?
Yes we should all love each other such as IPod lovers, Flash lovers,
Perhaps the love is also getting out of hand? One thing is for certain though, the IPod love is definitely out of hand!
I don't think there will be a Windows-killer until someone figures out a (legal or economic) way to get around Microsoft's network effect. It is an unfortunate fact that for many people (but not all), much of an OS's value is extrinsic - derived from the use of that same software/supported standards by others. Because MS intentionally destroys interoperability with others, and because it is the de facto standard for many things (but certainly not all), an alternative OS/software system (like OpenOffice) would have to have much higher intrinsic value to make up for the reduced extrinsic value.
Wake me up when this happens, I'll buy everyone a drink.
You can point out people use Macs without calling them all dirty hippies.
The last time I saw Mac users in public -- and this is the honest-to-God truth -- it was two effete guys at a Starbucks, wearing sandles, looking at an iMovie thing they put together on their white Apple-branded notebook computer. I didn't watch much of their little film but I clearly saw one of them driving a Volvo in it. Yes, they actually made a movie about themselves and their Volvo, and went to a public place to look at it on their Mac and loudly talk about it.
I don't think you can tell me s**t about unfairly stereotyping Mac users after witnessing that.
I checked out the article linked to the words "Vista killer." The word "killer" appears nowhere in the article, leaving me to wonder: "Vista killer" alleged by whom? We Linux users are hopeful, but not stupid. The article does compare Vista and SUSE, but and the summary's vague "alleged" without support, coupled with a quotation from an unknown and possibly imaginary source, strikes me as distortion.
Penny - plain text accounting
Huh? That is so painful. Why does anyone still ship that?
That is as fast as how many bikes again?
My primary boxes run SuSE 10 OSS and SLED and at least 5 production boxes have been switched to SLES.
Fact is, SLED while certainly an improvement on what has come before it still isn't smooth enough for us. The Novell client is flaky, the various SuSE network config scrips don't play well with secondary DNS suffixes and simple things like the various pack-in apps don't work properly out of the box. Also, while not a SuSE issue specifically, WordPerfect support in OpenOffice is horrible. You might think "So what?" but the schools systems and government offices that run Novell are quite often running the WordPerfect Suite as well.
(Up until this year the WPO cost in volume licensing was insignifigant relative to that of MSO. WP is enjoying a false sense of security right now since MSO 07 was delayed.)
Now, if SLED isn't good enough to convince existing customers who are already fairly pro-Novell and pro-Linux what hope is there is convert the rest of the world?
The feature set is fine as it is. Novell/SuSE need stop adding new crap and increasing the major version number. Instead they should be polishing what they have and refining those everyday apps that the "users" actually care about.
I'm not sure how you think making a web browser look like an email client will do anyone any good.
I won't even go into what I personally think of the Outlook Express interface, as that is just opinion.
You know now that I think of it you are on to something here, OSS needs this kind of thinking to really take off. We need Open Office to be designed to look just like Nero. And if only Evolution looked just like Windows Movie Maker. That will make adoption so much easier!
[/tongue in cheek mode]
Shawn's Tech Articles
It's no wonder there isn't a native photoshop, or photoshop killer. You must be the biggest bunch of whiners ever.
Take a look at this article. Yes it's crap - but this article DOES say that desktop 10 is taking on VISTA and aims to beat it.
Sure - it doesn't use the word "killer". But that quote has the same meaning that I understand from the term "Vista Killer".It won't be tho - VISTA will probably end up kicking its ass when it's released (bundled with Duke Nukem Forever)
It is at the moment. If you have a look on their website, Novell are offering a free download for evaluation. Unlike some other evaluation versions of operating systems, it doesn't expire.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
I hear a lot of discussion about the fact that the new Microsoft Office is so different from earlier versions and Vista is feared to be so locked down that most home grown applications will break or need major tweaking that alternatives like Suse Linux are being seriously considered.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
he's ranting. How is that insightful?
