Novell Inc.’s SuSE Linux Professional 9.3 desktop gives not only other leading Linux desktop distributions a run for their money, but also enterprise desktops. Review is at eWEEK.
Bleeding-Edge Linux Desktop: SuSE Linux Professional 9.3
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
IMHO, SuSE just can not be beaten when compared to other mainstream distros. I.E., Mandrake, Fedora, Turbo, etc. And By “mainstream” I don’t mean the likes of Slackware and Gentoo. Why? Consistancy. I don’t have the numbers on hand but it feels like SuSE is just always there. It’s always the same SuSE. Improvements and progress are made with each release. It seems like they have their Formula and are really sticking to it. I like that a lot. YaST is great also. Their releases are always on target give or take. And in my experience you can always expect good things from them. I guess consistancy goes a long way for me.
My hats off to the SuSE Team, thanks for a great consistant distro.
I bought this package and ended up replacing it with FC4 on one of the systems I’d installed it on after a couple of weeks. I find it as mediocre as SUSE’s distros usually are.
They’ve done some reasonable work on the presentation, but if they think people will use it as a desktop distro, they need to work on fonts and things like HTML rendering – see how the BBC website displays on either Firefox or Konqueror if you want to know what I mean. Also they set Konq to scroll “smoothly” which, on any site (like my blog) which uses a lot of graphics, this means excruciatingly slowly. I actually found the version on SUSE’s downloadable version of KDE 3.4 for SUSE 9.1 more responsive than this.
There’s also the problem of some packages being only on the DVD, not on the five CDs, and there is no APT-type program so that you can download the missing packages from SUSE’s FTP sites. These packages include Eclipse and XFce (although that’s an out of date edition, so it doesn’t matter so much), Objective C, Fortran, Java 5 and PostgreSQL. A lot of people using this software are hackers, so it begs the question why they put this software out to pasture rather than, say, the games or educational software.
> Also they set Konq to scroll “smoothly” which, on any site (like my blog) which uses a lot of graphics, this means excruciatingly slowly
SUSE specific: http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-devel&m=111597294904795&w=2
> and there is no APT-type program so that you can download the missing packages from SUSE’s FTP sites.
There is: YaST. You simply add the FTP directory as additional source.
suse does not
IMHO, SUSE Professional would make an excellent SOHO desktop, and maybe even SOHO server solution. The thing is, I don’t like the direction Novell is taking it. It used to be a little bit out of date but incredibly stable. Before SUSE was aquired by Novell, it was treated like a product. Now it seems that Novell thinks of it as a project. They still make the awesome documentation and nice boxes, but they are now cramming the latest bits of functionality into each new release, whether it is stable or not. And they are releasing it for download to get new users that will test the software that will eventually end up in SLES and Novell Linux Desktop.
I don’t necessarily have a problem with this. Red Hat does it with Fedora….but Red Hat doesn’t charge for Fedora either.
I bought 9.2, used it for a few weeks, and then switched distributions. I was extremely unimpressed with it. The Nvidia drivers in YOU broke, and for some reason the official Nvidia drivers from nvidia.com wouldn’t install. Gnome wouldn’t start. It was crashing more often than Windows. and RPM just seemed to stop functioning.
Of course, this is all just MHO. Other people could have way different experiences.
Anyways, on to the point of my story. No enterprise is going to reload a new version of SUSE onto their desktops every 2 years. They are going to want Red Hat Desktop or Novell Linux Desktop, with their longer support cycles.
In the OSNews summary, it says it will give Enterprise Desktops a run for their money, yet at the end of the review it says for general desktop use, their are better choices.
In the OSNews summary, it says it will give Enterprise Desktops a run for their money, yet at the end of the review it says for general desktop use, their are better choices.
General desktop use is not the same as enterprise desktop use.
Anyway, I’ve been running SuSE 9.3 for a while now, and I must say that I’m very impressed. The overal feel of the distro is clean, it of course has YAST, something I really miss on Ubuntu (decent system management tools). SuSE even made me use KDE again, which isn’t a small feat. It might be my new distro of choice, after almost a year of running Ubuntu.
