Here is a review of SuSE Linux while here is a hacking guide to add non-free apps on 10.2.
SuSE Linux 10.2 First Impressions and Hacking
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
I wouldn’t call this article “a review”, it’s more like a “hands-on preview” but…
Very informative anyway, but I don’t find much of good news there, I’m afraid.
First of all, including a prerelease compiler isn’t a particularly good idea, IMHO. You can include an unfinished / under testing media player or a tiny game, but you can’t do it with the bare base your system will rely on. If they didn’t compile the distro itself with that version of gcc, including it is just stupid because the thing will throw incompatibilities all the time.
And let’s face it, enabling XGL + Compiz by default using FOSS graphic drivers just doesn’t work. They’re way too slow for that kind of task. Let’s wait a little bit more until those drivers can be finished and optimized.
>> First of all, including a prerelease compiler isn’t
>> a particularly good idea
It depends on what they were trying to do. I know from past threads on gcc and KDE that fixes were incorporated from ‘future releases’ in order to get KDE to properly compile and link. I’ve seen other pre-release versions of gcc in past distributions as well, so Suse is not the first.
>> And let’s face it, enabling XGL + Compiz by default
>> using FOSS graphic drivers just doesn’t work.
That was poor writing on my part. XGL + Compiz was not enabled by default, it’s just that the 3+ year old ATI 9700 Pro was finally recognized out-of-the-box by XGL + Compiz, and I was able to enable the effects. I was not able to do this with Suse 10.1. I do agree that the FOSS graphic driver for that card is sub-optimal, but if you don’t want to have to go through the elaborate process of installing the ATI drivers under Linux, then this is the only solution you have. And let’s face it, if the hardware is more current, it may not matter. The FOSS graphics driver may be Good Enough.
It depends on what they were trying to do. I know from past threads on gcc and KDE that fixes were incorporated from ‘future releases’ in order to get KDE to properly compile and link. I’ve seen other pre-release versions of gcc in past distributions as well, so Suse is not the first.
As I said, it’s just my humble opinion 🙂
That was poor writing on my part. XGL + Compiz was not enabled by default, it’s just that the 3+ year old ATI 9700 Pro was finally recognized out-of-the-box by XGL + Compiz, and I was able to enable the effects. I was not able to do this with Suse 10.1. I do agree that the FOSS graphic driver for that card is sub-optimal, but if you don’t want to have to go through the elaborate process of installing the ATI drivers under Linux, then this is the only solution you have. And let’s face it, if the hardware is more current, it may not matter. The FOSS graphics driver may be Good Enough.
Oh, I misunderstood, sorry. And yes, if that’s your only option, it’s good to have it installed by default, so you don’t have to go through all the trouble.
I won’t install OpenSuSE 10.2 for a simple reason : no 3D accelerated drivers from Nvidia for Xorg 7.2rc2
It was a bad idea from Novell to use this version. And compiz looks like “”crap”” and very slow compared to beryl 0.1.3.
NVIDIA drivers seem to work fine for me..
That’s incorrect. Nvidia’s current driver works with xorg 7.2 and they even provide RPMs and a repo for yast for opensuse 10.2.
The NVIDIA 3D Proprietary drivers *DO* work with X.org 7.2 . I’m running AIGLX + Beryl right now and it’s working perfectly (pretty cool too).
As for ATI, the proprietary drivers don’t work, but if you have an ATI < X1… you can use the opensource drivers to get 3d, altough they aren’t set up automatically by yast/sax2, so you’ll have to add some options to your xorg.conf .
Edit: NVIDIA even has precompiled modules on their ftp. Just add ftp://download.nvidia.com/opensuse/10.2/ to your install sources.
Edited 2006-12-11 11:54
any tutorial for AIGLX + Berl for suse 10.2?
problem is that people don’t seem to know the state of the software. It’s known at least that the NVIDIA driver works; The code itse;f is pretty stable too.
The RC2 works pretty good and as it’s also a modified version of the official” RC2, people shodl try for themselves instead of stating that a beta is wrong.
Granted, my playground system (laptop) has only ran 10.2 for a few days without ATI so stating that everything is fine and dandy is a bit too fast but so far it works pretty well.
The fglrx test will start end of the day.
