For the past several weeks, I’ve been running my home office LAN exclusively on SUSE 9.3 Professional. I found this latest version, released in March, to be an excellent implementation of the Linux operating system. It brings Linux’s levels of ease of use and configurability to an all-time high.
I’ve been running SuSE since the 6 series both at home and work and have (overall) been pleased.
I’m comfortable with GNU/Linux but certainly not an admin with any kind of broad depth.
What I really like is YAST. Granted, I don’t have much experience with other distros for comparison but it makes things really easy and I love that it is available with a text-only interface for servers, a text-only interface that is identical to the X11 version.
> Granted, I don’t have much experience with other distros for comparison
There exist no other distribution with such a broad coverage configuration interface like YaST and both a text and GUI interface.
There exist no other distribution with such a broad coverage configuration interface like YaST and both a text and GUI interface.
Since Novell released YaST under the GPL, it would be nice if more distros began using it. I used to run SUSE with Gnome, and YaST even fit nice in there, despite it being a QT application.
“There exist no other distribution with such a broad coverage configuration interface like YaST and both a text and GUI interface.”
Mandrake’s Control Center has similar coverage and both text and GUI interfaces.
I recently switched over to SUSE 9.3 from K/Ubuntu and I must say that I like this distro much better. It may just be me but it has a much crisper feel when browsing and performing tasks. Response was faster on my hardware and konqueror crashes 100% less than on kubuntu. Gnome was excellent on ubuntu, i liked the simplicity of it and the toolset was good, but KDE did a much better job for what I needed it to do. KDE seems bolted on in kubuntu and SUSE just feels like a much better implementation of KDE. Yast is excellent and the installer’s partitioning peice made me feel much more comfortable than ubuntu’s. Don’t take what I’m saying the wrong way though, I still love ubuntu, but gnome is what it does best, and I’m not a fan of gnome.
You can see it here:
http://yast4debian.alioth.debian.org/
Looks promising. YaST is why I stay with SUSE.. Been using SUSE since 6.1 never looked back.. Though when the port of yast for debian is complete I will definitely tinker with it.. Putting it in Ubuntu might be a good idea.. If they are really going for desktop exceptence.
While I agree that SuSE is a good distro, I find YAST2 to be too slow. The distro also feels heavy even without server components installed! I recently installed Kubuntu. To say the least, I was amazed at its speed and how “fast” it feels. This was on the same hardware. I also ditaste the fact that SuSE “deliberately distorted” multimedia on the distro and did very little to tell users how to enable it.
well i left long ago’ the rpm camp, i used to run suse back in 2003, but the problem is that there isn’t a lot of software packaged for suse not made by suse, and you are stick with the version they package, i tried gentoo, but i was spending more time setting up the system than using it…i think debian unstable is the perfect fit, a HUGE amount of software available with a single command, a string stability (even if they call it unstable
) and the configuration is often a standard process, once you can do a configuration on debian, you can do the same configuration on almost every distro…
How is it slow? I never had an issue with speed at anytime. If you are changing the installation media to FTP or HTTP.. yeah its going to slow yast down.. It has to read the directory structures.
As for the multimedia… If you run YOU it is fine. I do agree it should state it in on the box.. But im not sure if that is a licensing issue or what. Meaning the user is free to do as they please but not the distributor. But those who use SUSE the most knew about it and normally dont use the defaul multimedia apps.. They go to Packman or something.. But that is still no excuse.
I also ditaste the fact that SuSE “deliberately distorted” multimedia on the distro and did very little to tell users how to enable it.
This has to do with the fact that SuSE is distributed by a COMPANY and yes, companies have to make provisions for legalities. Red Hat has done the same thing for years, afaik.
Most of the “multimedia” capabilities distributed with distros like debian and kUbuntu are either illegal or in danger of becoming illegal due to the patent minefield that is software multimedia.
In SuSE’s defense, they do nicely partner with Real and distribute a multimedia player that a vast majority of users (not just the usual linux users) will recognize. Real Player for linux is, while not perfect, much less intrusive than it’s counterpart for windows, and can play many common formats.
http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/slideshow.php?release=322&slide=8…
Apt for SUSE has plenty of packages for suse from various sources and there are quite a few packagers out there. Guru, Packman and Usr-local-bin to name a few.
If that fails get a src rpm and rebuild it. I normally find redhat and suse packages side by side on download sites. I recommend Apt for SUSE though.. There is also “alien” which supposedly converts and installs deb packages on SUSE, I dont know how well it works though. I never needed to use it.
same experience here. I never found yast particular comfortable, don’t know why really. Also i experienced a lot of problems when trying to configure wireless network with yast (and i wasn’t using any outlandish hardware). Personally i have found ubuntu’s tools for administration more than adequate, certainly faster and so far everything simply works.