The reviewer totally spaced off the coolest part of SLED, seamless support for XGL. SLED has an XGL configurator built into the control panel. It even makes installing vga drivers easy on Linux for once, no mucking with the xorg.conf to get dual monitors or XGL working.
Seriously, if you like eye candy, Linux has never had it better. This will even impress the guys using a Mac. Remember how cool it was to play with the Dock the first time? This is like that only better.
If you could care less for eye candy but like the productivity boost of Apple's Expose, then you need to look into SLED. If you like accessability, XGL does zoom better than any other desktop, even Windows. No other distro has XGL like SLED does since Novell sponsored its development. http://www.novell.com/linux/xglrelease/ Its hard for me to believe that this guy missed that in his review.
I don't think that SLED 10 is a Vista killer, but it does make Desktop linux look good even to Windows fanboys. Seriously, give XGL on SLED a look.
...I do really enjoy running Suse. I'm running 10.0 on my desktop and it is sweet. I wanted to run 10.1 but had problems right at the end when SaX2 tried to setup my video. It locked the system hard and the only way I could get out was to power it down. :-(
I guess no OS is perfect. I did install Suse 10.1 on my old HP Pavilion laptop and it went perfectly. The author is correct. The OS is VERY impressive. And if anyone has a suggestion about how to get it to work on my desk top I would love to hear it.
SUSE 10.1 has Mono (dot net framework for Linux) built right in so mono applications (like Beagle) run pretty much hassle free. Sweet.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
granted SUSE has been around for a long while, but, it still makes me wanna yell out "We are the Scorpions!".
http://www.thirdrake.com - Best Webcomic of all time.
I have not tried the SUSE Ver. 10 yet and curious to know following:
l
1. What does SUSE offer what other distros don't offer?
2. Can third party programs such as Google Earth, etc be installed securely without using root like in Tomahawk Desktop? Eg. http://www.tomahawkcomputers.com/google-earth.htm
3. Can the multimedia files be stored in once place so that all desktop users can share them without wasting disk storage? Eg. http://www.tomahawkcomputers.com/home-common.html
Of course DX10 won't be on this linux. The poster was just saying that it won't have everything Vista will have, like the new DX, and can't be called a Vista-Killer because of that. Not everyone who complains about Linux is an astroturfer. Give us examples of "astroturfing" from said user, and maybe I will take you seriously. I haven't looked yet, as I am lazy.
I have freaks! I did something right...
Note: Im a mediorcre linux user;
;-)
Last time when I was using Linux for programming Bluetooth., I used Suse Linux 10.0., not OpenSuse.
Everything worked fine., except for the fact that they forgot include gcc.
Then Googling revealed a workaround; But it was really shameful to leave it out.
I have been a faithfull SuSE user since 1998. I know a lot about SuSE and how to use it. At this time I am in the process of conjuring a gambling website. I would not even know how to do this on windows (I have been a Visual Basic, Delphi programmer for years so I know windows). So I have compelling reasons to use linux although I can't really express why some programming things are so much easier on linux than on windows. (Somehow I believe the complete integration of python, php and javascript in linux makes it so much easier to use than windows.). Then there is my father. He uses all kinds of office tools and he will never see a compelling reason to switch to linux. Office tool integration is so much better on windows he tells me. So will SuSE be a windows killer? For web-programmers linux certainly has windows killing potential but for office workers it simply does not. And in this world there are far more office workers than programmers. So it will certainly take a long time when ordinary users will use linux. Might happen in 10 or 20 years but it certainly does not happen today or tomorrow. Inertia anyone!
Language is a tool for war and in war you always take the biggest guns avaialble to you. FUD instead of hype, hype instead of exegerated claims, exegerated claims instead of marketting speak.
It is a very old tradition.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
...to fast for its own good
:(
i think theres a bug
i have suse10 64bit on a server and the time keeps drifting ahead
any ideas people, taught this will be the right place
The real Vista killer is not SUSE Enterprise but it's OSX ported to the Windows Platform. Apple has what it takes to do it but they simply refuse to because they want people to buy their hardware.
