Submitted by Linux-Noob has reviewed SLED 10. “Novell’s strengths are many, and I’m delighted to see the excellent work they have done in usability tests, and making the whole desktop feel like it’s ready, ready to do business, and ready to serve its users. The development they’ve done with Beagle and in particular the ‘computer menu’ are fantastic and hopefully are just the start of better things to come.”
While Ubuntu and other recent distros have been more poslished than ever, and they are quite nice, they are nice compared to other Linux distributions, but SLED 10 is probably the first distribution that I would rank as an overall “good desktop OS” along with XP and OS X. I would seriously consider it as a primary desktop if my primary machines were regular PC hardware, but instead I have and iMac and a MacBook, and am quite happy with OS X. While SLED 10 is good, and would probably convince me to switch from XP, it doesn’t quite eclipse OS X as far as I’m concerned.
I would seriously consider it [SLED 10] as a primary desktop if my primary machines were regular PC hardware, but instead I have and iMac and a MacBook, and am quite happy with OS X. While SLED 10 is good, and would probably convince me to switch from XP, it doesn’t quite eclipse OS X as far as I’m concerned.
In terms of value for money, then, I guess SLED 10 does eclipse OSX?
I agree OSX is very polished and it looks good, I use an iBook G4 myself and I also like some of the programs preceded by i.
But I don’t think the comparison is very useful.
Why not?
If I want to run SLED 10, I can download and install it for free on virtually any machine out there that isn older than say four years. If I want Mac OSX’s somewhat superior eye candy, I have to buy a nicely designed but rather costly device, usually white and noteven technically superiour anymore, in order to get OSX running.
[I won’t buy a Mac again, I’m a Gnome fan and I need Linux’s quality, superior to OSX, in the field of multilingual input methods.]
If I want Mac OSX’s somewhat superior eye candy, I have to buy a nicely designed but rather costly device,
You can also OSXify GNOME and KDE. I know it’s not quite the same, but why not try it?
Google should give some nice results.
usually white
What?! You don’t like white?! WEIRDO! ;-P
I’m just waiting patiently an update for Gnome maybe with some goods evolution exchange.
I use SLED 10 as my primary OS in combination with VMWARE Server for my MS Windows virtual Machines.
A perfect combination!
SLED is one of the most polished Linux distributions I have ever used. The only real problem I see with it is such a small package selection and some of the goodies from gnome 2.14.
Ubuntu is not as polished as SLED, but it has over 18,000 packages in it’s repositories. For that reason alone, my parent’s computers will stay Ubuntu and I’ll manually beautify them.
I will say that Yast in SLED has no open source rival in the Linux world as far as comprehensive management tools go. Maybe someone could download the source from http://developer.novell.com/wiki/index.php/YaST and start porting it to other distros.
Edited 2006-08-25 13:28
I love the functionality of Yast, and I can’t speak for earlier versions, but in 10.0 it is dead slow, and in 10.1, supposedly, software management is even slower.
Porting it to othr distros is a brilliant idea, though.
> Porting it to othr distros is a brilliant idea, though.
And it should be called Yay! (for Yet Another Yast)
Nice one!
I will say that Yast in SLED has no open source rival in the Linux world as far as comprehensive management tools go. Maybe someone could download the source from http://developer.novell.com/wiki/index.php/YaST and start porting it to other distros.
There’s no need to argue that this or that package manager is superior to YaST or vice versa.
However, YaST includes all kinds of hardware management, whereas some other distros choose to separate package/update management from hardware management, and use different programs for the two.
Both approaches have their logic, but it doesn’t mean YaST should be forked. The abundance of package managers out there is quite impressive. If people want to have an integrated program like YaST, they migth as well expand Synaptic, Adept, Smart or whatever with hardware management tools.
I think not many people like to risk the bloat.
Somebody mentioned on this site that you can pretty much mix and match packages to turn Distro X into Distro Y, anyway.
Lorra lorra work, though, I bet.
I’m curious how many people who have used SLED are long-term Linux vets. I have noticed that the press for this latest release has been downright glowing.
I recently installed OpenSUSE, whatever the latest version is, on an old laptop of mine, just to see what it was like, having never used SUSE before.
I saw some polish and chrome there that had some obvious advantages in attracting users. I immediately saw why people get excited over YaST. It has a very unified “control panel” feel to it, and I can see the substantial practical benefits to it, especially for beginners or even people who just can’t be bothered doing things at the command line. Also, as someone who is a snob about package managers (I imagine most of us are), I’d also report that YaST in OpenSUSE at least, worked great. Had zero problems with dependencies, crashes, or otherwise.