“I will not install because” … shows that they haven’t looked at it yet. A pity. It’s what happens lately, FUD spreading without knowing it’s working or not. Too bad, too bad….
“I will not install because” … shows that they haven’t looked at it yet. A pity. It’s what happens lately, FUD spreading without knowing it’s working or not. Too bad, too bad….
Actually, it shows that to some sections of the community, companies making cosy deals that threaten competitors in borderline (or maybe not borderline) illegal ways won’t wash.
We don’t know what the full impact of the MS-Novell deal will be. If the threats and intimidation all come to nothing, all well and good – but they still happened and show, contrary to the predictions of the fanboys on this site as well as others, that MS has not changed.
If Novell actually manage to do business without handing Linux “IP” to MS on a plate, people who don’t use it now will have been shown to have been wrong, but will be happy they were proven wrong. If Novell DO hand “Linux IP” to MS on a plate, people who ARE using it (Novell Linux) now will be shafted, probably (but hopefully not) along with everyone else.
if I add the nVidia 10.2 address as a YAST repo will YAST install the drivers for me?
I am no CLI guy, i like bullet-proof GUI installations.
Yes. It will install the NVidia drivers for you. It just gets tedious if you hop kernel versions, as the version that will be available for yast will only work with that one kernel. So if you update the kernel to a non-standard/test kernel you may need to build the driver manually. But if you stick with the SUSE provided kernels you should be ok.
Oh and you may need to edit your xorg.conf to replace nv with nvidia… I dont remember if yast does that part.
if I add the nVidia 10.2 address as a YAST repo will YAST install the drivers for me?
Yes.
You can also go to ftp://download.nvidia.com/opensuse/10.2/
and click on the right rpm package for you arch (32-bit x86 or x86_64 64-bit) then you get automagically the GUI installer popped up.There’s no need to add a repository if you just want to download and install one package.
… But then you wont have the driver being automatically updated when the kernel is. So I recomend to use the repo instead.
I guess we should rename this site to SuseNews? Three “reviews” on the front page? Is eugenia just trying to run this in our (sold out by novell) faces or is she trying to get some page hits? Maybe both?
I guess we should rename this site to SuseNews? Three “reviews” on the front page? Is eugenia just trying to run this in our (sold out by novell) faces or is she trying to get some page hits? Maybe both?
“MicrovelNews” might be more apt since SuSE and Windows between them get more links than anything else. Yes, I know Windows has a market share of over 90% and yet despite that doesn’t have a monopoly 😉 , but seriously, Windows doesn’t need another corner of the web devoted to it.
Why don’t you try adding something productive to the conversation, we hae enough rants in the community. Also the novell sellout thing has been beaten to death. If you don’t support Novell then don’t support it but your comments in regards to eugenia and novell whether correct or not don’t fit this particular article!
I guess we should rename this site to SuseNews? Three “reviews” on the front page? Is eugenia just trying to run this in our (sold out by novell) faces or is she trying to get some page hits? Maybe both
It was the same when Fedora core 6 was out…
It was the same when Vista was out…
Dont make it into anything its not.
Also, i see the first signs of a novell flame war (as happen in _all_ the latest news about anything remotly related to Novell). Save it for another story.
This one is about first impressions.
Edited 2006-12-11 14:36
Is eugenia just trying to run this in our (sold out by novell) faces
Can’t you FOSS fanatics whip up some Firefox extensions that censor all articles on the internet that mentions companies that have offended the cult in some way?
Maybe you could have an official excommunicated list on sourceforge.
NotParker,
Your average score is terrible: -0.11.
Maybe you should stop offending people and help improve your score?
In fact, I think anyone with a negative score should have their accounts deleted. If that doesn’t work, IP banning should happen as well.
In fact, I think anyone with a negative score should have their accounts deleted. If that doesn’t work, IP banning should happen as well.
I’d rather closed their account temporarily, like for a week or so and then give a chance to redeem themselves. If the score goes negative again, then it’s a ban.
I’d rather closed their account temporarily, like for a week or so and then give a chance to redeem themselves. If the score goes negative again, then it’s a ban.
Fair enough.
Your average score is terrible: -0.11.
Maybe you should stop offending people and help improve your score?
