Linux.com reviews SUSE 10.1, and concludes: “With SUSE 10.1, Novell has embraced and extended its role as the leading desktop distribution. Given the amount of eye-popping eye candy and playtime 3-D effects available on this desktop, it’s easy to forget that Novell is all about bringing Linux to the corporate – not the home – desktops. Yes, the money is all in the server market these days, but after the revolution Linux will inherit its rightful share of desktops, too.”
http://www.desktoplinux.com/articles/AT3456783210.html
“My current favorite desktop Linux is OpenSUSE 10.1. I can say all kinds of good things about it, except when it comes to the package manager. Unfortunately, the package manager, which the administration tool YaST uses for adding new programs and updating old ones, currently has serious problems.
The default package management software in SUSE 9 and 10 was YOU (YaST online update) in YaST2 and the susewatcher system tray applet. This, however, has been replaced by Libzypp in 10.1.
Libzypp is a backend program that uses RPM (RPM Package manager) packages for installing, removing, and querying program packages. This new program is an attempt by Novell to marry the best features of SUSE’s yast2 package manager and Ximian’s libredcarpet.
This backend software works with the ZMD (ZENworks Management Daemon) to create the new system-tray notification applet, zen-updater.
The idea was a good one. If it worked, users would get a command-line tool for running updates, rug, and a way to provide common handling of packages and patches.
When it works, it works quite well. Cenuij, a UK-based SUSE user, gives an excellent explanation of how the new system works and how to make the most of it.
However, it doesn’t work that well all the time. The combination of yast2 and libredcarpet is only half-baked. In my experience, and those of many others, the new package manager is extremely slow and often breaks.”
Forget the ZENworks abomination.
Use Smart Package Manager for SUSE 10.1. It’s fantastic.
http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/rpm-navigation.php?cat=/System/smar…
Thanks, I will try that! I love Suse and I am a LONG time Novell fan! Hope they keep up the good work!
While I tend to agree that Smart works well (it uses the APT repos), I miss synaptic very much. And no, smart-gui is no match for synaptic.
Windows Sucks,
I don’t understand you’re complaint with Novell replacing SUSE Watcher with ZENworks Updater which supports YUM repositories, not just YAST Source repositories. It would help to back up your comment recommending using Smart Package Manager by letting everyone know what it can do that ZENworks and YAST can’t?
As for bugs I only experienced this on KDE where refreshing repositories caused both YAST and ZENworks to go into an infinite refresh loop. ZENworks would also occassionaly crash entirely while on KDE. Though with Gnome there hasn’t been any issues with either ZENworks or YAST. This may be due to Novell focusing more on Gnome since this is their preferred desktop for the Enterprise line as well default desktop for the consumer line.
The one thing I like about Novell is that they made Gnome easier for migration of Windows to Linux. Gnome in this release also appears to have a more logical selection and layout of applications. Unlike KDE where not only the start menu but also the desktop appeared cluttered in SUSE Linux 10.1 giving a feeling of bloat.
Edited 2006-05-25 14:47
Linux is a server OS. Linux will never be ready for the desktop.
Which distribution(s) have you tried?I personally don’t blame you if you used Gentoo.
Windows isn’t really ready for the desktop either. You know how I can tell? Because people are always asking me to fix their computer. Mainly due to viruses and other malware, it just becomes slow and unbearable to users who don’t know any better. For doing Office work, etc Linux is every bit as good, and in some cases better than Windows. Think of how many reboots Windows requires….
The GPL is a virus worse than anything that windows could get.
Linux failed on the desktop. The Unix heads have moved on to OSX.
wow windows bashing! the reveiw is on suse 10.1. i installed it. and think it is a step backwards for linux.
you should be able to install any thing on it with out any problem in this day and age. but this is not the case. there are better distros out there by far!
It’s sad to see the GPL virus crippling Linux. Who can fix it?
“never be ready for the desktop”..
You’re right… It makes a terrible desktop. The pens and pencils just keep rolling off the screen.
