There’s a brand new SuSE Linux 9.0 PRO review on the UnixReview site.
SuSE Linux 9 Pro Review at UnixReview
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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I Just Got me SusI today, it really is Rock. Hard to beliefe use anyone else on the computer anymore SusI is the best and you should try also.
have fun on the device
Hans
I am not in the position to tell whether this has been with previous versions or whether it is a “feature”, but it makes the whole RPM thinggy pretty pointless to me from now on, I am afraid:
Yes, there is an easy graphical setup for Samba and others + it does work. Being still far from an expert, this was one thing for me to get the box nonetheless. But the box comes with samba 2.2.8a whilst we recently had the samba 3 release. So I got myself the SuSE 9 samba 3 rpms and installed them right away.
Veeery unfortunately, the system does not understand that samba 3 is installed/that samba is installed at all if you don’t use the boxed 2.2.8a version for starting samba with the YAST server enrty. So upon trying to start the samba server via YAST, it will notify you that in order to get samba started, the respective rpms need to be installed and if you click carelessly, it will uninstall samba 3 and put 2.2.8a instead — *ouch* is this how rpm is meant to work..?! This renders later overall system updates pretty unusable in my book.
I don’t know whether this is due to the system not really “seeing” the samba 3, but as least from the command line using YAST / YAST2 you will see all options *except* those new server config-tools — not good for remote admining via ssh, then again, someone ssh-admining probably knows his ways around anyway (it may be there with 2.2.8 but don’t ask me to reinstall yet another time only to figure this one out.. 😉 ).
Matrox is not NVidia, but SuSE never detected my Quatro2 Pro till 8.2, but 9 did. I think hardware support has been really beafed up with this release as has been advertised. For example, I have a Logitech Trackman Wheel, which is a rather exotic device — the wheel never worked till 8.2 but it does now out of the box. I have never used scanners before, but I do now and browsing through the device list, it seems to cover plenty. This however may be true for other distros as well.
This may be new to me only, but I was always kinda angry that for example browsers that get install subsequently after downloading rpms never get their entry in the control. I have (re-)installed this about 8-9 times by now and last time I chose everything I wanted in YAST right from the beginning and was pleased to see that all the stuff got its entries in the controls, namely Firebird, Opera, Kopete, gFTP… maybe this is common by now, but Flash and Java are preconfigured as well, though not Flash for Opera (not for me, that is). Both works in konq. as well.
What else..? – Current nvidia work fine with 3D as well on favious cards for me.
Whether this release justified more than a point release..? Well, I guess the author has gotten to hear all that talk about how every single rpm had been recompiled with the latest rpm version and that SuSE brings support for an all new 64 bit platform — well, it’s only a name after all, who cares.
I did updates from 8.2 to 9 as well for curiousity and there was a not so pleasant thing: Usually you get konqueror to ask “install” with YAST-button on the top upon hitting an rpm — this feature disappeared for me and I was very annoyed to have to call YAST manually for every thing. This toughed me that updating is never a good thing and I will go for clean installs in the future.
I tried X less installs a couple times as well because I wanted to see whether this would be n00b friendly with respect to the fact that we beginners are often intimmidated when we have to hack around this way only. But you can really work with YAST exactly as in KDE, only in a shitty 2D-way, but its OK.
My main focus is currently to get a W2K home server replaced with an X-less samba. So if anybody is still reading by now: Make sure to unmarks all samba rpms in YAST before installation starts. When basic install is done, you will first have to install an rpm called cups lib… or alike and then it’s best to rpm -i *rpm all the samba3 rpms. you can copy your old 2.2.8 configs over to /etc/samba and of you go… if you merely update the rpms over the 228 ones you are likely to end up in a mess. But if you clean out with yast just about everything, be it 228 or 3 and then reinstall samba3, this will work fine.
Was it worth buying? Not as an upgrade, I’d say — 80 Euros is plenty of cash after all. Buying this if you have to make a choice anyway, this is definately a really polished up and version, you can really see this in many details and it is the details that make using it such a joy compared to 8.2. Finaly note for /german only?) teachers/students/pupils: Of course you can get this for 49 E reduced price is you produce your ID… at that price, a 2-sided DVD, 5 CDs + 1100+ pages manuals is very tempting.
Dependencies depencies depencies…
I hate to say this once again, but when can an open minded guy like me trust Linux users? Everyone say it’s Ready for desktop etc etc. I’ve only said that whatever happens please never give me these dependency errors again that you promise don’t exist. I’ve tried Linux twice now, last time 2 months ago, I tried 2 different distros, Gentoo and Red Hat. All I had was problems.
Now I get this issue up here again, it’ll be 3 years without me reading ANY thing about dependencies before I’d ever try or recommend someone trying Linux again.
Oh, and my main source of info about what distros own is from commentsection osnews.com . So any Zealotry comments are not needed thank you very much!
By any means, could you be specific about this? I mean, I’ve been using Gentoo for over a year now and I’ve never had any dependencies problems. I even deploy Gentoo servers/desktops in corporate environment because it’s one of the easiest distro to manage for first-time users i.e. Windows 2000 admins.
Now if you said you had that kind of problems with RedHat I would understand, but with Gentoo? It’s pretty hard to believe.
Amazon has this (professional version) for $65.00.