\
Suse still does not read DVD "out of the box", the fact that there is a workaround (downloading deCSS "somewhere") is actually a hinderence "linux fans" have machines "that work" but when you try to convince a "naive user" to switch, either you become their system manager, or they will complain that the "music video bit" doesn't work. (on the other hand you are in the blissfull situation of never having to manager their malware issuers).
...
The situation will become MUCH worse with the advent of DRMs
Unless it integrates cleanly with SharePoint, it ain't killing squat in the corporate environment.
The opposite of progress is congress
You can download SUSE Linux 10.2 Alpha 1 here.
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
To all ya posters out there: It is SUSE not SuSE or certainly not S.u.S.E. anymore. Also it would be nice if /. would update its SUSE icon to something that looks like something that is used for SUSE at this moment.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
i would like to know if the network is still stupid:
.. oh nevermind.
if i use a client to access a samba share and copy
a file from directory one on the server to directory two on the server,
the file from directory one gets copied to my client machine
first then back over the network to directory two on the server.
LOL this is really stupid.
if i would ssh into the remote computer and copy the file
from directory one to directory two it doesn't get sent stupidly
over the network first but is executed completly on the remote machine.
please can we get a smarter network (protocol) please?
and one last note: does suse finally support dvd playback of css free
dvds yet? i mean they call it "enterprise" and
and does it finally support mp4 of of the box yet?
can we have per networkcard configuration for susefirewall2? not just
internal external and DMZ, but say internal ONE, external ONE and TWO etc. ?
Firefox looking like Outlook Expres ? Hmmm...So why Internet Explorer dont look like Outlook expres :P
Firefox is web browser, Thunderbird is mail client.
If you want a mail client for linux looking like Outlook Expres, then you should try Novell Evolution (included in most distributions, and set as default mail client).
No offense but most of you are smoking a pipe full of dreams. No common joe user will care to migrate to linux for the desktop no matter how much you make the OS work and look like OSX or Windows. Yes the nerds like us and IT folks may migrte to it for various reason, but its a bit late to this game. Apple and Microsoft will own the dekstop for quite a long time until Linux hammers down some stadards and most importantly at least 95% + support for all commercial software applications, games, driver support for hardware thats equal to windows and so forth. Being that plug and go simple is actually a complicated feat for Linux. And many of you cant even agree on how you think such things should be implemented.
With the existing installed base of windows & apps in the companies I consult for, it will take alot more than this to replace the windows based systems.
Of course, if you were urging your customers to move their critical systems to web-based apps three years ago and had rolled those systems out last year, then your customers would be almost ready to cut the cord. And it doesn't have to be all or nothing. I have one customer...70 employeess, graphic arts oriented business...that could move their entire sales center over. Which is 25 workstations.
Three years ago their primary sales entry process was a horrible clunky network app slaved to an access database. Constant problems. We moved them to ColdFusion middleware, SQL server on the back end and consolidated all the Access db's and took it off the desktops of everyone but the accounting department (and we're going to get those by another means). Now I'm showing them how much they could save switching to OpenOffice for productivity and managed desktops on Linux for the sales staff. Sadly, that would mean the end of WeaterBug, one app users felt they would miss a great deal.
They won't have to do anything until MSFT stops supporting 2000, but now they have options. I can promise Vista won't be a lock there. And that happens by implementing good business practices of not having everyone and their dog writing crappy Access and Excel apps. All the important functions have been captured in web apps in a portal with a nice dashboard. And thanks to not being tied to any ActiveX components they're free to use Firefox instead of IE, which they really like because of the tabbed windows.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Windows doesn't let you play dvd's out of box either (with WMP), so you'll need to download a player too. same goes for playing mpeg's, xvid, quicktime, and flash.
I doubt it.