” a lot of problems when trying to configure wireless network with yast”
i would say that happens on most linux distros, has a lot to do with the ver of wireless tools you have installed along with whether your card is older or newer…. Those GUI tools crap out, whether it be linspire, ubuntu, or suse….
command line, and/or config files work every time tho and ARE the fastest and easiest…
My experience with both 9.1 and 9.2 was that the distro out of the box was great– but after a few rounds of upgrades from SuSE’s unsupported sources, things would get worse and worse. I finally abandoned 9.2 for Kubuntu after I upgraded to KDE 3.4.1, and *every* webbrowser (Firefox, Konqueror and even Opera) started segfaulting every few minutes (I think the problem was libfreetype.) SuSE is a great choice if you don’t want to be on top of every new version of stuff.
Just installed 9.3 on a P3 here at work.
The install went without a problem and everything just worked.
I have tested a few distros and this was one of the first that required no hacking to get things working.
Has plenty of packages which made it easy to setup our network scanning software.
Very pleased.
While I agree that SuSE is a good distro, I find YAST2 to be too slow. The distro also feels heavy even without server components installed!
I use both FreeBSD 5.4 and SuSE 9.3 with KDE on a AMD64 with 1GB of ram.No sluggish feeling running Yast here.Yast runs smooth and enables you to get things going and learn the advanced stuff later on.To be honest ubuntu and debian are booting faster although i experienced this more on x86 then on x86_64.While maybe a little bit “slower” SuSE 9.3 is remarkably more stable than a lot of other distros.
charles: While I agree that SuSE is a good distro, I find YAST2 to be too slow.
So what? It is for maintenance tasks. Who cares if is is slow? As long as it works, it very good.
We have today stopped our trials with SuSE 9.3 on Dell Laptops. Yes, open source is good. Yes, SuSE works most of the time. Yes, so does Mandriva, Ubuntu, Fedora Core 4 and the other distros. KDE looks nicer for each version.
But it doesn’t work all the way. It’s not reliable. Install is fine, but selecting the correct video card doesn’t work (hello command line and xorg.conf), so you will have to choose VESA graphics. Wireless doesn’t work. You have to manually choose Router settings which make the DHCP solution kinda pointless. Don’t try to switch between several wireless networks and/or a cable, you will end up hysterically entering the hex WEP code for the umpteenth time. Or install NetApplet. Hello, little program, where did you go? Suffering from amnesia again? Want me to re-enter that fucking WEP-code again in Hex? Hibernation? Na, doesn’t work. Sleep? Hell no. CD-burning, maybe.
We ended up buying Apple iBooks instead.
SuSE 9.3 Pro is $99.95, MacOS X Tiger is $129. Just to never ever again have to re-enter a fucking hex-encoded WEP key again is well worth the $30 difference. Not to mention that MacOS X is way, way, way more user friendly than KDE ever will be.
Sorry, but Mac works. Linux doesn’t.
Yes, I know that some of you experts easily can recompile the kernel, write en0-up-scripts or whatever black magic you do to get it to work, but to me, a simple user, it is not worth it. Not for the price of two movie tickets…
“SuSE 9.3 Pro is $99.95, MacOS X Tiger is $129.”
Correction: SuSE 9.3 Pro is 0,0€, MacOS X Tiger is still 129€.
“Not to mention that MacOS X is way, way, way more user friendly than KDE ever will be.”
I choose KDE over OS X anytime. I have Kubuntu installed to my iBook, and despite it still has some minor bugs in it, I wouldn’t switch back to OS X at any cost. It’s just too limited, and its basic apps suck compared to KDEs (Finder vs. Konqueror, iTunes vs. amaroK etc.).
Since Novell released YaST under the GPL, it would be nice if more distros began using it.
I’m not so sure that would be such a good idea. Not that YaST isn’t good, but this kind of GUI config tools should be integrated into Gnome and KDE instead. Preferably with some common CLI backend.
I would also prefer separate tools over one monolithic tool. All these tools should go into appropriate places in the Gnome 2.10 desktop menu, or the KDE control panel. A pure KDE or pure Gnome tool will not make it into all Linux distros.
I am running SuSE 9.3 on my AMD64 at home. It is very nice.
I had it running on one of my laptops, but it just seemed to drag along. For example, both SuSE and Fedora Core 4 come with the beta version of OpenOffice 2. On SuSE, it takes about 35 seconds from the time I click on the OpenOffice icon until the program is up and ready to use. On Fedora, it only takes 7 seconds.
That has been my only complaint with it though. Other than that is has worked really well.
