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SuSE 6.2 in August
Desperado wrote in
to tell us that according to This InfoWeek Story,
the 6.2 release of SuSE is scheduled for August and will
have new/updated packages including IBM's ViaVoice, XF86 3.3.4 and VMware 1.0.
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
SUSE has been the stable envirement for Linux since SuSE 5.0 for many of us. And Red Hat, Debian and Caldera have all been less successful. So since this site seems choc full of Debian and Red Hat users primarily, it's no wonder SuSE get's slammed. YaST continues to be the reason many users like SuSE. I personally prefer the hierarchy
and scripting. But it's just that it suits me.
-Dee
Their plan is to include the whole of the internet on cdrom!
i just installed 5.0, and then later that night G2 (after i found out it had been released.) no problem with either on my suse 6.1 box...
"The things we wizards have to put up with."--Jethro Bodine
More FUD.
It isn't a full version of OSS (it only supports the cards supported in OSS/Free) and I it is redistributible. You can rip CDs all you want. The catch is that only the original owner is licensed to use it. SuSE does their part to enforce the license by putting the serial#/key in the printed manual.
Lets say SuSE GPL's YAST. So what, is redhat gonna use it? Debian? Caldera? bfd on gpl'ing a distro's config tool. The value added of the config is the only thing that makes distro's truly worth paying for.
You imply that it should be obvious that making YAST free software would not impact other distributions much. If that is so obvious then why doesn't SuSE just do that then? Unfortunately, I believe they do not find this to be so obvious
I do not mean to trash SuSE; they do good things, but OTOH they are not doing the free software community any favors by making YAST non-free.
But Netscape is clearly identifiable as proprietary and is certainly not essential to a distribution, as, say, YAST is to SuSE. YAST is more insidious in the sense that it is almost free, but not really. These kind of silly games do not help the free software effort. Again, SuSE may be a great distribution, but if it is so great -- and I do not doubt that it is, why don't they just rely on that merit instead of sneaking in with an almost-but-not-quite-free license of YAST?
As somebody else asked, are you sure you actually use SuSE 6.1?
My manual doesn't have any German in it. I'll agree that the manual isn't all that useful, but it is about an order of magnitude better than what Red Hat provides.
Telnet slow? It works fine on my machine. YMMV I guess.
I had been using Red Hat (4.2, 5.0, 5.2) for a while and then SuSE 6.0 and 6.1. I personally think SuSE is much less buggy, easier to administer, and less poluted with half functional !%$%^ python scripts.
Tech support for SuSE is near non-existent. I'll agree with that. I don't know if RH is any better - they weren't when I used their distro but they may have changed. You do realize how silly it sounds to complain about lack of tech support for SuSE and then recommend Debian? Lets face it, if you need tech support for any distribution of Linux, you go to the newsgroups.
"free software market" is an oxymoron.
First of all, the source code for YaST is on the last CD if you want to look at it. You'll have to explain how YaST "acted up on you". Most likely you manually added/deleted/hacked some configuration file without understanding what you were doing, and then YaST wasn't able to undo the damage.
Also, SuSE will give tech support in English via phone or email from the CA office. They're not very responsive, but then again neither is Red Hat. The tech support available from usenet is no worse for SuSE than any other distro.
Get a clue next time. You are perfectly free to give YaST to somebody else. In fact, you can redistribute all of SuSE just like Red Hat. And remember, the Red Hat distributions contain non-free software as well.
You do realize that Red Hat ships with shareware too?
I wonder if the lock-step synchronization of XFree86 releases and SuSE releases has anything to do with Dirk Hohndel.
Furthermore, 3.3.4 was delayed for about 2 weeks for reasons no one is talking about. Maybe because SuSE wasn't ready to "freeze" 6.2 yet?
Yes, the manual seems to spend more time explaining /usr/doc/howto, and
how to configure and install things than it does
talking about basic unix commands. However, on
page 368 they do explain the mount command. Altough
they don't come right out and say you use mount
to mount CD-roms (the example is mounting a dos
hd) iso9660 is one of the filesystems mentioned.
OTOH there is a CDrom howto in
the manual does a good job of explaining how to
install from a CD.
Sorry, I'm not a geek extraordinaire...so I love SuSE. The SuSE 6.1 distro is the only distro I've been 100% successful with... and I love having EVERYTHING on CD.
I'll buy 6.2. I like the convenience of having it all in one place and with one unified setup interface (YaST).
-MVK
Oh that's right you can't because it's closed.
I used kpackage's "replace package" option, which is good enough on other rpm-based distros(RH6, COL 2.2) to replace or upgrade the rpms and not mess up the database. I'm not sure if I'm correct in explaining it, but SuSE doesn't include some certain headers in their rpm's. Annoying.