"for Linux to a serious desktop option, your mom needs to be able to use it, write a word doc and e-mail her friends. That is not the case with Linux."
Me moms been using Linux since 1998. And I mean using it, not dicking around with like you. First SuSE, now Gentoo soon to be Ubuntu. She clicks the icon in her taskbar to dialup her ISP. She prefers it to Windows because:
1. It's stable
2. It's easy to use
3. It has all the applications she wants (e-mail, word processor, web browser)
4. Multiple desktops
5. It looks better than Windows
So maybe your talking about your mom?
Kind Regards
"A few great minds are enough to endow humanity with monstrous power, but a few great hearts are not enough to make us w
So, i go to http://www.suse.com/ and find the SLED 10 'Pre-release Download' link. Naturally, i click it, and naturally, a screen full of 'personal info' fields pops up. Naturallly, there's this notice: "Note: Questions marked with an asterisk, *, are required." and , UNnaturally, NO field is marked with an asterisk. So i give them my name, anwayzzz.. and naturally, a pop up appears that requires me to enter my company name, address, phone, email, and on and on ..!!!
Wake up, Novel!
nudge nudge!!
"There are 11 kinds of people: those who know binary, those who don't, and those who could not care less!"
There are many smaller networks and a few large networks. They all look like one network because Windows is so prevalent globally which creates the illusion of a larger network than really exists. Linux has been adopted like gang busters within certain networks. These networks are eating away at the edges of the larger networks causing them to fragment.
Education and Government are two such networks that are starting to break away, or at least diversify. Either way it will reduce the effect for other sectors.
Kind Regards
"A few great minds are enough to endow humanity with monstrous power, but a few great hearts are not enough to make us w
From the article. This is b-e-a-utiful:
Arguably, the biggest factor in completing a successful installation comes in the form of driver support. That turned out to be a challenge with Vista. Test Center engineers encountered hardware compatibility difficulties with every machine tested, forcing Windows XP drivers to be used in some cases or, at worst, ignoring the nonfunctioning components. Test Center engineers had the best success with a Lenovo/IBM ThinkPad T42. (See related story.)
With SUSE Linux, most drivers were included on the installation CD or readily available during the install. The install process includes the ability to automatically retrieve the latest updates, patches and drivers, as long as you have a valid Internet connection during the process. Vista offers a similar capability, but the simple truth is that most drivers are just not available yet. Microsoft has promised that the driver issues will be resolved by the time Vista is released to manufacturing.
How many current devices won't have Vista hardware support? I wager; lots. Linux drivers (at least for hardware in any sort of usage) don't tend to go out of style; it doesn't matter if the companies go broke or not. And with the triumph of ATI and NVIDIA in the 3d market, we should have comprehensive (if not opensource) support for OpenGL Linux now.
Although Linux may not _ever_ acheive significant desktop marketshare, Linux's day in the sun, on the desktop, is today. Linux is a powerful, secure solution that can fill 99% of people's desktop computing needs. I don't give a rats ass (well, that's not totally true, I'd love to see Linux unseat Microsoft, but its not going to happen) about marketshare, but I do care that Linux acheives the necessairy technical sophistication to fullfil my needs, my companies needs, my familys needs, and my customers needs.
Go SuSE! Here's a Rah-Rah-Rah, from a local fanboi.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
Seriously dude, remove the stick from your butt. It will hurt alot less if you do, and people won't think you're such an asshat.
Not going to happen in 5 or 50 years... Probably some other commercial solution will step in and take over where MS left off. If linux was going to "take over" the desktop, it probably would have by now (didn't it have 98SE & ME to compete against at one time...)
Because I couldn't get it to work. Seriously, I try installing Linux on my x86 desktop every few months but Linux always fails. It won't use the native resolution of my widescreen LCD. It won't install the nVidia drivers. Hell, last time I tried to install Ubuntu (when 6 came out) it couldn't even partition the 40GB IDE drive that I use just for testing out Linux. At least Suse was able to do that.
