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Review: SuSE Linux 9
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CommentsThe differences between Linux distributions have been getting bigger in recent years, in terms of which packages are included and where files are located. SuSE 9 closes the gap in certain areas by complying with standards such as the File System Hierarchy Standard (FHS) and the Linux Standard Base (LSB).
Installation of SuSE 9 is very simple. The installer is almost the same as it has been in the last few releases, making it easy for those who have used SuSE before or who are upgrading from a prior version. For those who have not installed SuSE Linux before the installer asks a minimal amount of questions and assumes the rest. You can change certain settings before you start the installation; I added more packages to the basic selection that the installer had chosen.
One of the new installer features is the ability to resize NTFS partitions, the file system most Microsoft Windows machines use as a default. Once you are happy with all your settings, from languages to the boot loader, the installer begins its work. It took around 45 minutes to copy all the packages I selected, including KDE, multimedia, games, and basic development and networking tools, from the DVD (or 5 CDs if your computer doesn't have a DVD drive); had I gone for a more basic installation it would have taken less time.
The first time you reboot you see a nice SuSE loading screen which takes you on to set up your hardware and user accounts. In total, the installation took just over an hour. Almost all of my hardware was detected and set up, apart from my printer which was detected but not supported. All of my existing data and Windows installation remained intact.
Making it work
When I was first introduced to Linux four years ago at work I was told that installing Linux was the easy part, configuring Linux to do what you want it to do was the killer. This changed in SuSE some time ago with the introduction of YaST (Yet Another Setup Tool). SuSE 9 builds on YaST's modules and includes better configuration for Samba and a variety of server setups.
One problem came when I tried to play an MP3 music file. No sound would come out of my speakers, though I could play CD audio fine. I played around with some values for my sound card setup in YaST. When I disabled the support for DXS channels all sound worked fine. While it was a bit annoying that it didn't work in the first place, without the help of YaST it would have taken me a lot longer to work out the problem.
YaST has built-in online update, which installed Nvidia drivers for me so that I could get Unreal Tournament 2003 and its mods working. This went smoothly and it wasn't long before I had the game running at top spec, which is more than what I could do in Windows.
In debugging some of my problems, I discovered SuSE's new Web support portal, which provides better support than the previous site did.
A new feature for SuSE 9 is auto login, something Mandrake has had for quite a while. This just automatically logs you into the default windows manager with the default account when you turn on the computer instead of displaying a login window. Its the sort of thing you either love or hate. For my personal PC it's great not having to log in every time, but at work it can be a security hazard. Luckily it can be disabled.
Day-to-day use
SuSE 9 seems to run a lot smoother than 8.2. It recovers from errors better and menus are more organized. Whether this is a result of the underlying kernel or more stable programs, it makes running Linux a lot easier. Graphically SuSE 9 looks a lot nicer too. Grub has a smooth loading bar and a similar bar is displayed when booting SuSE.
SuSE claim to have an accelerated boot process in the new version, but it didn't seem any faster than 8.2. SuSE liked my external hard drive; I could turn it on and the operating system would automatically mount it and put an icon on the KDE desktop. Accessing Windows files on my external hard drive's FAT32 file system was fine; the rest of my main drive is NTFS, however, so write access is disabled. While I could enable writing it is not recommended.
Though I have Linux installed I still use Windows for some things -- games, for instance -- so I like to try to make the two OSes as similar as possible so that moving between them is easier. For instance, in both operating systems I use Mozilla Firebird and Thunderbird for Web browsing and email, Gaim as my instant messenger, and OpenOffice.org for word processing. Firebird and Thunderbird are not part of SuSE's default installation, but they were easy to add.
Conclusion
What makes SuSE Linux 9 different from other friendly Linux distributions such as Lindows and Xandros is that it is highly configurable and gives users much more than just a Web browser and office suite. SuSE's closest rival is Mandrake, as both provide similar packages. In my view SuSE has a slight advantage with its configuration tools and good support. I also find that its easier to find RPMs for SuSE than for Mandrake.
SuSE 9 is basically a big update to all the software packages that it comes with. This release adds a few new features to the OS, such as auto login, NTFS resizing, system recovery, and more documentation. But it also fails to solve some problems that were in 8.2, such as a conflict between Glib 2 and GTK 2, which meant I couldn't compile Gaim and some other programs. I would have liked to have seen such more support for DivX and Xvid codecs, so that I could play more videos without having to download codecs from the Internet. However, all in all, SuSE 9 is a nice improvement on what we have come to expect from SuSE.
SuSE Linux Personal edition retails for $40 and SuSE Linux Professional costs $80. SuSE Linux Professional for the 64-bit AMD64 platform retails for $120.
Pete White is a student studying Computer Science at Coventry University UK. He is keen on Linux and open source and runs his own Web site.
Comments
on Review: SuSE Linux 9Note: Comments are owned by the poster. We are not responsible for their content.
OK, so you need broadband, but it's still there.