How similar to SLED is OpenSUSE? For those of you who have used at least 5 distros, how does SLED compare? I’m curious whether the glowing reviews of SLED are a result of people who are interested in making Linux more attractive to non-Linux users as an alternative to whatever they’re running now, vs. its merits in comparison to other Linux distros for people who have used Linux for awhile.
I have no opinion on this either way; this is why I’m asking. I’m fairly certain that I’m not the intended audience for SLED – I run Gentoo and like that sort of thing (while realizing it’s definitely not for everyone), but I am curious how it stacks up against other distros for the power user.
That being said, it’s nice to see a Linux distribution get such glowing praise. I’m of the mind that good press for any distribution is probably good press for Linux in general.
I’m fairly certain that I’m not the intended audience for SLED – I run Gentoo
You are so 1337 😛
Many people do not realize that Novell/Suse Linux is not just one distro, but a family of distros. Like with the BSD’s, each must be evaluated individually.
Quag7 may be interested in “MySuse”. Its association with Novell is only semi-official. But it has some unique advantages.
They’ve added an extension to Yast2 to allow sheduled download and compilation of source packages in the background, blurring the distinction between binary distros and source-based ones.
You can, of course, install almost anything from any Suse compatible binary repo. But that is mostly for convenience.
By default, it downloads packages which are security updates, as Suse source deltas, and compiles/installs them on a predetermined schedule. However, it can also be set to download and compile/install non-security related updates. The more daring can expand the repo list to include OpenSuse’s beta or raw development repos. With the latter, you have freshly compiled packages from the cutting edge of Suse development waiting for you each morning.
Of course, you can go the other way as well, since choice is always good.
You can set it to simply download security updates and compile, but not install them.
Or you can set it to download and recompile the current source for package versions that you are already using, so that you have freshly recompiled packages each morning.
A recent optimization allows the savings of substantial bandwidth by caching the source packages on the local machine and recompiling them from the cache.
The next release will tie into the Beagle scheduler, and allow compilation to occur at any time, based upon user activity. Between that and source caching, even users of machines with comparatively limited resources and internet bandwidth can enjoy the benefits of freshly compiled packages, making MySuse a good candidate for projects like OLPC.
I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on this distro.
Edited 2006-08-25 22:33
Yes, that’s very 4 years ago.
I don’t use SLED, but I use OpenSUSE Eval 10.0 on my laptop. Like you, I also run Gentoo. I have been running Linux (various distros) almost continuously since the late nineties.
I wanted SUSE to avoid hardware problems with my laptop – lots of stuff seems to work even in FreeBSD, but the internal wireless card is incompatible, and the wireless Cardbus card I bought has been a bitch in everything other than SUSE. I won’t reiterate your glowing review of it, but I will second it.
As a Linux user experienced/brave/foolish enough to run Gentoo, despite what certain (particularly recent) comments of mine on this site might have led you to believe, I couldn’t give a flying Firefox if someone makes a distro of Linux so similar to Windows that even dear old Microsoft couldn’t tell the difference. I think the worry amongst us early adopters a few years ago was that doing this would divert attention (resources) from the features that made us love Linux in the first place; those fears have been, I think, misplaced. Different distros have different uses, and as such I probably won’t be replacing my Gentoo machine with SUSE or the reverse any time soon. I think if SLED improves on openSUSE for “average users”, using FOSS software, then everybody except the most rabid other-OS or GPL hater can shout a Big, Loud, Overdue, “Hoo-bloody-ray”.
Update: It seems the author of “linux-noob” “runs Fedora Core 5”, so perhaps it’s more “Linux for Noobs” than “Linux by Noobs”. Read the review and all I can say is a Big, Loud, Overdue, “Hoo-bloody-ray!” 😉
Tried it, does not hold a candle to gentoo.
As Quag7 said, they are for different audiences.
I’m curious how many people who have used SLED are long-term Linux vets.
I started using linux as my primary desktop in 1996. I’m now running SUSE 10.1 at home and SLED 10 at work. Here are some comparisons between the two.
1. While it is fairly straightforward to set up XGL on SUSE 10.1, it is almost braindead in SLED 10 (Gnome). XGL on SLED 10 with KDE is slightly more difficult. Slight advantage SLED 10.
2. Desktop search in SLED 10 via beagle is quite good and while I haven’t spent much time with it on SUSE 10.1, it does come all ready to go in SLED 10. Slight advantage SLED 10.