But isn't the purpose of the Doomsday machine lost if you keep it a secret!
I actually posted it on newsgroups several times. And my question even appeared in Ask Slashdot section. Here is the link
Did you ever get that fixed, how? (Sounds like messed up routing to me...)
bla
Bullshit. You've *NEVER* used Redhat have you? You can configure just about everything by hand with Redhat just like you can under Slackware. I know since I configured/edited the ini files dealing with pppd and fstab along with others using pico. The Redhat interfaces just make changes eaiser. Losers like you really need to get a life.
I'm from Germany, and only newbees have never heard of Red Hat. I'm not very happy with SuSE, their binaries are always stupidly compiled. I don't know if Red Hat is much better. I like Slack, but I also like the System V init. And i hate dselect. So what ?
"Such programs include VMware 1.0, a shareware program"
Excuse me, but if people want to try this out and pay for it, can't they just download it themselves? It's not to big and all, and why do we put shareware(==buyware) on cd's you already paid more then enuff for?
Is it me, or Debian the only distribution really understanding Linux spirit?
-- signed for your pleasure --
I can only agree... as soon as I read "New SuSE 6.2 in August" I knew that lots of ppl would start to bitch about wether SuSE Linux is good or bad and why it sucks and all... When you join IRC and go to a Linux channel and they ask you what distribution you use and you say "Oh, I use (insert your fave distro here)." ppl will start bashing you and telling you it sucks. I don't understand all this.. it's almost as bad as religion bashing or stuff... It doesn't help the Linux community or anyone else.. just some ppl seem to need it for their little ego... If ppl would be a lil bit more objective, they'd acknowledge the work SuSE is doing for Linux.
Shareware has been one of the driving forces in software development for years...
Think of how many great products (well mostly for the dos/windows market) there are out there which are shareware or donationware? How many companies SOLY rely on shareware that are now power houses? McAfee and such. People which are just in a "if its not GPL it ain't good" frenzy are ignorant of products which are of high quality but don't offer source code. Such ignorance might very well be what will one day bring an end to the linux movement. I sure don't hope so. But please broden your horizon shareware is the easiest way of distributing small software utilities which have to pay the rent.
"Nimis exaltatus rex sedet in vertice - caveat ruinam!"
Are they intending to distribute the full versions of these products? If so, does that mean that the SuSE CD is not freely reproducable? Will it still be legal to burn a friend a copy of the CD without violating any licensing agreements?
I was under the impressions that the major distributions were currently moving away from these 'bundling' deals.
>Linux and unix lag years behind other systems in >this regard not because of any inherent >limitations of X, but because the developers >don't care about functionality and modularity.
.) No matter what you do (QT, Motif or even pure Xlib), it seems like X is always slower on the same hardware ...
That's true that there is complete lack of understanding what usable GUI concept means ( GIMP anyone ? ) but part of the problem is atributable to X itself. Even if somebody comes up with nice interface a la Windows it is usually slow like hell, does not cooperate well with other components ( this is X issue
I was using a RIVA 128 for SuSE 6.0, and then upgraded to a RIVA TNT when I installed SuSE 6.1. Both boards are supported by XFree86 3.3.3.1.
TedC
The warm feeling of the Gates cock rammed
firmly up your ass, and the secure knowledge
that your children will also be taking it
up the ass because MSFT is diversifying
its monopoly windfall into internet broadband.
The author of the above post is Bill's
Bitch, his soul bought and paid for.
Is this what you want to be?
Is this what you want for your children?
The blurb claims that SuSE 6.2 will include Real Audio/Real Player 5.0, but I'd be surprised if they could pull off the inclusion of this software.
Real Audio has cr*pped out on every SuSE version I've used, generating a "File compression not supported" error. I've yet to hear of anyone using this product with any SuSE upgrade of late.
I'll doff my hat to the SuSE folks if they can successfully configure Real Audio to run with their product.
yes absolutely...
The main point is - who is using Linux as a client system or home computer or
to get work done of any kind ? It seems that Linux is mostly used for servers,
so why is all the fuss about distributions and Gnome and Kde when nobody is
using these things but a handfull of geeks trying to impress each other with
how geeky they are?
Well, with an estimated user base of 12-15 million, I'd have to assume that the
bulk of Linux use is in fact desktop rather than server. The server market just
isn't that big. A slashdot demographics poll, as well as personal experience,
would seem to indicate that a lot of Linux desktop usage is by college
students. Students grow up to become project managers and IT professionals, so
this would appear to be rather ominous for Microsoft. The reason students use
Linux is often for cost - the applications they need to use are free.
Servers don't need desktops, browsers, paint programs and word processors.