But it works great as an OS for my computer.
You might want to change the angle of your monitor then, or the perhaps the cabinet. If I lay down my tower on one of the sides, it actually works well as a desktop. It does however have some recesses that makes it unusable as a surface for creating drawings.
But as a desktop for minor writings the tower works fine. The monitor and the keyboard are however less functional as desktops.
Logic indicates that the only well-working desktop is a desktop.
They’re about to go bankrupt and chose the crippled Gnome as their desktop.
Redhat gave up on the desktop, it’s about time that Novell did the same
Nothing to see, move along. OSX doesn’t have these problems.
No, OS X have problems much much worse than these. .DMG files are probably one of the most stupid Apple inventions so far. And the OS X Desktop is everybit as crippled as other mainstream desktops.
Doesn’t matter if you’re using OS X, BSD or Linux with Gnome or KDE, or Windows.
They all suffer from crippled desktops. The desktop metaphore is good, but the implementations of the desktop are crippled. BeOS/Haiku/SkyOS and Syllable may get the desktop metaphore right, but that’s too early to say for sure. But it does look like they’re in the right direction, opposite that of the mainstream DE’s.
No, OS X have problems much much worse than these. .DMG files are probably one of the most stupid Apple inventions so far. And the OS X Desktop is everybit as crippled as other mainstream desktops.
Why do Linux fans feel the need to bash OS X at every given chance? The OP wasn’t even referring to OS X
. I’ve personally found DMGs to be a great idea, as is drap and drop application installation and removal.
I’m not bashing OS X. Merely pointing out in my reply to CanuckleFrog that OS X is no better than other mainstream Desktop Environments.
I agree that Drag’n’Drop installation and removal is a good idea, but the .DMG approach is however flawed. So far I haven’t encountered an installation/removal approach that wasn’t flawed.
I replied to CanuckleFrog and not the OP. CanuckleFrog bashed Linux on basis of technology in OS X. I merely pointed out that OS X isn’t the Messiah of OS’es.
EDIT: You ought to have seen me bashing Desktop Environments in general (incl. Gnome and KDE, as well as the Windows desktop), because they all tend to fail miserably. OS X is usually better at implementing the Desktop metaphore, but it still fails on most issues.
Edited 2006-05-25 07:23
Slightly OT, but
can you be more specific about why you think the .DMG approach is flawed?
As I said alreasdy before, I think SuSE 10.1 is just fine. Atleast it looks good and is easy to install. If I had to choose between Ubuntu and SuSE, Ubuntu would have no chance. But, I’m not switching from my Gentoo to SuSE even though I wish I could just use some precompiled distro instead of having to compile everything myself. Why? Well, first of all, I hate SuSE 10.1 not having the proprietary ati-drivers or nvidia-drivers. Secondly, it didn’t enable DMA for my drives even if I did specify them on in Yast2. Had to do that from console. Third, it’s way too much of a hassle to get DVD and mp3 playback working, and even then the mp3 playback doesn’t work in all the apps. And there’s no Rhythmbox for SuSE 10.1 to be found. Or atleast I didn’t find it anywhere. Fourth, they have really messed up the panel menu. It’s a complete mess. Just combine to the default GNOME one and the SuSE one. SuSE’s monster is a deeply nested thing with everything spread all over, while the default GNOME menu has all the internet related stuff under Internet, no messy submenus or such..
But again, these are all just my opinions.
Nice article. But I learned nothing. Especialy about how to get any multimedia player running. The Add-On CD contains no codecs. Nothing works as described. As the paradox on FreeBSD 6.1 works everything. Multimedia including. And that is a *server* system !
One of the peeves I’ve always had about SuSE is the way the install works. Everytime you change something at the review screen (before actually installing the system), for some unfathomable reason the installer needs to evaluate packages after every change! Change the bootloader option, it evaluates packages. Change the time zone, it evaluates packages(!!). If you’re choosing a full install, evaluating all those packages really slows things down.