Otherwise just download the ftp and nfs it for the install. All doc provided by suse
Plus, there is the 'cool' factor; the first time I got this type of install to work, I was feeling pretty cocky that I, a relative neophyte, could actually make it work.
<Disclaimer> I'm a Slackware user so I haven't bought suse (yet), though if I needed a all singing all dancing Distro, I wouldn't hesatate </Disclaimer>
WHY isn't it piracy you'd like to know?
Because your are paying for the books and the support - not for the software, which is obviously GPL'ed<nobr> <wbr></nobr>;o)
The FPL install is free as in beer, not as in free speech. You cannot create your own distribution based on Suse without removing YAST and a bunch of other things, at which point you might as well start off of Debian, Mandrake or Fedora, which are truly one 100% free software.
Don't assume that everyone's motives are what yours would be.
Personally, while I think that free-as-in-freedom software is a very good thing, I don't think that I contaminate myself in some way by using stuff not GPL'd. Good heavens, I run copyrighted chess software on windows 98 on win4lin -- that's non-GPL to the third power! But until somebody writes some really good chess software under the GPL, I have no choice. Nor, by the way, would I sacrifice one teensy bit of functionality just so that I could use something GPL'd (I might make some sacrifice so as not to have to fool around with win4lin, however). So what do I care whether YAST or some other component of my SuSE setup is GPL'd???
As for the dime, I prefer to lay out $89 or thereabouts for a SuSE Pro box set, with its excellent books and its very convenient set of CD's. Even if I could download all of SuSE 9 and burn it onto CDs (I'm not sure that SuSE lets anyone do that), it really would be more trouble than my time is worth, and I still would not have the books! SuSE is in business to make money, you know? So I don't see why anyone should begrudge them their dime for the very excellent product that they deliver.
If your time is considerably less valuable to you than mine is to me, or if you don't have a dime, well, I understand. But even then, I'll bet you can find a SuSE 7.3 or 8.1 box set around somewhere for cheap. Ask your friends, or look on ebay.
Go to the ogle download page at
http://www.dtek.chalmers.se/groups/dvd/downloads.<nobr>s<wbr></nobr> html
and install all of the latest versions of the library files from source.
Install the dvdcss library from
http://developers.videolan.org/libdvdcss/
Then download and install the latest version of xine and xine-ui.
With DMA turned on for the DVD drive I got perfect playback on an Athlon 1Gz with 512Mb RAM.
Never experienced any version of SuSE since 7.1, so I don't know if this is due to my hardware (nForce 1 mobo, SB Live! Digital and GF3 Ti200).
Hope this answers your question.
I admit to some concern now that Novell is involved, having been badly (and expensively) burned by the Red Hat bailout. I wish Novell and/or SuSE would make some kind of policy direction announcement.
Loyalty...
Loyalty != taking my money for the distribution and 8 support contracts, and 6 months later telling me to buy Advanced Server or go to hell.
In addition to which, I don't anticipate many developers and/or beta testers working for free so that Red Hat can sell their work for profit.
Besides, that wasn't the point of my message - the point is "I wish Novell and SuSE would make some kind of policy/direction announcement."
I mean why mention a point without covering it??
Until now I've always had odd stability problems with SUSE, and with 8.2, whenever I connected a USB pendrive, KDE would add a new drive icon again and again until I had over 50 of em on the desktop! But others have always praised SUSE for stability, so I guessed it was simply unhappy with my hardware (Athlon/Durons + VIA chipsets - yep the combo from hell (according to some folks anyway)).
In comparison, Mandrake has always worked for me<nobr> <wbr></nobr>... until 9.2. The installation kept failing at different points, but eventually I got it up and running. But once I'd done the security updates, I couldn't install or remove kde apps because the dependencies were knackered. That's really odd - I've always used Mandrake because I didn't get these problems, so maybe I've been unlucky.
It's early days yet, so I can't say for sure that SUSE will remain better IMHO (and lets face it, what's better for me could be worse for you!), but I would say try them both - you can get them on ebay for under 5 GBP (which probably equates to 5 USD as usual!)
Also, while Linux has great free support like LUGs, newsgroups, documentation, etc, the home office tech support can be a beautiful thing. In my case, I once had to set up an RS/6000 to serve thin clients so I bought the PowerPC Pro version because I wanted as much SuSE support as I could get! Worth every penney, too!
You can contrast the Basic and Pro editions of many Linux distros with the Server options that they have. These have functionality which you would likely be ill-advised to try and add by updating the sources from the Basic version. Sometimes there is proprietary software used and othertimes you just may not want to trust yourself to roll your own unbreakable cluster. (Note that the SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8 now supports thin cient networks and I had to hack my own out of the Pro version, but still!)
This is different in Windows. Try to load Project Server 2002 on a XP Home edition and you will realize that no amount of hacking or customer support will help you!
So, yes, Linux distros will charge you more money for more product, as will MS or any company selling anything. The nice thing to know is that with Linux, in all likelihood, you can trade time for money and get knowledge!