You think someone suggesting all articles about Windows (twenex) and SUSE (delinkous and twenex) be banned is not offensive, but making fun of them for suggesting that OSNews be changed to OS(except for SUSE and Windows)News is offensive?
You know what I think? Anyone suggesting censorship be banned instantaneously. And anyone supporting them be given one warning and then banned if they violate it.
What is it about making fun of those who hate Novell/SUSE/Miguel/Windows/Microsoft that offends you so much …other than you agree with them.
Edited 2006-12-11 17:39
It is the lack of anything constructive to say, it is about not bringing any vaild or relevant points to the conversation. We come here for news and an open dialogue not snood commentary and cude remarks.
What is it about making fun of those who hate Novell/SUSE/Miguel/Windows/Microsoft that offends you so much …other than you agree with them.
How about the fact that it’s immature, off-topic, and has no place in a rational debate?
You’re basically asking for a License to Troll. Troll away, then, but don’t be surprised if people react to it…
For the record, at least one person who criticized you in this thread doesn’t “hate” SuSE, as it seems that Xaero_Vincent installed it. I myself hate neither MS/Windows/Novell/SuSE/Miguel. I believe the only one hatin’ here is you.
Besides, everyone knows Windows, Linux, and BSD all suck equally, and that real men use TRON.
My refrigerator runs TRON… Yours likely does too.
Did you know that Microsoft approached the lead TRON developer and tried to hire him? They wanted to evolve TRON into something ala windows CE It was pretty funny when he said no.
Me: “What is it about making fun of those who hate Novell/SUSE/Miguel/Windows/Microsoft that offends you so much …other than you agree with them.”
How about the fact that it’s immature, off-topic, and has no place in a rational debate?
I would suggest the opposite. Those who wish to have SUSE and Windows articles banned from this site are: “immature, off-topic, and have no place in a rational debate?”
[i]I would suggest the opposite. Those who wish to have SUSE and Windows articles banned from this site are: “immature, off-topic, and have no place in a rational debate?”</>
I will suggest a third option: BOTH those who suggest banning types of articles AND those making fun of them are immature, off-topic and have no place in a rational debate.
Just because someone makes an immature comment is not a license for you to do the same. On the contrary, you’d gain much more credibility if you a) responded to them in a polite, rational way, or even better, b) you just ignored them.
Doing something bad and then saying “but they did it too” is sound neither from a moral nor a logical point of view.
BOTH those who suggest banning types of articles AND those making fun of them are immature, off-topic and have no place in a rational debate.
Then why did you help mod them up to 4?
Doing something bad and then saying “but they did it too” is sound neither from a moral nor a logical point of view.
Standing up to hate and bigotry that is so popular it gets modded up 4 times is doing something BAD?
Edited 2006-12-11 20:16
Then why did you help mod them up to 4?
I did not.
Standing up to hate and bigotry
First, this is neither hate or bigotry. Claiming it is cheapen the plight of those who really suffer from hate and bigotry. Once again, you’re taking a relatively trivial matter (comments on a tech website) and overdramatizing the whole thing.
Accusing people of being hateful and bigoted is a seriosu charge. You shouldn’t throw it around as carelessly as you do, especially over something as mundane as someone’s private feelings towards a multi-billion dollar transnational corporation.
Second, if one is to accept your definition of hateful and bigoted, then you surely have to be one of the most hateful, bigoted posters on this website. You constantly attack Linux and the people who use it, and engage in vicious personal attacks on those who dare to disagree with you. Such character assassination has no place in a rational debate.
Now please stop this off-topic rant. I’m curious to hear if you have anything constructive to say about the new SuSE. Did you actually try it? What did yo uthink of it?
Well done there.
First, this is neither hate or bigotry.
Not in your mind. Which is the point I’ve been trying to make for weeks. Hating SUSE is just find with you. Hating Microsoft is just fine with you.
I mean, you can’t read anything about anything without some cultists bragging how he plans to eradicate SUSE or mono from his PC or servers or datacenter.
And now cultists are demanding OSnews stop carrying articles about SUSE and WIndows.
WOW!
Second, if one is to accept your definition of hateful and bigoted, then you surely have to be one of the most hateful, bigoted posters on this website.
I didn’t even make the Top 150. You did.