It’s been like this since I started playing with SuSE at version 7. Seriously, this needs to be fixed.
The eye-opener is that this review (if that is the right word since it doesn’t really try to analyse and evaluate) looks at SuSE from the POV of Gnome, Mono and Ximian all of which garner admiring glances. KDE is given a distinctly second seat. If that is the future, heigh ho. I can understand folks liking Gnome, but the value of Mono and Ximian leaves me rather baffled. Which would you rather acquire if you were one of the top two distros, Mono or JBoss?
It will be interesting to see whether KDE remains tiptop in future versions of SuSE. If not, I’d guess they’ll lose quite a lot of their users.
The eye-opener is that this review (if that is the right word since it doesn’t really try to analyse and evaluate) looks at SuSE from the POV of Gnome, Mono and Ximian all of which garner admiring glances. KDE is given a distinctly second seat. If that is the future, heigh ho.
Well, it’s not that it just seems to gloss over Suse’s traditionally strong KDE support and organisation, but that it seems a really artifical review after having tried out 10.1. In these reviews the XGL stuff is always wizz bang amazing, when in reality you need the right graphics card and you’ll find it quite bug ridden in day to day usage. It then goes on to make some thinly veiled attack on Red Hat at the end, about them not being able to keep up.
I hope we’re not going to see more of these slightly sanitised reviews.
I can understand folks liking Gnome, but the value of Mono and Ximian leaves me rather baffled. Which would you rather acquire if you were one of the top two distros, Mono or JBoss?
Well, even though Red Hat is a Gnome based company, they said JBoss – and you’d have to say they were right. Making 3D desktop cubes, as nice an additional activity as it is, isn’t going to bring the money in.
Well, even though Red Hat is a Gnome based company, they said JBoss – and you’d have to say they were right. Making 3D desktop cubes, as nice an additional activity as it is, isn’t going to bring the money in.
Err… Mono is being used in package management, Banshee, and iFolder (which is a nice little application). Red Carpet, and Mono were the main reasons Novell bought Ximian. By the time they’re done, they’ll have a unified package management system at the level of their Zenworks for windows, and that will be very attractive at the corporate level. It *is* a bit unstable at the moment, though.
It has approximately zero in common with XGL– which, by the way, isn’t actually configured by default, because Novell knows it’s a bit buggy still too.
Personally, after hammering on 10.1 for awhile, I came to the conclusion that it’s not a bad release, although the package management led to some serious hair pulling on an amd64 system. Some of that was because I was *too* knowledgable, and tried to clean up the mess rug/yast made.
As soon as some updates come out for rug/yast/libzypp (next week, supposedly), I’ll probably start using it on my production desktops, but I doubt I’ll have XGL enabled.
Err… Mono is being used in package management, Banshee, and iFolder (which is a nice little application).
Err. It still isn’t making any money directly for them, they had a first rate, *working* package management system before which they’ve now turfed out for something that isn’t working, iFolder was originally written in Java and then ported to Mono for no apparent reason and there are other music apps like amaroK which Novell hasn’t had to reinvent.
The original poster was right. There just seems little point.
By the time they’re done, they’ll have a unified package management system at the level of their Zenworks for windows
Integrate YaST. It works, has worked for years and isn’t more complex than it needs to be. The general consensus is that you take something that has proved to be solid, and has worked for years, and then add to it rather than turf out and rewrite.
and that will be very attractive at the corporate level.
Other distributions have done distributed package management for years. Are they attractive at the corporate level? (Whatever that tends to mean these days)
It has approximately zero in common with XGL
I mentioned XGL with reference to the article. Besides, it doesn’t really alter the fact that you’re going to need a decent hardware accelerated driver to be able to use it.
Err. It still isn’t making any money directly for them, they had a first rate, *working* package management system before which they’ve now turfed out for something that isn’t working, iFolder was originally written in Java and then ported to Mono for no apparent reason and there are other music apps like amaroK which Novell hasn’t had to reinvent.
The original poster was right. There just seems little point.