With only 2% of the desktop units having Linux installed, regardless of the
intense hype which has been going on for over a year now in the media and on the
internet, why do you think things will change?
First off, it *is* changing, whether you or I think it's going to or not! The
Linux growth numbers over the last few years are phenomenal. The reason I see
this trend continuing is becuase (as indicated in my initial post) the Linux
competition, as well as development model, is causing Linux to evolve and
improve *much* faster than enything else.
In my opinion, all these projects to develop consumer and desktop and
workstation apps and subsystems for Linux will be abandoned when the
developers realize that nobody but a tiny handfull of geeks is using them or
even wants to.
The Linux installed base and growth rates speak for themselves. The other fact
that points to futher Linux growth and problems for Microsoft are the rapidly
decreasing PC prices. A $199 or $395 PC simply cannot include that $80 Windows
licence - that means that either it's not going to be Windows based, or that
Windows licence prices are going to come way down (which I assume will happen,
but am not sure how effective it will be to turn the tide).
There's also simple momentum in Linux's favor. The amount of hype (justified or
not) around Linux is huge, as is the army of Linux evangelists. Press
anouncments like that of the SuSE 6.3 release are going to catch more people's
attention, particularly those looking for a cheaper alternative... Windows
developement has essentially stalled. Windows 2000 only a coupld of months ago
reached the point where more bugs were being fixed per day than new bugs were
being generated - this does not look like a product that will change the Linux
vs NT server momentum. Also, Microsoft still doesn't have an SMP capable desktop
OS, and the technical hurdles of making anything NT based backwards compatible
with Win98 apps seems *very* problematic.
Because our government at least doesn't allow software patents (yet).
And we have a far advanced telephone system ("thanks" to the higher telephone costs.):-)
I moved away from Windows to get away from the bloatware, among other things. So much for Linux being small, fast, and efficient. While newbies may not be able to handle advanced distros such as Slack and Debian, do they really need a repackaged version of WinBlows 95? Because if this trend keeps up, that's what they'll be getting.
Our wretched species is so made that those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road.
In SuSE, you usually access the distribution CDs via YAST. This is simply the "SuSE way" : do eerything through YAST ( or /etc/rc.config ). Some newbies love this, but if you don't like doing it this way, you are better off with another distribution.
Of course, the other way of accessing removable media is to install an automounter. Redhat comes with autofs. I can't remember what SuSE has.
I agree with your comments that SuSE's bugs go un-noticed. My opinion is that Redhat gets more than its due credit for bugs partly because of the disastrous 5.0 release which hurt it's rep, and partly because they actually *fix* all of their bugs ( hence have a long bugfix page giving the impression that the bugs are redhat specific, which is usually untrue. )
Cheers,
Offhand, I'd say the proprietary code SUSE includes in its distribution would prohibit indiscriminate copying.
Um, no. I've been using *nix systems quite happily -- of course, since I cut my teeth on DOS 2.1, and text-file hacking is no stranger to me. On the other hand, I am capable of thinking about those that aren't so inclined. Are you?
/etc/passwd?
'sides, for an MS user, I'd recommend Win95 (having a bias 'gainst IE integration). Have you forgotten that pre-9X Windows ran on DOS, and that most novice users would be just as hosed trying to understand what an EMM exclude range is, as they would be adding an account by editing
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Well, yeah. Not everybody today has joined in the deliriously fun exercise of textfile-based configuration. :-) Toss your average user at a DOS 3x system, and tell 'em to use MemMaker and manual tweaking because their latest and greatest app requires a minimum of, say, 560k conventional memory, *but* 64K (or was it 32K?) of otherwise-usable high memory had to be taken by EMS for paging, and add in a requirement for Novell Networking drivers... bwahahahahahahahaha.
Sure, it empowers them -- but only those that know the magic syntax, or are willing to learn. That's why slackware isn't commonly recommended to people who've always thought of themselves as users, not administrators. It's probably why RH bothered to include control-panel type apps. I've never found them useful, but my background is different than that of a novice. eh.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
If they include the LDP docs (especially the User's Guide), then perhaps that's saving duplication of effort. Most distros, after all, can be approached the same way once it's installed: Slackware-style, since all the underlying system is so very similar. Given a good text editor (vi, Emacs, jed... or even the combo of cat, cut, grep, paste, and echo...), you can run the system at as low a level you desire.
The installation differs between distros, however. So it seems fair to concentrate on that. 'sides, perhaps it'll teach users that not all the answers can be found in one book...