I’m curious to hear if you have anything constructive to say about the new SuSE. Did you actually try it? What did yo uthink of it?
I was enjoying reading about it until your cohorts started attacked OSNews for actually posting topics with SUSE or Windows in them.
Not in your mind. Which is the point I’ve been trying to make for weeks. Hating SUSE is just find with you. Hating Microsoft is just fine with you.
Again, please stop cheapening the plight of those who truly are victims of hate and bigotry. Your overdramatizing of this whole situation makes you look like a clown. A sad, pathetically unfunny clown.
As far as companies go, I really don’t care if someone has a negative or positive attitude towards them. I don’t hate Microsoft, and I certainly don’t hate SuSE, but why should I care if someone does? Why should you care? It’s a free country. Are you against freedom of expression?
With all the hatred you’ve dumped on Linux and companies that profit from it (such as IBM), you are the last person anyone would listen to on this otherwise utterly trivial subject.
And now cultists are demanding OSnews stop carrying articles about SUSE and WIndows.
Everytime you say cultist, God kills a kitten. Why won’t you think of the kittens? Why?!
WOW!
(Oh boy, I think he’ losing it now…)
I didn’t even make the Top 150. You did.
Yes, and I got there by making constructive, rational arguments, and by trying to stay civil, even when repeatedly insulted by hateful, bigoted trolls like you (to use your expressions, which I disapprove of, but hyperbole seems to be the only language you understand…).
I was enjoying reading about it until your cohorts started attacked OSNews for actually posting topics with SUSE or Windows in them.
That wasn’t my question. My question is do you have anything ON-TOPIC to contribute to this discussion, or will you simply indulge in your usual charades?
Are you against freedom of expression?
No. Thats why I don’t mod people down I disagree with. I don’t tell the OSNews staff to stop covering Linux either.
No. Thats why I don’t mod people down I disagree with.
Actually, that’s probably because you don’t have any mod points (due to your constant off-topic and/or abusive posts). As hateful as you are of things not Microsoft, I’m sure you’d mod people down left and right if you had any.
I don’t tell the OSNews staff to stop covering Linux either.
Of course not. Where would you troll if they did?
Edited 2006-12-12 01:47
Actually, that’s probably because you don’t have any mod points
Not true. I have repeatedly said that moderators can tell anyone which articles I’ve modded down. I think, maybe one, 3 or 4 months ago.
How many thousand have you modded down?
Not true. I have repeatedly said that moderators can tell anyone which articles I’ve modded down.
That sentence doesn’t even make sense.
I think, maybe one, 3 or 4 months ago.
Yeah, whatever. I’m done with this off-topic discussion. Everyone, please mod this thread down to oblivion.
How many thousand have you modded down?
For your information I mod more posts up than down.
well, he DOES have a point here, even tough he normally just flames…
Can’t you just stop talking about cult? You remind me of those witch hunters back in the inquisition days.
I’m up for a NotParker filter. Maybe a greasemonkey script.
I just wiped my SATA HD’s on my AMD64 test box and installed OpenSuSE 10.2
The first impression was a dramatic improvement of install time (no more forced coffee breaks waiting on the addition of catalogs,dependencies,etc).
CONS:
If you connect a LCD monitor (In my case an ACER AL1951) via a DVI (digital) connection the fonts are horrible and barely readable.This is the case during the boot flash and in a virtual terminal.Once the flash screen of KDE kicks in the fonts suddenly appear somewhat normal,perhaps the following guide might be of interest:
http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Xorg_and_Fonts
As a side note the horrible fonts with DVI connections is also valid with other distros such as Ubuntu.However after editing ~/.fonts.conf following the guide of the given link On Gentoo and Ubuntu the quality of the fonts display are greatly improved.
I don’t know if OpenSuSE lets you specify your custom fonts setting (via ~/fonts.conf).
The zmd update deamon still crashes if you disable force feedback in KDE but reappears if you logout and login again (10.1 was a great disaster in this aspect).
PRO’s
Install time decreased.
Better responsiveness using the graphical installer.
Slick Desktop and artwork (aglx,suse kbfx,configuration screen,system info screen,etc)
Overall performance good (Not really significant slower than Ubuntu or other binairy distros).