Definitely recommended!
A single team can’t develop an all encompassing application like the modern distro is trying to be. Instead of concentrating on systems aspects, they all trying to pack as many apps as possible, as bleeding edge as possible and as you would expect, it fails most of the time.
When will Fedora, Debian and Slackware (the biggest non-commercial ones) team up to build a minimal distro, with an easy to use application packager for third party developpers ?
@m6990
@IndigoJo
It’s a pity it doesn’t work for you, it does for me in every area i use a computer.
I use SUSE 9.2 at home (multimedia, web, 3D games), work (web and 3D development and design, CVS and web server) and production (3D multimedia platform).
All things i use work like a charm, including nvidia and ati 3D drivers, all the hardware is detected an configured at installation: a fairly new Pentium 3GHZ, Intel chipset, PCI-Express, Serial ATA, 1Gb ethernet, USB hard and pen drives…, updated to KDE 3.4 using YAST from FTP source with 0 problems.
The only thing i’ve installed from sources is mplayer, due to KDE laking a decent video player, and PHP5 (wich is avaliable in RPM through FTP YAST anyways).
If there is a distro out there which is worth to pay for, it is SUSE.
There’s also the problem of some packages being only on the DVD, not on the five CDs, and there is no APT-type program so that you can download the missing packages from SUSE’s FTP sites.
That’s a load of ill-informed rubbish.
How about yast? You add the FTP site as an installation source and install stuff from there the same way you do from CD. With search and automatic dependency resolving and everything.
If you really can’t work any other way, there’s a command-line interface for the yast package manager as well: y2pmsh.
And if you really really really can’t get used to anything but apt, there’s always apt4rpm.
SUSE is especially great on laptops (just like Kubuntu for that matter). With laptops, auto-detection of individual components is critical, and IMHO these particular distro’s excell in that area. It isn’t perfect of course, but far better than most and it’s certainly a great feat considering that almost no company officially supports Linux to begin with (drivers, technical documents, etc.). Thumbs up for the Open Source community, hard work does pay off on the long run. 🙂
I like SUSE for the way they integrate the “latest” of Mono always…It is easier to find SUSE packages of beagle apps than finding other packages…That is the best thing I like about SUSE..
mono doesnt rule. Its choke full of legal issues
I installed Fedora Core 3 once on a third partition (the other two being Windows and SuSE) and it mucked up the installation of the bootloader (I had chosen grub). I couldn’t start anything.
I popped in my SuSE 9.2 DVD, went to rescue mode, and clicked on the “Detect Problems” button. It said the bootloader looked bad, did I want to fix it? I said yes, it worked away and installed the bootloader.
I rebooted the PC and everything worked.
This is SuSE’s advantage. It may be a bit ugly (I’ve never been impressed with the Keramik theme), but it causes the minimum amount of trouble for systems administrators. Lately SuSE Pro has become the budget workstation / server solution, with Novell Desktop and SLES being the enterprise equivalents, but if you’ve got a lot of desktops (I’m thinking especially of universities here), it’s still an excellent choice.
With regard to enterprise desktops, the turnover is a bit too frequent for them I’d say (every nine months I think), but for the adventurous administrator, it’s a good enough choice, particularly as you only have to purchase one box no matter how many PCs you’re configuring. As I said, it’s a budget thing.
[Incidentally, I tried installing Fedora a second time, this time chosing LILO as the bootloader. It ignored my choice and installed Grub. Fortunately my SuSE rescue system fixed that in five minutes]
[Incidentally, I tried installing Fedora a second time, this time chosing LILO as the bootloader. It ignored my choice and installed Grub. Fortunately my SuSE rescue system fixed that in five minutes]
Why did you bother reinstalling??? Wouldn’t it have been easier to copy and paste the fedora boot section of /boot/grub/menu.lst out of fedora and put it into suse in the same file??? Then SUSE’s boot loader would have booted Fedora also.