That’s the biggest gripe I have with Novell.
They are gambling that mono will lead to widespread corporate adoption. So be it. But this drive to monofy everything for the sake of it is a risky game.
They can point to apps like Banshee, fine. Mono can be an effective application framework for linux, which isn’t really lacking in options there anyways.
But the issues they’ve had with beagle, zen and ifolder in the past raise questions. Many people still have problems with beagle (though I’ll admit it works surprisingly well for me in Suse 10.1), zen is clearly a mistake and mono required some serious restructuring to meet Novell’s requirements for iFolder and scaleability. Are they using the right tool for the right job, or is it mono for the sake of mono?
I’m not a dev so I can’t chime in on the technical merits of mono versus other frameworks.
But as a user, my experience with mono-based apps has been lacklustre at best and the zmd thing that was foisted on Suse 10.1 at the last minute for no legitimate reason leaves a bad taste in my mouth. At least in previous versions or in other distros, users generally have the option to select mono-based apps or not. Novell is removing that choice.
If mono is an effective framework, it should find it’s own audience. If it needs to rammed down people’s throats to “prove” acceptance, then that smacks of Redmond-style thinking and could backfire on Novell.
I think they need to start treading carefully.
[i]They are gambling that mono will lead to widespread corporate adoption.
You go to any company of a reasonable size, whether they use .Net or more likely J2EE, and talk about running Mono. They will look at you puzzled because they’ve never heard of it. If someone has heard of it they will dismiss it as not good enough, and they will say something like “If we wanted to run .Net we’d just use the real thing!”
I really don’t know where people get this corporate word from.
I personally saw much potential in SUSE 10.1 but I have to wholeheartedly admit that it is one of the buggiest distros I have ever tried.
No bugs experienced on Gnome but there was issues experienced on KDE where ZENworks and YAST would crash or just finding KDE running slow. Also issues such as refreshing YAST/YUM repositories would make the utility go into an infinite loop forcing one to manually kill the running application. Though as stated none of these issues have been experienced on Gnome. This isn’t to excuse the developer mistake in releasing a buggy release. What it does is to prove not everyone is experiencing the bugs depending on if they chose the default Gnome desktop or one of the alternatives such as KDE during the installation.
Edited 2006-05-26 15:42
I am a long time user of SUSE from 7.1 right up to 10.0. But Novell in my opinion have shot themselves in the foot with 10.1. It is slow, buggy and the package manager is dire. I have gone back to using 10.0 which runs at lightning speed on my box. I will now wait until a more stable version comes out before upgrading again. If your installation of 10.0 does what you need it do my advice is if it aint broke dont fix it.
Hmm that’s interesting. I actually found 10.1 faster than 10.0 in my case – i just stay away from yast and zen when I can
I’ve been impressed by SL 10.1, KDE is very fast and feels nippy. That one thing Window has over Linux it’s nippyness but SL 10.1 is very responsive. The only down side to SL 10.1 is the boot time, I don’t know what goes off during the first part of the boot but it’s slow.
I also preferred the boot and login screen of 10.0, 10.1 seems to have lower quality pictures without the nice SUSE animation. Xgl is buggy with KDE, works fine for the most part but the desktop and some windows don’t let you click them at all, this used to happen with kompmgr as well.
I’ve been using 10.1 as my workstation OS since it came out, and with the exception of the package management (which is ridiculously slow) it seems to be a pretty solid release. I think they probably should have put the new package manager in 10.2 and devoted more time to it instead of hacking it into 10.1 halfway through the beta process. I haven’t seen the package manager actually fail to install anything, but DEAR GOD why does it take so long to add/remove an installation source??!?
The boot time is also slower than 10.0, which is a bit of a step back for SUSE…I’m curious as to what they changed in the boot process.