3. SUSE 10.1 has a lot of repositories specifically meant for it and these can be accessed via smart. SLED 10 does not have any repositories and you have to use the SUSE 10.1 repositories. This creates some problems in SLED 10 as in I don’t use the zen updater applet any more. I just use smart in SLED 10 to do package management. Major advantage SUSE 10.1.
4. When you register SLED 10 with Novell, the nvidia and ATI driver sites are added to Yast. Consequently, installing nvidia drivers is braindead in SLED 10. In SUSE 10.1, I download the nvidia drivers manually from nvidia’s site. Advantage SLED 10.
5. There’s not much of a community for SLED 10. SUSE 10.1 has a much stronger and larger community. Advantage: SUSE 10.1.
6. SLED 10 still has some annoying bugs. Display power management (DPMS) does not work at all and my monitor stayed on for a day before I realized this. This bug has still not been fixed. Advantage: SUSE 10.1.
This creates some problems in SLED 10 as in I don’t use the zen updater applet any more. I just use smart in SLED 10 to do package management.
Is there a smart repository for the SLED 10 updates?
Is there a smart repository for the SLED 10 updates?
None that I could find. Instead, and since I’m running SLED on a 64 bit machine, I visit the update page at http://support.novell.com/linux/psdb/x86_64SUSESLED10.html
and get the relevant updates. If the package for which Novell issues an update has already been “upgraded” by smart, I don’t apply the update and stay with smart. Obviously, this is not an ideal situation but it has worked so far for me.
Yast as a package manager is already on its way to being irrelevant/dead, due to the new Zen-based package manager in the new Suse distros. I’m pretty sure the poster was referring to Yast’s hardware management utilities being ported, exclusive/regardless of the package management utility.
I’ve been advocating that Yast’s hardware tools be ported to other distros ever since it was open-sourced a couple of years ago. Why it hasn’t happened yet is probably due to the fact that every other “desktop” distro was already in the middle of building its own GUI hardware tools at the time that Yast was first open-sourced. Mandriva, Ubuntu, and Red Hat all have their own hardware-management solutions. Ubuntu’s tools look to be on their way to becoming a heavyweight solution, but it will take a while until they approach Yast’s comprehensiveness. Although I haven’t used Mandriva since before the Mandrake name-change, recent screenshots reveal hardware management tools that seem to be approaching Suse’s. Meanwhile, I’m pretty sure Fedora’s GUI hardware tools are not as comprehensive as Suse’s, with much more hand-editing of config files required (although to be fair the last time I tried Fedora was Core 3).
Suse’s YaST, in conjunction with SaX2, definitely takes the crown for the most comprehensive GUI-based hardware setup solution.
Nevertheless, it should be noted that the YaST interface to all appearances hasn’t been changed/improved in years, and this is where I think Ubuntu may gain the edge (no pun intended
). In my experience, Yast suffers from its attempt to shoehorn a traditional GUI configuration interface into a wizard-based one. The user ends up stepping through heierarchies of dialogue boxes, albeit without realizing it, because they’re all displayed in the same space and with only the three wizard buttons “Next,” “Abort” and (the all-too-often grayed-out) “Back” presented, making the process seem linear. This necessitates all manner of extra-clicking repetitive madness and confusion for the user (and I think if you’ve ever delved into the depths of YaST’s Network Interface or Printer setup tools, you’ll have some idea of what I’m talking about).
The YaST tools’ interfaces could be substantially improved by either exposing the heirarchies through standard, pop-up dialog boxes (a la Windows and OS X) or by always presenting a list of steps along the left side of all Yast config tools so that the user is always clear about their position in the process, a la Suse’s initial OS installation tool (and that of many other OSes). Alternately, a fresh re-analysis and re-design of YaSt would probably be the most ideal solution (of course this would be up to Suse, since no one else is really working on Yast). Come on, you newly-materialized Suse/Novell UI-design whizzes, get on it!
Despite my critique, I still think YaST as it stands is the best hardware toolbox currently available for the Linux desktop. However, with Mandriva and particularly Ubuntu improving and expanding their toolsets all the time, if Suse/Novell doesn’t keep on improving Yast, it may not stay that way.
There’s no need to argue that this or that package manager is superior to YaST or vice versa.
Dude… yast isn’t a package manager. rpm is the package manager that yast uses. Yast is a systems management tool centralizing administration from everything like LVM volumes to reconfiguring the network card, to managing users, to changing dns entries. It is sooooooo much more than a package manager and a pretty frontend to rpm is *ONE* of the things it can do.
Yast has various modules to administer different things. Try running this to see what modules you have installed one a SUSE system:
yast –list
Dude… yast isn’t a package manager. rpm is the package manager that yast uses. (…) It is sooooooo much more than a package manager and a pretty frontend to rpm is *ONE* of the things it can do.