From what you’re saying,
SuSE is not good because it doesn’t work perfectly on the Dell laptops wich you wanted to use which were built to run with Windows, not Linux! Does that make sense!
iBooks are built to exactly work with OS X — hell, it even comes pre-installed.
Either you’re just trolling or have no common sense.
Thats right, just keep making excuses for problems that a user has with software instead of trying to fix the problem.
Excuses don’t fix problems.
“I had it running on one of my laptops, but it just seemed to drag along. For example, both SuSE and Fedora Core 4 come with the beta version of OpenOffice 2. On SuSE, it takes about 35 seconds from the time I click on the OpenOffice icon until the program is up and ready to use. On Fedora, it only takes 7 seconds.”
Interesting, I’ll have to try that. I have SuSe at work, and just loaded FC4 at home. Albeit on a 700Mhz Athlon, but it actually runs really well. OOo2 seemed pretty crisp, all things considered.
From what you’re saying, SuSE is not good because it doesn’t work perfectly on the Dell laptops wich you wanted to use which were built to run with Windows, not Linux! Does that make sense!
Show me any $500-$800 notebook, wireless, that works directly, with power management, wireless, hibernation, printing, network switching etc, with a distro, any distro – WITHOUT HAVING TO FUCK AROUND FOR A WEEK WITH TERMINAL AND CONFIG FILES DESPERATELY GOOGLING FOR HELP AFTER INSTALLING – and I will buy that solution. I chose Dell because I thought it was an easy system (Intel graphics, Intel wireless, pretty standard setup).
The only distro that comes close to this seems to be Linspire, but for obvious reasons ($50/year) I don’t want to use them. As I wrote SuSE 9.3 was very close, Mandriva close, Ubuntu failed miserably (bodi-bom).
Either you’re just trolling or have no common sense.
I promise I will be more than happy should there be such a solution, so I’m not a troll. Please advice a Linux on Desktop solution that an ordinary, real life human non-programmer, can use.
A real troll would asked open source developers why it is important to produce a score of fucking audio players, a dozen of fucking text editors, and a gross of fucking applications to switch settings, but not one single decent application to facilitate switching between several wireless networks?
Correction: SuSE 9.3 Pro is 0, MacOS X Tiger is still 129.
No. SuSE is $99.
http://www.novell.com/products/linuxprofessional/pricing_us.html
To theoretically be able to make an awkvard FTP install from SuSE servers (try that on 40 laptops in a school with limited bandwitdh), or to wait another couple of months for the public release av SuSE 9.3 or to find a semi-legal grey torrent of SuSE 9.3 today, doesn’t change the fact that Novell want’s you to pay $99 for SuSE 9.3.
“No. SuSE is $99.”
Yes. SuSE 9.3 is absolutely free as in freedom for all as cd or dvd images.
http://www.suselinuxinfo.org/
“See the distribution’s features pages for further information about SUSE LINUX 9.3. The DVD image is now available from a number of German and international mirror sites. As usual, a small network installation CD image for direct installation from a remote FTP or HTTP server is also available in the same directory as the DVD image.”
“The only distro that comes close to this seems to be Linspire, but for obvious reasons ($50/year) I don’t want to use them.”
You should be a politician, since obviously you’re very good at spreading false information. Linspire has never charged anyone annual fees. The only thing you may pay annual fees for is the CnR database, and if you don’t like it, you can use e.g. Klik ( http://klik.atekon.de/ ) for installing software.
Show me any $500-$800 notebook, wireless, that works directly, with power management, wireless, hibernation, printing, network switching etc, with a distro, any distro – WITHOUT HAVING TO FUCK AROUND FOR A WEEK WITH TERMINAL AND CONFIG FILES DESPERATELY GOOGLING FOR HELP AFTER INSTALLING – and I will buy that solution.
You are so right! We had exactly the same experience … tried several distro’s and it was simply hell to work mobile with them. I’m not a power user and I found myself daily en route to find a sysop to help me log my Linux notebook on to the network on the location I was supposed to work that day. Or to connect to our Lexmark IP printers. Ahhhhhhh …. It costed me at least 30 minutes a day (and 15 minutes sysop support .. how you mean: linux is free?).
Terrible experience I went through … I was able to hold out for 6 months. Believe me, I have never been soooo ready for MS Windows in my live… thank god that stupid move was prevented by a sysop with some sense of realism.
We ended up buying Mac notebooks too. The wireless hopping is fantastisc and so is hibernation. From sleep to 100% functionality in something of a second…. it is fanastic.