Since Novell is trying to attract consumers from Windows to SUSE Linux they seemed to have missed a few things in this release. Such as providing a library of streaming radio stations with their side Mono project Banshee (default audio player on Gnome). Offering this would then compare with what is offered on KDE with Amarok and Windows Media Player on Windows. Another useful tool would of been to include “WINE Doors” a GUI frontend for WINE on Gnome. This tool would help with Windows to Linux migration by allowing consumers to use Windows applications not yet ported to Linux by their individual developers. Screenshots and more information can be found here http://www.wine-doors.org/trac Providing OpenWengo http://www.openwengo.com/ would help improve global communications with it’s support for multiple services (Hotmail, Yahoo, GMail, etc) as well supporting VOIP and webcam unlike Gaim (default chat messenger for Gnome) which lacks webcam support at this time. Another useful software application for Gnome would of been to include http://rudd-o.com/projects/ups-monitor/ which offers a very user friendly Linux alternative for UPS backup control and monitoring.
Interesting projects. I didn’t know about OpenWengo…I’ll have to give that one a shot. Looks like they don’t have any (public) releases as of yet for wine-doors, or I’d give that one a shot too. Every now and then someone has an interesting tidbit or two
Mac OS X .DMG installs are not flawed. It’s one of the few install methods that works the way it -should- work.
If anything is completely horribly flawed it is the Windows installed method.
Linux installs are finally starting to not be a PITA. LinSpire and Ubuntu have it right. The others…they will eventually get it right.
“”never be ready for the desktop”..
You’re right… It makes a terrible desktop. The pens and pencils just keep rolling off the screen.”
This was an outstanding bug report for almost 3 years now. Goes to prove how disfunctional the Open Source model is…
Just had to say this…the OpenWengo site is annoying as Hell. Did they have a contest to see who could come up with a design that used the most flash or something?
It’s unfortunate, but there is an easy answer that I don’t recall seeing in this thread: SLED/SLES 10.
The latest version of SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop / Server are based on the 10.1 codebase.
They wanted zmd in the Enterprise versions. To do that, they needed it in 10.1 first. Unfortunately, it was a decision that was made in the middle of the beta cycle for 10.1.
SLED/SLES 10 will be supported for a long time, so if they wanted to change directions, now was the time. Unfortunately, zmd was no where near ready for release. I’m sure the problems will be fixed between now and when SLED/SLES 10 ships later this year.
Unfortunate for those of us who just wanted 10.1 to work, but I suspect it will smooth out soon, as the enterprise won’t accept what’s shipping now.
I was enticed by the madpenguin review of suse 10.1, so much gloss in saying how great the installer was so I downloaded the dvd and the addons.
The installer is very slick, discovering everything in my computer and working well. Yast however is so unbelievably slow at adding packages from any other repository thats its unuseable. I followed the steps to the letter in getting XGL to function I got nothing more than a locked up desktop, I had to go into the shell way too much for a modern os.
I like CNR, I like Linspire, I’m a lifetime supporter of it. After a 2 day journey into 10.1 I’ve reformatted and gone back.
“Naturally, such magic can be used either for good or for evil. I do not recommend taunting Windows or Mac users sitting next to you on a long flight, as you open your laptop and throw your colors before their incredulous, “still waiting for Vista” faces.”
I din’t get it, the effects in Suse are just total ripp off of MAc OS X effects……which have beem around for years.
After installing 10.1 I was thoroughly unimpressed, enough to the point I am now back to booting into WinXP primarily. God knows how much time I wasted just mucking with the system just to play a freaking Xvid, not too mention DVD playback is crap. I am not a pro Windows or pro OSX person, I could care less. What I do care about is having an OS I can use with the LEAST amount of problems, and unfortunetely Linux is still not there. XGL is not needed, what is needed is a GUI that actually works decently with applications that dont crap out every few minutes. I know some Linux zealot will love to reply screaming about BSOD and Windows. This laptop has been running WinXP Pro now for 3 years and I have yet to get a BSOD. My OSX and XP do have their issues as ANY software will have, but they are no where near as bad as Linux has currently. Frankly I am giving up on desktop Linux and sticking to just using Linux as my main server roles where it is much more dependable.