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
I'm actually very pleased with SuSE 6.1! I 've tried RedHat, Debian and slackware, and this is the first distro that I was able to get X windows running (thanks much in part to the manual). Since then I've customised, gone throught the tons of programs in yast, uninstalling ones I didn't want, installing stuff that looked neat, I've downloaded other things, and it's been overall an awesome experience. My only complaint to date is that it doesn't come with glibc 2.1.x as many programs I'd like to install require this, and I'm just outta luck :(. Also maybe comming with the latest gtk would be nice also. I'll be there when 6.2 ships!
-LogicX
May this post be indexed by spiders, and archived for all to see as my Internet epitaph.
You are a dork. Looking at your website made me laugh.
Why do you say they're not modular, at least as compared to Windows? Perhaps they're not as modular as, say, the GNU command-line tools, but for GUIs (I know they're not GUIs, but that's the best generalization I can come up with) they seem to be doing pretty well (WindowMaker's dock and In what way do you mean they lack modularity? It's not that I don't believe you--I just don't understand your use of the term.
>And my point is that SuSE shifted the balance to doing constant releases. You surely remember that SuSE 6.1 came out in May, don't you?
That's why it's called a "subscription"! SuSE says that a subscription will be released every three or four months. I subscribed. I expect that SuSE will stick fairly close to that schedule. One doesn't have to subscribe. I could still be running 5.3 if I wanted to. No one forced me to upgrade to 6.0 or 6.1 nor has anyone put a gun to my head and demanded that I continue to 6.2. But I will. Obviously you won't, but there is no reason to complain about a choice that I make simply because it disagrees with yours.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
First of all, you say that the GIMP has a "cumbersome
interface- not usable by consumers" but you expect
people to pay $600 USD for Photoshop. My understanding,
however, is that the GIMP interface is similar to Photoshop.
So why is Photoshop a better choice here?
Number two: Does anyone care (among Linux users anyway)
that MS Office does not run on Linux? Microsoft Office is
basically a plug-in API for viruses (witness the recent email
virus). I sure don't want it!
They go trumpeting vmware et al., only to discover
on closer look that they are either time-limited or demo versions.
Meanwhile, nothing is said regarding whether KOffice now works out of the box or not.
#linux sucks, universally. There is no #linux channel I have been to on any network that does not suck. Such is the case for all channels named for operating platforms I imagine. (think #windowsnt, #windows95, #os/2, #unix, etc)
Actually, I used to use RedHat and Mandrake a lot, and they were both a pain in the arse to configure the way I liked.
I was a bit harsh when I said that it was the GUI or nothing, but it is a hell of a lot quicker and easier to do it in Slackware when you are using a text editor.
By the way, if it wasn't for the insult at the end, you probably wouldn't have been moderated down, and people would have actually read your post.
My name is Anonymous Coward, and I bought SuSE 6.1 box. Now, there it is, out for everyone to see.
It's a pretty good distro and all, but once you need help with something you'd better brush up your german. Nothing wrong with that, but I found that there are many more helpful eyeball-carriers contributing to usenet in good 'ol pidgin english than in german. Or in any other language to that matter.
Enter YaST. It acted up on me and suddenly I found out that there isn't all that much information out in the open about YaST and its intricacies. Perhaps it is because YaST isn't open? Perhaps everyone talks about it in german IRC channels? I found out how to fix my problem alright - using linuxconf.
Now I'm happily using Mandrake and will probably stick with a RedHat/Mandrake combo for the unforeseeable future because it worked, and english-speaking assistance is never far. I also prefer the GPL'ing of the core components - something SuSE isn't doing very well. Perhaps I ought to mention that I did try asking SuSE for advice via email, but considering the time it is taking them to get back to me it would appear that they're either terribly understaffed and/or simply hope I'd sort out my problems on my own.
Oh, the bundled apps... included with the SuSE package were a number of commercial apps that I do like and would like to continue using. Would anyone know if it is legal to simply install them off the SuSE CDs for another distro, or are the any legalities tying these bundled apps to the SuSE setup? Or, gawd forbid, to the YaST thingy.
Again, the included packages you mention are not free (i mean the free beer free here), but are for personal use, or shareware.....
AND , if windows were allowed to include all of this, Microsoft would be more then happy to, and in that way, kill the competetion....
-- signed for your pleasure --
Ya know... I'd be *really* surprised if MS decided to distribute WP or PM with one of their operating systems. That would be something...
I vaguely miss WP5.1/DOS. *That* was lightweight and fast, with all the shortcuts and the ability to configure macros. Pity it didn't ship with a PostScript driver. Ah well, now I've got XEmacs + TeX. Not exactly lightweight, but they'll do...
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
As far as I know Red Hat also segregates the non-free software into a separate install tree. In fact they just "recalled" a package over a license change. They do have a separate CD with proprietary stuff on it, but that's just a service to the users.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Are you a complete idiot or do you have bits missing ? should Red Hat et al also write their own OS and applications ? Do you really want to see Linux dissapear back into the nether regions of cult interest ?
