A1-Electronics reviews the latest version 9.0 from SuSE of their Linux operating system.
SuSE Linux Professional version 9.0 Review
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
It really fills you with confidence when the reviewer makes a screenshot by taking a picture of the screen with a camera (on page 2).
so he talks about the steps of the install, then says how its not a good OS because it has names for software that arent the same as windows users are used to. what a waste of time to read. eugenia, why did you even post this?
“We are all used to the names given to such everyday items in the Microsoft Windows system such as ‘Control Panel’, ‘Explorer’, ‘System’ or ‘Display, even ‘Word Pad’ but how do you get around such names as ‘YaST’. ”
As far as I know, YAST stands for Yet Another Setup Tools.
First the reviewer starts by saying it isn’t going to be a comparison to Windows because that wouldn’t be fair. So what does he go and do?? He’s whining that it doesn’t feel like Windows!!
“Setting up or connecting up to say a LAN you need to know how to program the SuSE Linux system to work.”
My exact point indeed.
This review is crap. It is not even a review–just a complaint about applet names. No description about what is new of what has changed, no comparition of its functionality. Why does OSnews post crap such as this?
“Then there is the GNOME desktop. What the heck is that. GNOME is a legendary mythical creature not a computer desktop in the year 2004. Maybe we have missed something. We often do.”
Maybe they prefer ‘Longhorn’.
“Setting up or connecting up to say a LAN you need to know how to program the SuSE Linux system to work.”
I use Windows and Linux and I’m not a particularly religious follower of any OS.
However, setting up and connecting to a LAN is one of the things which is much more straightforward and intuitive in SUSE (and other Linux distros I suppose) than in any brand of Windows I have seen.
General rant:
Any review must first of all respect the english language.
A poorly written ,gramatically butchered,article only reflects negatively on any opinions the author might present. If the author’s native language is not english
they might be excused from this requirement but the editor certainly is not.
Technical merit of review:
I dont often reply to articles such as his but when it gets this bad somehting should be said. The author has not in any way presented a useful review. Rather this seems like a quick compositon done at the local Starbucks to meet some
deadline.
In the future please dont waste our time which such thoughtles dribble. I dont blame the author as much as I blame Osnews for carrying such crap.
“Just the same as when you go buy a car say. You do not expect to have to go to college or university to learn how to make a car to be able to drive it. No, the controls should be the same from car to car no matter what car company has made the car and in what country. Can you imagine what it would be like if every maker made cars with completely different controls and to even get it started you needed to read a 10,000 page technical manual (Technical dictionary need) just to turn the ignition on. Not many of those strange cars would be sold, except to the few who know how to use them.”
This is the worse comparison I’ve ever heard of. You can’t compare an OS to a car.
I have news for you. Not all cars are they same… some are manual, some automatic. I’d like to see you put a student driver, that has only ever driven an automatic, behind the wheel of a manual. Write a review about that!
We couldn’t figure out what the third peddle was for. We tried to make it hold our drink, but the drink kept falling off. When we started the car, it jumped forward and hit the car in front of us. We really do not recomend cars that have drink holders that look like peddles. Maybe in 2005 all cars will have cup holders within arms reach.
that was great bob, gave me something to chuckle at while at work.
Yast is as easy to use as Windows Control Panel.
They should rename yast to SuSE Control Panel indeed. If the author would have read the first pages of the SuSE’s printed manual, he should had known that it is easy to configure a LAN.
At least, SuSE is installable by a Windows user, as the author said SuSE installer is better than Windows one
this review is a joke,
Authors name are not provided. I hope authors have more knowledge in electronics… 😉
but is it tru that the word “control panel” is patented?
I have to agree with everyone else here. This isn’t a review, it’s flamebait and a trolling tirade. This guy seriously expects SuSE to rename YaST to Control Panel and Konqueror to Explorer? Should SUSE also rename its product to “Windows 2000” and its Linux kernel to “NT5?”
Apple named its web browser “Safari.” We aren’t on a Safari here, we’re browsing the web…
This guy is a joke. I don’t even care about his English. Even in his native language he’d be a joke. Don’t post things like this and call them “reviews.” This guy doesn’t even know how to explore an operating system. Did you notice how he didn’t even take a proper screenshot for the article (you can see the scanlines in his monitor–so he took it with his digital camera, or maybe worse, with a conventional camera and then scanned the print with his TWAIN drivers in Windows–what the fuck is TWAIN, by the by!? Let’s call a spade and spade here and not a TWAIN. With 6 CDs in SUSE Professional, I’m sure there was an image capture utility somewhere).
Maybe OSNews should make it clear in its headlines: “Reviews” are in-depth analyses of an operating system, or, as is more often the case, a Linux distribution, which exhaustively checks its stability, its features, its pros and cons and concludes whether or not it is a product worth buying/downloading. “Impressions” are stream-of-consciousness splatterings of people who stared at a Linux desktop for a few minutes and commented on how little it resembles Windows. Bla.
I agree with everyone else that this review’s not worth bothering with – a ten year old could manage a more objective analysis.
However while I certainly _don’t_ agree with his idea that all the parts should be named the same as in windows, perhaps there is a slight point here – newbies don’t know what “YaST” stands for; perhaps it would be better to call it something relating more to its use?
And no, I’m not trying to defend this “review”!
I’m no fan of SUSE but even I agree that this so-called review isn’t worth the time of day.
I agree with most of the comments: this article hardly qualifies as a “review.”
He’s right, though, about odd Linux names. They really should be more descriptive, with fewer acronyms and legacy terms. A lot of the distros are moving in this direction already.
Yast may be a strange term, but it’s a damn convenient piece of software. Thee article really didn’t bother with little details like “How well does this work?” In Yast’s case, it’s quite well. Perhaps that doesn’t matter to some self-appointed software reviewers.