I couldn't even find the "3D Desktop" settings that I was supposed to find, so I have no idea if it would impress me. Maybe I need those nvidia drivers. I read the documentation for downloading, patching (!!!), compiling, and installing the driver. It wasn't worth the effort at this point.
I was really hopeful this time too, because I (erroneously) hoped that Xen would let me run Windows off my main partition, but apparently Xen doesn't support "full virtualization" without (unspecified) hardware that I don't have. What hardware, I wonder? Clicking the help button was no use, it brought up a help window that said "couldn't open file". My guess is that I need a CPU that has virtualization support, but I would never know that from using the software.
When Linux recognizes my network printer, widescreen LCD, and installs flawlessly, and lets me run Windows in a VM, I'll switch. Until then I'll keep that 40GB in the machine, unused, waiting for another try.
Last update: 07-05-2006
Features (as of this writing):
Sun Java 1.4.2
Now take a look at the documentation for the current JDK (1.5.0) and pay attention to the date. Solaris 10, also aimed at the Enterprise, shipped with Java 1.5.0 right from the start. Do they think that shipping outdated software makes them more stable or something ? This is ridiculous.
My gripe about linux I can not find a way to listen to xm radio. I have made my wishes known to xm support linux and for god sakes guit timing out for in activity no activity my arse i am listing hello. Guess my gripe is about XM Radio Never mind.
I am not a regular SUSE user but I have used SUSE in the past and as an administrator at a site with a small (few 100) Linux desktops I have recently been testing SUSE 10.1 as the site has always used SUSE.
Take all of these replies with a grain of salt. I haven't filed problems in Novell's bugzilla and anyone complaining about things but not filing bugs probably isn't interested in helping to make things better.
1. Package management. This is a curious one as Yast's dep solving seems to now be done by the Novell zmd daemon. This daemon seems to have a XML-RPC interface and consequently can be driven by many interfaces. Yast is one GUI front end, rug is a text driven front end and there are some GTK zmd-installer/zmd-updater tools too. Alas Yast's package groups don't yet appear to be rug bundles which is a little frustrating. In SUSE 10.1 there is also a bug which renders the zmd* and rug unable to resolve dependencies. You will have to use Yast to get an update that fixes this.
2. SUSE has alway had the option within the Yast control centre to upgrade to a new version of SUSE. I haven't tested rug's ability to do this but after patching it seems fairly capable. The bad news is that the dep solver is slower than Red Hat/Fedora's yum (interesting yum is written in Python and novell-zmd is written in mono). The daemon can go to sleep and takes time to wake up (I also wonder if it refetches the list of packages on remote sources every time it wakes up). It eats a lot of memory and CPU when solving but might have lots of interesting features like being able to have updates "pushed" to it (handy when you have lots of machines).
3. There are drop shadows in compiz under XGL when I used it.
4. This is true. Compiz lacks metacity's focus stealing prevention, you can't drag windows off the top and bottom of the screen. You can configure keybindings and it seems to follow GNOME's theme (but not KDEs). It's very usuable and I believe was based off metacity originally (for Wm decisions).
5. Dunno. Perhaps they want to let it stablise (Ubuntu carries a bunch of patches to stabalise its version of 2.14).
There are things in SUSE 10.1 that definitely make it more attractive for large installations (proxy management is far better than the other distros I've used). I need more time to evaulate beagle, XGL works fairly well for me even with KDE (getting XGL going on the integrated Intel graphics cards with open source drivers was a dream compared to the ATI binary drivers). However there are also things broken within SUSE that are not broken elsewhere due to their patches (gaim + jabber + proxy = have to use proxy?!) but other places where their patches are absolutely amazing (I've never seen openoffice start so quickly from cold boot, evolution has right mouse button spelling suggestions!). Until I get round to filing bugs I'm going to leave my criticism there though.
Errm... Guys, now is there any AutoCAD killer, Photoshop Killer, DreamWeaver killer and MS Word killer now... e... e...