And if you look on their web page you can find it for $45.00 from gray-market types.
I think I’ll take the article’s advice and wait, since I have 8.2. But for me, Suse is the best distro available for the home user who needs a windows replacement. I’ve been hit with so many windows viruses, worms and IE hijackers since summer I do everything I can in my Suse dual boot drive now.
I’m pretty easy-going when it comes to the windows-linux battle, but windows is really getting very hard to use because of unending security attacks. I’m starting to get a facial twitch when I see that windows logo.
I hate to say this once again, but when can an open minded guy like me trust Linux users? Everyone say it’s Ready for desktop etc etc.
They have been saying it was ready ever since the color install in Slackware was considered to be a luxury item. Whenever you see a full-blown version of AOL available for Linux, then you will know it’s ready.
As for Gentoo, while (AFAIK) it doesn’t have dependency problems, it’s got a whole share of problems of its own. I have no idea what happens when an app you want to install has no ebuild available for it though.
I personally think that the people who say it is ready feel that it is ready for them. The problem with blanket statements is that they can never cover everyone.
Is Linux ready for the desktop FOR ME? Yes. For what I need out of my computer system, it is ready for the desktop. Is Linux ready for the desktop for MY MOTHER? No. I don’t even want to go there. I’ve looked at a lot of the new versions (Lycros, Xandros, etc.) and I think they are getting close, but the advantage of Linux is still, in my opinion, its major problem. Choice. There are twenty apps that do the same thing, and most low-level users don’t want to spend the time doing the checking to see what they like. And if their buddy is using App-X and they have App-Y, most times, the data formats do not convert.
A lot of Linux-people don’t like to admit it, but Windows still has its advantages and a place on some desktops.
SMF
If an app you want to install has no ebuild in Portage, then you look for one on forums.gentoo.org, or breakmygentoo.net. If you still can’t find one, then you can write your own. An ebuild is a simple script, and is nowhere near as complicated as a RPM or DPKG package. What most often happens is that the you have an ebuild of an older version, and you simply have to make a few text substitutions to update it to a newer one. If you don’t want to bother making an ebuild, just grab the RPM version and install it with –nodeps. It won’t get integrated into Portage’s dependency tree, but if a package is so obscure as to not have an ebuild, its highly probable that nothing depends on it either.
PS> Don’t give me any grief about people not being smart enough to edit a text file or pass a parameter to RPM. Gentoo is not meant for new users.
PS2> @Anonymous: Please tell me you didn’t start downloading random RPMs from rpmfind? Down that path lies only pain and misery. There are lots of APT (and now Yum) repositories available for Redhat (and will only get more extensive with Fedora), and you can’t complain if you haven’t tried those instead. Or, if that process is too involved for you, use one of the Debian-based newbie distros that has it set up out of box.
PS3> Interesting news item on DebianPlanet. The guys at Progegny have added RPM support to the mainline of APT, and eventually hope to be able to have RPMs and DEBs live on the same system. That would lead to a much-needed unification of the package repositories, without fundementally messing with the various package managers available.
Whenever you see a full-blown version of AOL available for Linux, then you will know it’s ready.
Some might say that it is because of evolutionary features, (such as a lack of AOL), that Linux is ready.
I have Suse 9 and Kpackage is driving me insane.
So many dependancies .. I ended up installing Apt4RPM but just kind of lost when i’m looking for the proper sources list.
any ideas?
every rpm-based distribution tries to solve the “packaging-problem”. mandrake has urpmi, suse uses yast, redhat has redhat-network.
basically, it’s useless. you get stuck in “dependency-hell” time and again. i guess it’s just a matter of time before suse and mandrake finally adapt apt or yum, just like redhat recently did for fedora. it’s just the better technology.
if fedora core comes out with apt/yum support (and it will do!), the two other big desktop linux corporations, mandrake and suse will not lag far behind… i expect apt/yum for those two coming really soon… like, with the next version in spring…
cheers,
marillchen
Download the source rpm (SRPM) , and do a rebuild (#rpmbuild –rebuild filename.src.rpm). Or download the tarball, install (./configure; make; make install) and then edit your menus to show the new app. Dependency issues? Probably. Solve them. The grey matter between the ears is there for a reason. README, INSTALL, etc. Great files. They’re there for specific purposes. Whoever released the package you are trying to install probably has a webpage that would have the needed dependencies (or, at least, a link to them).
No two distro’s are the same. No one’s fault and not a problem. Pick one that fits you, and then learn it. I have used SuSE before, not always my fav (a little too much green at times
, for now I’m using Mandrake 9.1 on my main machine (URPMI has been flawless for me) and I have a Slack 9.0 box to keep me honest. That crap we’ve all seen before about Linux being worthwhile only if your time is worthless is wrong. Learning anything, even for the simple sake of learning, is worth your time. The cost of freedom. Ante up.
For something like Samba (or any running service), disable the service, backup the relevant .conf file (in this case smb.conf), uninstall samba, then install the new version.
snowdog
Maybe you didn’t understand the thread. It was about easy-of-use. You see, there’s people out there who have stuff to be done quickly, are not IT-specialists and don’t wanna be either. They just want to install the program asap (preferably pressing “next->next->finish” and get on with their business. For those, Linux is not ready yet, unfortunately.