Thanks for calling me Dude.
The Big Lebowski is actually one of my favorite movies.
But then, I don’t recall calling YaST *just* a package manager. I just think lots of people use YaST to manage packages, and obviously my post, if read well, implies that YaST can do much more than that.
I use SLED on My laptop and desktop (I just bought the package) and I think it is the most polished distro ever, it doesnt even crash any more. It is so stable even when I use XGL. Well done Novell, you have done an amazing job. I hope they put better software in their repositories and I hope I really hope other companies also start developing their software on Linux and specially optimize it for the use in SLED as the leader in the Linux world.
I hope Novell continue this and create an even better OS when the Vista will be released. I want a killer OS by that time.
I totally agree!
No further comments
I tried it and liked it quite a bit. The reason I switched over to Ubuntu on my little test box was because of the community support. That’s where Ubuntu has everyone else beat right now.
Suse also seemed to run faster on some old hardware of mine, I just had trouble getting printers working, etc. compared to in Ubuntu.
I’ve actually written up some of my trials and tribulations here:
http://journals.fotki.com/airjrdn/Tech-Ramblings/
“That’s where Ubuntu has everyone else beat right now.” Im not sure about that. Have you ever been in the #gentoo channel, or looked their fourms, or the Wiki, or the Docs?? They have, in my opinion, the best support for any distro out there.
I have to agree…
Only because I use alot of Gentoo’s wiki’s and doc’s to help when I have an issue or need to know how to set something up in SUSE (SLED or 10 or 10.1). THey seem to carry over pretty well between the 2…
The article states that “Suse themselves had acquired Ximian” which is not true. Novell bought Ximian in Aug 2003 and then bought SUSE in Nov 2003.
thanks Mark (and the other guy who mailed me) for pointing this out, I have corrected this error and linked Ximian to this wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novell
cheers
anyweb
http://linux-noob.com/review/suse/sled10/
This week, I have just gone through testing Fedora Core 5, Ubuntu 6.06, OpenSUSE 10.2Alpha3, and Nexenta on my Acer ferrari laptop. Out of all the installs Ubuntu was easily the best out of the lot, Nexenta next. There is still plenty of work to be done before you can compare them to Windows or OSX for ease of use.
None of those is SLED.
The desktop itself, especially the “computer” menu is truthfully quite cool, but the rest of the OS I’m not too excited about. I’m firmly attached to using the commandline apt-get to get my programs, and I think managing apt repositories are massively easier, with less menus(or no menus, if done from the command line).
Perhaps I just don’t understand Suse, and some of you here could enlighten me, but I think the packages available for Suse 10 were rather limited. I really hate using my webbrowser to manually download and install packages, and then, even more fun, resolving their dependencies. I’ve heard of other repositories for Suse 10.1, but I don’t want to put the repositories for another OS onto my computer and potentially crap my OS when I update.
Lastly, I always felt the UI in YaST was never as efficient as synaptic + apt-get combo that I’ve become attached to.
Perhaps if SLED used YUM instead, I might like it a lot better, since it’s similar to apt.
Lack of a gigantic repository is certainly one of SLED/SUSE’s remaining problems.
OK apparently a lot of people know nothing about SLED or Suse. They both used rpm and almost all rpms work with it. Also Novell is still a newcomer in the Linux game and if anyone manages to get industry support for linux it’ll be Novell. Red Hat is too lazy and they believe in the “if you build it they will come” crap. Also as far as usability and inovations go I am sorry but Ubuntu is an amature compared to what Novell have done so far. So Novell deffinitely has my vote and I’ll give SLED 10 a shot one of these days. Oh and the community version is missing some of the niceties of SLED 10 … sorry guys …
I am a little bit confused about that much SuSE versions!
– SuSE Linux 10.1
– Open SuSE 10.1
– SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10
SuSE – but what is what? Oo
Open suse was a project not a distro
but because everybody was refering it as a distro novell decided to call ‘suse linux’ opensuse.
so opensuse for community and SLED for enterprise.
Since SLE10 (SLES and SLED) have been built from the same code base as SUSE Linux 10.1, all repositories for 10.1 will also work for SLE10. So if you need packages not included, http://en.opensuse.org/Additional_YaST_Package_Repositories
Obviously, by doing this, you will break support for the product.
Cheers,
MBoman
I read a lot about SLED being more “polished.”
I am not sure what that means, can somebody tell me, specifically, what can I do with SLED, that I can not do with other distros?
Is SLED just easier to set up? Or does SLED contain stuff that I can not get with free distros?