What I've found is that a lot of the stuff that's included in professional versions is free linux stuff, and you can download it and install it via rpm yourself. The rest you'd have to pay for anyways...so if you are saving money by getting the pro version, v. payin for each individual piece of software, go with the Pro version.
Big deal. What's the kernel version? What desktops/window managers are included? What files sytem did you install? Who should use these distros?
HOW ABOUT SOME SPECS?
I'm currently running Suse 8.2 with one BIG problem. Deadkeys don't work on my US-keyboard, and I haven't got a clue on how to get them to work like a US-international Window$ keyboard.
Can't find anything on the Net about it.
Is this problem solved under 9.0 or did I miss something under 8.2?
Regards,
Marcel.
P.S. As I understand it SUSE will focus on the Server-side in the future. What distro will we be using on the desktop in the future?
Control Center
Regional and Accessibility
Keyboard Layout
there:
enable keyboard layout
Keyboard model: generic 104-key PC
Primary layout: U.S. English w/ deadkeys
Voila!
Jaap
For Czech, I found that everything worked except the dead caron (1/2 a dead key: the other half of the same key, the dead carka, worked fine). I tried fiddling around with xmodmap and kimap per a mini-HOWTO on setting up international keyboards. (You can find one at http://burks.brighton.ac.uk/burks/linux/howto/min<nobr>i<wbr></nobr> /intkeyb.htm and can find others by searching on '"dead keys" linux accents kde' or the like.) But no dice: every Czech keyboard bit worked except the dead caron, 1/2 a key.
In the end I used a work-around: I installed the whole system in Czech from a clean reformat, then added a US keyboard later. It even adds a layer of security against manual logon attempts, because even if someone knows my password, they don't know where all the keys are to type it.<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:-)
I have no basis for comparision, because I have always been a SuSE user (starting with 6.4), but I think that SuSE does give you an easy install and system management tools that are easy to use.
I have found, however, that as I have learned more about Linux, I have not been as accepting of SuSE's defaults (for example, I now use a window manager, Ion, that SuSE does not even supply) or as willing to rely on YAST2, the system management tool. These days I prefer to do more for myself. I would particularly appreciate, some day, a version of YAST2 that writes to a file a full report of which files it edited and how. This would be a tremendous help in understanding HOW system administration is being carried out. As it is, YAST2 is a gui bolted on top of a black box -- rather like the Windows "control panel," and in many respects, just as annoying.
Something rather nice about SuSE is that you can configure it to phone home every night and install the latest patches to everything that you have installed.
But it seems funny that every time you reconfigure something or install a new package, you have to run SuSEconfig, which reconfigures just about every system that you have, e.g. networking, printing, and so forth, even if all you did was tweak your monitor settings. It's no big deal, I suppose, but it's inelegant.
I've liked SuSE enough when I used it in the past that losing YAST2 didn't hurt the distro at all for me. Although, as you mentioned, if you've grown attached to some of their more useful YAST2-dependent features, you have a problem. Its the dark side of choices, I suppose.
However, urpmi is great on the well-built plf and Texstar rpm's - and usually freshrpms etc. work just fine too. If all else fails, grab a tgz and install it in<nobr> <wbr></nobr>/usr/local. Works for me!
eventually i switched from suse 8.2 to red hat 9. red hat 9 multimedia is better than suse, but getting realplayer to work with mozilla in redhat is quite painful.
i haven't found any distro that's got it all.
Could you please elaborate on how exaclty SuSe 9.0 can be upgraded to GNome 2.4? or provide a link.
Thanks
maybe my argumentation is wrong, some people are blaming RH for their infamous way they've taken here, but IMHO SuSE - its not a flame but my oppinion - is only on the first look nice and "easier" to use, than RH, Mandrake or whatever Linux distribution.
A closer look into the system shows some really crappy configurations e.g. I have to work at the moment with SuSE 9.0 - cyrus-sasl.src.rpm compared to RH is a leak of patches and futures, and I wasn't able to recompile it using both sasldb AND gssapi - so I had sasldb but no pam, or pam, but no sasl.
Then (my favorites are Gentoo and Fedora(or RawHide)) there is somehow no cool repository for apt compared to RH.
And then, there is YaST... I just don't like it - I know, most people do. Maybe its because it is a all-in-one sysapp.
I think SuSE is the best distro vor beginners, but a dangerous system, if you want learn more about Linux and still stay on SuSE.
(Most stuff I've learned from Debian, but espessially gentoo - LFS I didn't try it yet)
So long, then - have a nice weekend,
Best regards,
Denis
But even if their answer was "tough tatas, deal with it", they have yet to respond to 2 installation support requests sent over a week ago.
Their support is crap and their AMD64 distribution is crap.
If you want to see something really rushed to market try Mandrake 9.2
Definitely, substandard service and crap!!
Regret
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on November 13, 2003 04:49 PMAn other question is... What will happen know that Novel is in the picture. Will Desktop SuSe go ahead or will it go the infamous Red Hat way.
And KDE will Novel keep supporting KDE?
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