One thing though: the times Linux worked I did like the interfacing…. but on the other hand … must admit that I used my linux notebook only for mail, browsing and office stuff, while I started using my Mac also for presentations, movie editing and sound editing. If I would have sticked with linux I would have been a pro terminal user …
I agree with Stalker. I have had it trying to get SuSE wireless to work. I throw in any Knoppix, wireless works. I installed Ubuntu on another laptop works. Ubuntu LiveCD on the SuSE pc works. I spent countless hours like Stalker hacking in the hex. When they advertise on the box WLAN works, then it should. When they advertise that it is a multimedia system, it should work. SuSE 9.2 didn’t and SuSE isn’t going to get my 89(?) for the update to 9.3.
xandros….
Good to see another review praising Novell’s SuSE as excellent! From what I’ve seen so far, it looks pretty good. I am glad Novell continues to pay close and careful attention to improving it, and trying new things (like XEN, for example).
–EyeAm
“Don’t just ‘use’ it, SUSE it!” 🙂
Show me any $500-$800 notebook, wireless, that works directly, with power management, wireless, hibernation, printing, network switching etc, with a distro, any distro – WITHOUT HAVING TO FUCK AROUND FOR A WEEK WITH TERMINAL AND CONFIG FILES DESPERATELY GOOGLING FOR HELP AFTER INSTALLING – and I will buy that solution. I chose Dell because I thought it was an easy system (Intel graphics, Intel wireless, pretty standard setup).
You want a laptop with Linux support? Buy an HP:
“The good news for all Linux advocates is HP’s recent announcement to support Ubuntu Linux on selected models of its notebook computers. According to a news report by Heise Online, HP will officially support models nx6110, nc6120, nc6220, nc6230 and nc6000. We hear that every component in the aforementioned models including LAN, WAN, Modem, Sound, Infrared Link, Firewire, Bluetooth, Graphics Adapter, Battery Usage Meter, Suspend to Disk Function, Hotkeys and numerous other features will work right out of the box. Apparently, HP is determined to make certain models work 100 percent with Ubuntu.”
http://www.cooltechzone.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=1…
I don’t know it is less than $800, but I’ve never seen a good laptop that is….
Actually, one of them IS less than $800. Look here:
http://www.superwarehouse.com/p.cfm?p=484133&CMP=KA18442
I have you answer. I know you will say “its too late” or something, but at least in the future you can’t say the solution doesn’t exist.
Live long and proper.
As stated ” any ordinary user “…
NO ordinary user can administer any Server OS (and yes, you were using it as a server) be is Win 2000 Server, Win 2003 Server, Linux, Unix etc… There will be knuckle scraping and head scratching.
In my opinion more so with Windows as many networking features do not work as they should. With Linux, most of the time when a networking feature is set up, it will perform as stated with out side effects.
In conclusion I believe that Windows Server 2003 has come a long ways and soon will be able to be as easily administered as linux.
Don’t get me wrong – I think SuSE is a great OS for geeks. But, you better be a pro. I have an amd64 with 16G of RAM (big numerical calculations). Here are some horrors I experienced:
1. Upgraded from 9.2 to 9.3. Boot up and I can’t get past login in kde. After two hours of investigation I discovered that after the upgrade the windowmanager changed to twm (instead of kdm).
2. Some time earlier I installed the new patches. After reboot I can’t see the outside network. Four hours of investigation later I discovered that the network gateway setting was mysteriously changed to some bogus value.
3. Even earlier. SuSE released 9.2 with messed up kernel that wouldn’t boot on an AMD64 with more than 4G of memory. Took me two hours to figure out why newly installed OS keeps crashing while loading the kernel.
People, I’ve been programming for many years – hate to remember how many – I’ve programmed device drivers, and GUI applications, and scientific software, and what not. It may take me hours, but I can figure out these problems. How do you expect most other users to run SuSE?
How do you expect most other users to run SuSE?
In its default state with updates/upgrades only till you have gasped enough knowledge to advance the learning process.
A developer would almost likely have tweaked a lot of settings in multiple config files and changed some environmental variables to say the least.It’s not that hard for an experience developer as you claim to be,to make a little app that backs up all settings and enables temporarily the default settings untill the upgrade has been done.How on earth should the installer now all that isn’t default anymore?
Four hours of investigation later I discovered that the network gateway setting was mysteriously changed to some bogus value.
Shouldn’t take you hours really.It’s the first place you should check,the overall network settings after having checked the card is functioning at all.
Anon wrote: “Four hours of investigation later I discovered that the network gateway setting was mysteriously changed to some bogus value.”
Netphyton wrote: “Shouldn’t take you hours really.It’s the first place you should check,the overall network settings after having checked the card is functioning at all.”
Don’t forget that the original article states:
“I found this latest version, released in March, to be an excellent implementation of the Linux operating system. It brings Linux’s levels of ease of use and configurability to an all-time high.”
SuSE is good, but if any of you guys think it “brings Linux’s levels of ease of use and configurability to an all-time high” is true, then you are all trolling…