Maybe you are not as stupid as you sound and you are really a Microsoft user on a troll. I hope so because I would hate to think that a Linux user could be so hell bent on the demise of Linux.
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
v
I think you'll find the GnuFree Software (or did you actually mean Free Software this time) has a lot of problems far more serious than the SuSE stuff.
Listen: people *have* to be able to distinguish themselves in the market place. Otherwise, they die. If they can't protect their distinctive packaging, they have nothing. Please stop thinking everything must be free for the stealing.
That's just not how business can possibly work.
Really? They put the GnuFree stuff elsewhere than they put the Free stuff?
SuSE 6.1 is a bit buggy. I tried it and you're right...basic things just don't work. wvdial, telnet and KDE all were awful. And the support consisted of no more than acknowledging that you had written in.
Someone gave me a Debian CD which creates a working system before torturing you with dselect. But at least what it said it could do it did do.
"Captain, I cannot believe my ears!" - Spock
I have a moderate learning disability so via voice could save ME ALOT OF TIME WITH SCHOOL WORK. I would also love to say "Computer go do ....", instead of typing cryptic commands.THis is my dream how a computer should work. I know it wont do this out of the box but IBM promised an api and toolkit so I can write an app that does this. This is a dream come true for me and it has wordperfect and staroffice so I can just get some work doen as well as program and hack. I just tried caldera2.2 and I hate it becuase of the bloated kde on my p133 :-(. It feels like windows2000 on a 486dx4 100. I put redhat and afterstep back on my machine. As soon as I buy my dual k7 latter this summer it will be perfect for this kind of machine and I also work part time besides go to school so I can have vmware run my NT vb app while I have the server side of the app run on solarisx86 all on my suse box. COOL!!
Vmware is aprogrammers dream come true. You can even assign seperate ip addresses to each virtual ehternet card on all the os's running on vmware so I can simulate a whole com/dcom or corbra enviroment on my cheap linux box.
GO suse!
"I will be hiring for Linux
skills inside the next two weeks."
Where are you located?
Well, I remember Red Hat announcing that the expensive version of 6.0 would have ViaVoice. And it's not free for SuSE or Red Hat. You can't redistribute it and must pay to get the package.
Yes, and let them all write their own operating system from scratch ... bloody ready to run software ...
Free for the stealing?? The only ones stealing here are SuSe, if they wanna make money they should build there own damn operating system with applications.
Let's take them one at a time:
Gimp - advanced image processing utility for professional artists with cumbersome interface- not usable by most consumers.
Lyx-Klyx - got to admit it's the greatest word processor I've ever used, however, lyx and tex are not supported except in academic circles (math and science journals, etc.) and translation to more widely used formats like html and rtf is impefect.
Gnome/Kde - Gnome - foreget it - makes Windows look fast, sleek and rock solid - for geeks trying to impress each other with trendiness only.
Kde - less bloated than Gnome, but memory usage gradually increases with time so that after a few days of sustained use Kde takes just as much memory as Gnone and like Gnome gives none back to the system without restarting X. Makes Windows memory management look all right.
Voice Recognition - not free, but internet phone stuff for Windows is pretty good. Also, several good voice recognition packages are available for Windows, not just one.
WMWare - What for, to run Linux?
Photoshop - hey, it runs on Windows, but not on Linux. Linux has the graphics program with the gimped up interface, remember?
Microsoft Office - hey, it runs on Windows. Does it run on Linux?
PageMaker - ditto
choice of desktops - in fact there are several decent virtual window managers for Windows, some of them free. Also, Widgets and styles can be themed with Windows too - one progam which does gthat is quite good, developed by the Os2 people, beta was free, but now costs a little
Development tools - available. Come on, developers can afford to spend a few hundred bucks for tools (most can, perhaps not some students in less affluent countries) Well, they can use Linux.
(By the way the GNU tools work quite well on Windows, including the latest version of egcs, all free).
Full source code - no, but is anyone in the universe fully familiar with every line of code that goes into Linux? Who cares? Windows is just as stable as Linux as a client platfrom, when Linux is using X, because X makes Linux just as unstable as windows.
$80 price tag. Windows is free. It comes preinstalled on 90% of new pcs. Sureley the Microsoft tax for licensing is less than $80 because of discounts given to distributors.
Oh, we forgot to mention that there is a very, very limited choice of plugins for Linux web browsers, specifically Netscape. Windows supports 10 times the plugins that Linux does, and many Linux plugins don't work well even when available.