If Fedora had worked out I would have replaced SuSE with it (as personally I like playing around with the latest and greatest). However I wasn’t willing to do that if I couldn’t rely on it to set up the boot-loader.
I bought this package and ended up replacing it with FC4 on one of the systems I’d installed it on after a couple of weeks. I find it as mediocre as SUSE’s distros usually are.
Well i have tried FC4 x86_64 and wasn’t impressed.SuSE is with Mandriva one of the very few who support x86_64 from the beginning and do this exellent.What’s important for me in a distro is the amount of update servers and their downtime.What i think is mediocre is having to find some update servers first and than having to edit a config file in order to get some performance when updating.Both Debian and SuSE handle updates superbly.
there is no APT-type program so that you can download the missing packages from SUSE’s FTP sites.
You can add directories who contain directory.yast source.For eg: to add the abillity of playing encrypted DVD’s in SuSE you could add an extra installation source with Yast.In this case a website:
http://packman.iu-bremen.de/suse/9.3/
There’s apt for SuSE,an exellent website:
http://linux01.gwdg.de/apt4rpm/home.html
Once installed you have besides Yast also apt to install applications.
These packages include Eclipse and XFce (although that’s an out of date edition, so it doesn’t matter so much), Objective C, Fortran, Java 5 and PostgreSQL.
Eclipse is automagically installed if you mark {java}
during the preselection.You can simply and comfortably select all the other packages you mentioned.
I enjoyed using SuSE Linux for a long time, but after tiring of waiting for the next free release of the newest version, I decided to go with Ubuntu. I just don’t see the community of on-line volunteer support available for SUSE like there is for distributions such as Gentoo, Ubuntu, and others. I’m also happier not using RPMs anymore. Other than that, SUSE is a great distribution and I hope they continue to release free versions alongside their commercial offerings. I also hope the name SUSE is forever retained in the distro and not changed to Novell or some other name.
I only wish SUSE 9.3 had been released earlier, I may not have left it for my new love, Ubuntu.
using since 8.2
still cant find a distro to replace it since
the polished desktops.
bleeding edge software support. tons of useful packages
ranging from development to desktop to server tools.
YaST – the config tool that does anything
the meticulous hardware support especially in external/mobile devices like printer scanner laptop.
nothing compares really. decent performance and not as buggy as the other mainstream distro like ubuntu, fedora or mandriva.
suse rules
SuSE 9.3 pro is so bloated. Xandros approach to linux is one of a kind in the software industry. Beside, SuSE will disappear very soon and will be replaced by Novell Linux Desktop 10 (NLD 10) which will appear in year 2006 (May-November); meanwhile SuSE will be a developmental distribution. Remember that SuSE 9.3 got nothing to compare with the enterprise SuSE, which is carefully developed OS that target the big heads (Redhat,Solaris)
Another great article on SuSE. Love it. 🙂
It is good to see more features continue to be added; I especially like the attention Novell has paid to providing programming resources to the OS. Hope to see more compilers and programming tools.
Corel Corporation responded to an email I sent in the last couple of weeks–where I had urged Corel and Novell to form an exclusive arrangement regarding Corel’s line of Linux programs, including CorelDRAW and WordPerfect–and they said they’re currently doing some assessments of the market, but Wordperfect would be returning to Linux shortly after they’re finished. Hope to see them work closer with Novell SuSE. At the very least, even if they don’t offer exclusively with SuSE, then Linux will again have Corel stuff. But, Wordperfect having come from Novell, stranger things have happened 😉 Such ties could enhance each other’s profile–and SuSE’s is certainly rising already, all on its own.
–EyeAm
For $99, shouldn’t Suse come with legal dvd codecs ie. a player such as the one Linspire has?
Just download them, if you dont know how to install read the man pages, or the readme.txt. I just dont get it! Read the man pages. I once tried every distro out and all I was doing was installing. All the major distro are good, Find one you like and download and install the programs you need. Simple NO wars. Yes I use Suse 9.3 on my laptop (avertech 3260) everything works, so I can work. I use Mepis on my destop…see I like more than one. Bought one, one for free…