... *shrug* ...
Brilliant, this is something Novell can do that other Linux contributors wouldn't do. Novell are veterans at battling with Microsoft, heck, Novell were the first big losers to Microsoft on the server front. So they know a thing or two about tangling with MS. Allowing a linux client to, out of the box, connect transparently to Windows resources and live happily in a Windows dominated environment is something I would believe Novell would advocate highly.
Linux advocates often alternate wildly from pretending Windows doesn't exist, and deceiving themselves about the sheer juggernaut of market dominance that Windows represents by downplaying the advantages that Windows has. Things like, "Oh, well, Windows can do games but there are Linux games too!". But when they say that, they're comparing WoW and GTA:SA to a tetris clone and Tuxracer.
The true secret to achieving a significant level of enterprise and home Linux desktop penetration is two easy to say and difficult to accomplish objectives:
1) Do everything that Windows can do
2) Do it better than Windows can
We don't have 1) - we won't have it until there is a freely available DX10 compatible interface for Linux, for starters.
We won't have 2) until we have 1).
Now, here is where the Linux advocates will pretend that Windows doesn't exist and downplay Windows instead of admitting there's a problem. I'm waiting for "We don't need DirectX compatibility, OpenGL is better, Windows games are awful, nobody plays them, etc". This won't work, because it's the method in use at the moment that is not changing anything.
What more can be said? In order to compete with Windows, one must embrace and extend. Embrace Windows functionality, then leverage the greater development capabilities that open source provides to outperform Windows, in the same way that Linux often outperforms Windows in various areas where the same functionality does exist.
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
That would be SO KILLER.
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
I see that the auther makes no mention at all of Evolution, and while he does mention how well SLED will work with windows domains for authentication and drive mappings, he says nothing of Exchange. Unless Novell pulls something huge out of their ass and gets Evolution to work well, SLED is doomed for 99% of the workplace. Email is the one 100% gotta be working and will accept no comprimises across the board. If email is not working, then we might as well all take the day off. Evolution's integration with exchange is utter crap. It's slow, unreliable, and frequently crashes. Where I work, there are very few people running linux on their primary machines, and Evolution is to blame. Those that are still going the linux way do so with only pop email support and thunderbird. We have blackberries to manage calendars and meeting notices, so the email client is only used for email. Most(all) users do not work in this way however. When we tested out giving people linux for thier desktop OS (using the hideous NLD), the feedback we got was generall "everything works great...except Evolution, can you fix that?". Now a year later, I think all of those people have made the switch....back to XP and a functional email client. Fix that pile of crap before talking about "taking over the corporate desktop".
We can't install "download accelerator" software here, but
we do have the FTP tool FileZilla.
After succesfully d'loading the some of the Media Kit files
(including a 1.1 GB Student DVD ISO)...
we confidently went on to fetch the 2.9 GB SLED ISO file -
using after giving our Username & Password (in Novell's HTTP-
based download web page; no FTP servers listed there).
As the SLED ISO rolled in, its download speed seemed to drop
a bit during each hour of the download process.
(A previous d'load attempt for the Student DVD ISO went the
same, and had to be aborted after restart attempts - within
Opera - lead to a restart from the beginning!)
Eventually, the SLED ISO's d'load session stopped, as well!
Attempts to restart it seemed only to cause a restart, as
they did for the Student DVD ISO.
Looking at the destination folder, we find a 2.5 GB partial
SLED ISO file - ie, "SLED-10-x86-DVD1.iso"
To preclude re-downloading all those 2.5 GB -again- we need
access to an FTP server that supports restarts (via FileZilla)
& that's got that incomplete file.
Of course, it would be great to find the SLES DVD ISO on a
re-startable FTP server, somewhere, also...
Anybody? anywhere?
TIA
---
To Novell: Why can't I restart interrupted d'loads from your
password-protected HTTP download server?!?
If not now, when? TIA
THINK: Customer Service includes Customer Convenience