So much for no Windows apps crap. We forgot all the aggravation and expense involved in configuring a Linux box, and/or in buying new hardware which works on Linux. Quite a few peripherals cannot be made to work on Linux - some modems, sound cards, newer video cards, USB devices, etc. Almost any new hardware will be supported months later on Linux. Built-in support for Windows, though.
Good god, calm down!! Yes, you can't always hand everything to newbies and expect them to learn anything. And I agree, if you're not willing to learn, then stay with an OS (WinBlows or MacOS) that doesn't require it. But not everyone is as <SARCASM>gifted</SARCASM> as you are. If all a new user gets is "RTFM!!" over and over again, they're not going to learn much, are they? Man pages are references, not tutorials.
Our wretched species is so made that those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road.
Fact: YAST is not free software. Clearly, SuSE lacks confidence in the role of free software as a part of its business plan if it cannot put YAST under a BSD, GPL, or other free software license. SuSE is certainly not as free as Redhat is. Those who care about free software should consider this important point.
Actually, I find text-based configs *far* easier than anything Redhat has tried to do. I mean, let's face it, anything that you have to configure in Redhat has to be done in the GUI or not at all. And yes, I *have* used Redhat (and Mandrake.) Don't get me wrong, there is a market for that, it's just that MS-Windows has it covered completely. Redhat means well, but ends up just f*cking things up even more in an attempt to make things better.
"If I had a gun I would come into your house late at night put the gun in you asshole and pull the trigger until it goes *click*"
this kind of comment is really inappropriate... quit being such a fucking asshole
Just because YAST isn't GPLed doesn't mean it's not free (beer).
I download one disk (eide01) and dd it to a floppy, boot with it and it will connect to an ftp server and install SuSE from it.
I'd call that indiscriminate copying, especially if I grab the entire tree down to mine and set it up as NFS, which is allowed.
I think you've been misconstruing many of the bitter anti-SuSE posts around here.
Oh dear, you've been reading too much. If you actually had a look around, you'd find you can get SuSe from a number of sources - cheap CDs, multi-distro packages etc.
The thing most of you seem to miss, is that downloading stuff in Europe costs big money, due to the call costs.
It is very clear from the install what stuff is free and what isn't. Oh, I forgot, you've never installed it, you just thought you'd sound cool and repeat something you'd read somewhere.
As for all you "if its not oper-soure/gpl/my favourite license" then why are any of you using Netscape. After all, its proprietary, closed source....
Uh-huh... and how else are you supposed to access cd-rom or floppy??? Please enlighten me.
Of course, the other way of accessing removable media is to install an automounter.
Uhhm, get a clue. I suspect you haven't even tried to use it. Automounter is not designed to work with removable media. After you're done with a CD you probably want to unmount it so you can take it out. Automounter does not do that.
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
So get RH 6.0 for $1.99 from cheapbytes, and download ViaVoice from IBM for free!
Free for personal use is all I really care about. If I'm going to make money off a product, then I don't mind paying for the professional version or whatever, but while I'm playing at home or dreaming of riches, I like my software to be free!
Why don't the Europeans overthrow their government and force them to give free phone calls like us? That way they wouldn't have to pervert Linux.
Fucking communist stalinist stallmanist thieves.
Firstly, sorry for posting this in this thread - it's apologising for a message I posted in a thread which I suspect most people long abandoned, so I guessed that not many people would see the apology, rather undermining it. This was the top thread when I posted, so seemed the most visible way of apologising. Flame if you will as I accept this is off-topic, but this seemed the decent thing to do under the circumstances.
Anyway...
A fwe days back now, I posted a message here which wasn't very complimentary to Network Solutions.
I swear it didn't occurr to me that I could check the account status online... Anyway, some helpful individuals did, sent me the URL and pointed out that the invoice is listed as outstanding...
My humble apologies to Network Solutions for sullying their good name - I still feel their help service could be improved, but the information now suggests that it wasn't a random error on their part that lost us the server, but an accounts failure from KOSH.
Once again, sorry.
Greg
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
If you can't vi and awk it, it's not worth having.
You exagerate quite a bit. This to me seems to
be the most stable version I've seen so far.
As for the service. I sent a question and got
an answer about 10 minutes later, lucky I guess
but it put me in a good mood since the problem
was fixed.
The language isn't that bad.
I have now seen the complaint about non-free software not being properly "segregated" several times. I do not feel this is a fair criticism of SuSE Linux. In fact, I believe SuSE is one of the better distributions in this respect.
When choosing packages to install in SuSE (eithing during installation or later using YaST), the installer is very explicit about informing you if you choose a package that is non-free. Also, most of the commercial software is put into its own section (pay.)
For example, when you choose a package for installation, in many cases a pop-up box will appear informing you of something. This includes:
These are just a few examples, but I have found that any software that is shareware, commercial or has a strange license will produce a warning.