Superb GUI installer
Advanced Configuration GUI (Yast)
Professional partioner
AppArmor (SELinux made easy and a few clicks away)
Conclusion:
With 10.2 they seem to be on track where they got lost with 10 and 10.1
I think users who don’t mind the MS/Novell politics but turned their backs on SuSE/Novell after 10/10.1 might be suprised with 10.2 when it’s finally released.
Test system:
AMD64 3000+ 2.2GHz 1GB RAM 2 SATA HD’s in raid0 configuration.FX5700 128 MB RAM AGP 8X graphics card.
Monitor Acer AL1951 DVI connected.
Edited 2006-12-11 14:53
thanx for the great mini-review. these kind of stories DO help somebody choose a good OS…
of Suse 10.2 are at this link http://www.thecodingstudio.com/opensource/linux/screenshots/index.p…
thank you both.
weird thing is that this guy says suse 10.2 is slightly slower compared to 10.1, while another reviewer said it was faster. could this be attributed to the difference between their setups (KDE vs Gnome, something else?), or would it be beagle/mono/zmd (no zmd in KDE/suse10.2, or at least it can be turned off) related? or even XGL, which is on by default on Gnome, and probably not on KDE? i don’t want to slow down my laptop, so i’d love to know more about the speed compared to suse 10.1…
yeah, i know, using slackware would be faster. but i prefer suse on a laptop, it’s that simple. arch is for my main system, kubuntu for my low-end laptop, and suse for the stronger laptop, and i’m keeping it that way.
10.2 is at least as fast as 10.1,sometimes dramatically faster (GUI installer).
so they did speed up Yast? also in non-installer mode, eg if you start it after installed? that’s a good thing, as it was/is extremely slow…
The Nvidia drivers work but the ATI drivers do not. Using Xorg 7.2 RC2 was a mistake but at least Xorg 7.2 Stable will be made availible in the build service repository.
I suggest that *everyone* download it as soon its there!
The ATI drivers will be updated to support Xorg 7.2 soon enough. Hopefully the “resume/logoff” bug, which crashes my computer frequently, is fixed and the OpenGL feature: “GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap” is supported.
Doesn’t show long filenames in FAT partitions, due to alleged patent problems.
Doesn’t mount the NTFS partitions where my own files reside due to alleged patent problems.
Doesn’t mount my iPod due to alleged access permission problems. It is VFAT formatted, though, so further problems would probably await down the road, anyway.
Does not play DVDs… yeah, that pesky DMCA bites me, even though I live 6000 Km. away from the US.
Of course, no useful codecs are present, just Ogg and Theora. No easy way to install any alternatives, either.
With all that purity of mind, it surprisingly does not mind installing helix-banshee with proprietary codecs to decode mp3 files; how thoughtful! It is all useless, though, if it won’t mount my NTFS partition or my iPod. And, to add insult to injury, it all runs under Mono. It mindlessly installs Java, and Flash too, which also seems inconsistent with that attention to cleanness.
Their web recommends that I use Samba if I want to access files on a Windows computer. That is *really* funny: to access my own files in my computer I have to install Vmware and virtualize XP and Linux in order to to move files through a fictitious network card.Ha! Thankfully, they do not seem to care whether there are any patent threats to Samba.
It also, very surprisingly, offers itself to download the proprietary nVidia drivers: it is a pity that it then fails to recognize the particular card model and so fails to do anything useful.
I’m going back to Ubuntu. It works great with my iPod, it can look at all my partitions (and can even show me the filenames!), and all the nice codecs are in the universe and multiverse repositories, which are dead easy to add. I can even use Banshee to play mp3 files without the need for proprietary codecs. Using compiz/beryl from Ubuntu is not that easy, though, but I can definitely live without it for now.
As for software patents, hell, f–k them, or dump Linux altogether and spend abundant money on proprietary operating systems and applications which may afford you some security in that front; there is NO way to extricate Linux and software patents nowadays.
I could possibly work my way to painstakingly make OpenSuse do all that for me, but there is really no need at all. So I say: good riddance.
You have to drop down to the terminal to set xorg.conf to use the NVIDIA drivers.
But its very easy.
Usually just switch to runlevel 3 to kill X-server:
su -c ‘init 3’
…login as root then add:
sax2 -r -m 0=nvidia
It might be different with SLI configurations?