On another note, SuSE also warns you about software that is alpha quality or not stable. They did this with some version of gnome, for example (and also with some kde packages too, just so you know they're not biased. :)
Come on people. Give me a break. SuSE hasn't even fixed all the nasty bugs from 6.1 and they are already moving to the next release???
I am still desperately trying to figure out why the hell telnet is so slow on my SuSE 6.1 system, along with a whole bunch of other problems.
On top of that, the manual is absolutely useless. It looks like they just ran it through babelfish to get English translation. They probably didn't even read it before they shipped it because there is a lot of stuff in it that's still in German!
Finally, their tech support is non-existant. I tried to contact them for over a month before they finally replied, only to say that they've no idea what's wrong.
I was using RedHat originally and the primary reason I switched to SuSE was because I heard SuSE was much better quality / less buggy. Needless to say, I'm disappointed. I certainly will not "upgrade". In fact this is the first and the last SuSE distribution I bought.
On the other hand, Debian, which I use on my other box, has always worked right. So I might as well stick with it.
I know I'm gonna get flamed / moderated down for that, but what can you do? People don't like criticism, esp. when they deserve it.
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
Who here as actually used ViaVoice or its larger supposedly even better competitor. they are really terrible.. here I will switch mine on: *click* These is mess peaking user a Boyce recognition systems. *click* thats enough of that. the boxes move off the shelves because the idea is great, but I bet 95% of them are just moving from the shop shelf to gather dust on the home shelf, next to the excercise machine that can slide under your bed, except I bet you didnt spend 5 hours with the excercise machine trying to "train" it to understand your muscles.
Is it me, or Debian the only distribution really understanding Linux spirit?
Actually, you don't understand the Linux spirit. The spirit is that you can download everything, not that you must. I purchased 6.1, and will purchase 6.2, because of the convenience. It's
- easer to do a fresh install on a new system
- faster to grab the code
- easier to get everything working together
- convenient to have yast to help tie it all in
- really nice not to have to determine what to download (i.e. I was able to try out four different X-Servers last week, in one day, without any downloading/compiling.)
I realize those of us with time-pressuring jobs trying to use Linux in the mainstream have different need than you. SuSE is great for us. It may be irrelevant for you... except that I will be hiring for Linux skills inside the next two weeks, something that wouldn't have a chance of happening if Linux were not as easy as SuSE or RedHat to get/install.Regards
Why don't stupid yankees like you commit suicide so they won't waste the bandwith for the 60 years to come? You're a moron.
You are 1/10th right: you've never installed Debian :-)
And just for future reference, make sure you know what you're talking about before you actually say it.
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
Suse has a big plus over redhat here. By just selecting the packages you want you can create anything specific like a dedicated firewall or a mail server. Sure, Redhat lets you select by package, but it's a tedidious process. Suse's dependency tracking really rocks here. YaST may not be pretty, but is works like a champ. BTW, Suse is the only distribution that I have not had to manually hack config files, because SuSEConfig is so good at what it does. The fact that it does NOT run in X is a real plus for my dedicated machines.
Oh yeah, I forgot about Sax. (The X configurator.) Suse is the only distrib so far that I have seen that has the intel 540 X server included in it AND will autoconfigure it (with sax.)
I like to think as Redhat as a newbie installation, and SuSE as a swiss army knife.
Offtopic: Whatever happened to the UMSDOS installation option? Is it dead? How about a UMSFAT32?
System is halted
late at night put the gun in you asshole and pull the trigger until it goes *click*
That quote seems familiar. Isn't it from The Jesus in The Big Labowski?
man autofs
:-)
After (e.g. 5 min of no access) the cd will be unmounted
Frank
What warning does GPV'd code produce?
It didn't run linux
Now that this thread has gotten thouroughly off topic.......
...the book they got with linux...
Really? Cheapbytes didn't give me a book with Red Hat or Slackware. And the howtos aren't that hard to understand, if you already know a bit. Did you know about the howtos when you first switched from Windows? Or were you born with a 500lb. UNIX manual in your hands? The howtos are not even a halfway decent substitute for a human being. What's wrong with giving a human explanation to a newbie, instead of waving man, info, howtos, etc. in their faces and screaming, "RTFM or FOAD!!!"? Not everybody coming into Linux is a computer geek - those days are over. Just because something was easy for me doesn't mean it will be easy for everyone else. There are people who, thanks to M$, can't funtion w/out a GUI. As Linux draws more users and moves into the desktop environment, more and more of these users will turn up. It will take more than a howto or some man pages to teach them to use Linux. But it can be done. It's people like the yahoo I was replying to who are perpetuating the myth of the "rabid Unix user", which I'm beginning to believe isn't really a myth.
Our wretched species is so made that those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road.
RealPlayer G2 for Linux:
http://www.real.com/products/player/linux.html
It's an alpha version, but it works better than 5.0 on my system.
Killing your neighbor is immoral.
Sleeping with his wife is immoral.
Stealing his car is immoral.
Selling non-GPL software is not immoral.
Peronally, I find it amusing about all of the gripes about this distrib. So, it comes with a ton of "optionally" installed software..., wow, you get to *choose* what you want to install. (?)
.src, etc. I also use Vmware, no problems..., no need for Real Audio though. I also use RH 6 at work, each of which have their good and bad points.
I've ran SuSE since around 5.1, and although I don't go out of my way to buy *every* release, (went from 5.3 to 6.1 recently) it's still an option for those that don't like to upgrade via ftp or source. My current 6.1 is running the latest kernel, updated
My point? Just once I'd like to read about Linux (all distribs) in a positive note vs all the *BS* about what is better at what! Ala, if you don't want to install this or that, then DON'T! It's not that complicated. This crap reminds me of the OS/2 vs Windows debate, except we're bitching amongist ourselves. (right into MS's hands!!)
Dana
Life was hell, then I discovered Linux...
Although many distro's are now adding third party software as part of their distribution, this is not bloatware of Linux. This is Linux trying to service many different types of end users.
- prgrammers
- regular users
- power users
- servers
- workstations
- (choose your use)
Such being the case, they include distribtuions that will allow the user to acomplish all of this with out having to go out and get more software. The base Linux OS is still relatively small, especially compared to Windows.So if Suse wants to give there users an option of trying Vmware, so be it, if this does not suit your need you simply do not install it.
I do agree this is veering from the Free Software Movement that started this whole ball rolling, and if you are really concerned about having only Free Software on your computer then install Debian. (I know they have some un-free software in their tree but it is segregated in the non-free section.)
I have not tried SUSE, but i am assuming it is similar to RH and Debian in that it will allow you to select what you wouldlike installed.
Its not like the GPL storm troopers will break down your door and confiscate all your equipment. Burn it, enjoy linux.
Wow! Voice recognition and Simultaneous Linux/Windows (VMWare), plus an office suite!!
:)
Never mind GIMP, LyX/KLyX, choice of GNOME/KDE...
And all for free!
Now what does Windows come with:
Voice recognition? No
VMWare? No
Photoshop? No
Microsoft Office? No
Wordperfect? No
PageMaker? No
Choice of desktops? No
Development tools? No
Full source code? No
An $80 price tag? Yes
So much for the "no apps for Linux" crap!
It'll be interesting to see how RedHat responds to the SuSe, Mandrake, Caldera etc competition.
One thing is for sure: all this competition is driving Linux forwards at warp speed, and kicking Window's sorry ass!!!
I'd better get my RHAT shares!
Slakware an advanced distro? It's what I started with... Of course, I was primarily running DOS 5.0 at the time. I don't think that Win95 had reared it's ugly head yet...
A preposition is a terrible thing to end a sentence with.
This is great news, especially for those of us in Europe, where download costs are completely out of sight. Being able to get more software in one set of CDs is a great win for us. This is the kind of thing SuSE the premiere Linux operating system in Europe, where most of us have never heard of Redhat.
I've never had any luck with Sax. I tried it with both SuSE 6.0/RIVA 128 and SuSE 6.1/RIVA TNT, and both times is hung the system when I tried to save the configuration and exit. I couldn't even kill the X server or soft boot; had to turn the power off. I ended up moving X86Config over from my OpenLinux installation.
Anyone else had this problem?
TedC
Oh no! If I buy this CD, and it comes with software I don't want that I'd be able to download if I wanted, I'll be crushing the linux spirit!
Gimme a break. If you don't want to use a package that comes with SuSE, then don't install it. There's this cool thing you run when installing most distributions where you pick out what goes on your system. I've never installed debian, but from the comments, I guess it's installer must just put everything it ships with on yor system, and then make you use your monsterous pipe direct to their server to download nay optional components. I kinda like to be able to just stick my CD in and install software instead of waiting for my modem.
I'm also not sure what "security holes" in SuSE people are talking about. My system is as secure as I make it. If you don't know how to secure a system, then don't put stuff on there that needs securing, eh?
SuSE's support has been fine in what little amount I've used it, but that's not much. I guess that I'm not the best person to ask about that, since I usually fix my own problems.
Anyway, I like SuSE. I like slack, except for the out-of-date-ness. I'm gonna have to stick debian on a box pretty soon so I'll know something about it that's not based on a few bad example's rants. :) Everyone else: Use what you like, not what I like.