I’ve read several SuSE 9.0 reviews now from this site and none of them tell me if SuSE is a good choice for me or not. I’m a 2 year Debian user. Can anyone tell me what’s to like or not to like about SuSE 9.0? I’d like to move to a distro that’s more current than Debian.
Thanks,
Daren
Can anyone tell me what’s to like or not to like about SuSE 9.0? I’d like to move to a distro that’s more current than Debian.
I can’t tell you what flavor of ice cream you’re going to like the taste of any more than I can tell you which distro you’re going to like. Personally, I didn’t think much of SUSE 9 when I installed it*. But others rave about it. I think Mandrake is great. Others hate it. It’s all up to personal preferences. There’s no right or wrong. It’s only opinion.
This reads like an assumption that everyone should ‘follow the windows way’
While I fully agree on the naming conventions of components such as YaSt (yet another setup tool?) I disagree that the names KDE or GNOME are any lesser than names such as Apple, Macintosh or Apple ! – we just know those names so well, it’s hard to break from the mould.
But that’s just names – what about using the damn OS – you explained the install, then went into this rant about naming conventions.
Hi Daren, Being a Debian user you are probably used to a very reliable stable system. Suse will offer you this in a system with up to date config tools and software. Mandrake is a bleeding edge distro renowned for buggy releases and their last effort follows this trend. I think Suse is great.
If I employed this person to do a review and he produced this rubbish I would sack him on the spot. My 12 year old daughter could write a better review and so could I.
What drivel. Doesn’t like the term YAST!
I disagree fundamentally with everything said in the review.
Ah well excuse the English if not his mother tongue.
Other than that it is pure unadultered garbage.
Suse 8.1 install gave me headaches and weren’t a success. However, by 8.2 SuSE had made so many improvements that I decided this would be my desktop and this is now the case for several months.
It is easier to install than Windows. It is more modern and excellent graphics (gimp, snapshot). I was on the net and doing email in 5 minutes after install. Connections between a laptop and the desktop? No problems Krusader. If you make a seperate /home partition / root partition /swap at the minimum when first installing, it is so easy to do FULL data backups from simple command lines.
My experience could be no more different than the <reviewer> if you tried.
This <review> should be archived straight away and discarded as being utter rubbish.
Well, I thought the review was one word AWESOME!
The best writing since I read, ‘Riding the short school bus’ in which I rode the little school bus when I grew up.
Hi Daren,
I would recommend SuSE as a distribution you should try. Bear in mind that I have only 6 months experience under my belt or thereabouts. I am still with V8.2 and V9 is out. However I am using OpenOffice 1.1 (part of V9) and the improvements over the 1.0 version are many. YAST does an excellent job with older and fairly new equipment.
I like some parts of Debian apt-get I think is brilliant. Although I never got to install it without the aid of Knoppix.
Knoppix is a brilliant way to install Debian. I have used the Knoppix distribution first to quickly get a first viewing of Linux and secondly now as a rescue disk. Used once in this role.
Yes excellent comment. Obviously didn’t get that far as to using KSnapshot (what could be easier, to acquire high-grade exact screen shots??)
How do you report abuse on a review.
This guy is a M$ troll.
This is a pretty poor attempt at researching and writing a review supposedly representing a “typical” Windows user. Who voted him that?
If he wrote it from his own point of view I could maybe see it, but from setting up close to a dozen users now on SuSE 8.2, I have had no complaints from any of them. And I have had 3 other friends novices set up their own PC’s with Linux and no issues.
The only issues they had were just a few minor questions, a lot less then all the Windows issues I have had to solve for them in the past because Windows let them get into all kinds of trouble with all of its open doors.
But I digress, this review was a major flop.
I’m going to avoid bashing the review, because I think the author has gotten enough. Instead, I’m going to tell a little story about just how easy cars are…
In the process of driving from Amsterdam to Paris, I run out of gas. I stop at a station and prepare to fill up, but then I realize I have no clue what kind of gas (its a rental) the car takes. I hesitated to put in gasoline, because I read somewhere that diesel cars are common in Europe. I look for a “TDI” in the model number (maybe they made it easy for me) but no luck. I look for symbols on the gas cap and the pump, to see if anything matches, and I get nothing. I try calling the rental company, but the phone system is in Dutch. So I muster all of my limited French skills and ask the gas station attendant, but he has no clue. He suggests looking in the manual…which is in Dutch. So I say “the hell with it” and try diesel. The pump nozzle is too big to fit into the gas tank recepticle. So gasoline it is.
So what’s the point of this somewhat drawn-out story? Everything is hard. Cars (like Windows) only seems easy to people because they already know how it works. They know the conventions, they know the terminology, they understand the mindset of the developers. Yet, in a foreign situation, here they don’t already know how things work, they can’t understand the terminology, and they don’t know the conventions, people will be lost. Cars are an order of magnitude simpler than computers, and only have one function, rather than dozens. Even then, if you don’t know what you’re doing, you’ll be lost.
Does “Explorer” make any more sense than “Konqueror”. No. Both are meaningless to those unfamiliar with them. Even the ubiqtuous “globe” is useless. Does a globe have any connection to “the internet” for a computer neophyte? Does a big “W” have any connection to word processing? Does a “computer” icon really suggest that it starts a program to let you browse your drives? What the hell is a “drive” anyway? They’re just grey boxes! Does a picture of a house indicate that’s the folder where your documents are stored? Even the concept of a “Control Center” is foreign. Who the hell has a “Control Center” in their house? “Control Centers” are for nuclear plants and military base. In most of the things that people are exposed to daily, configuration do-dads are spread out. In a car, the radio controls are on the center console, while the headlight controls are on the steering wheel. And the transmission control is on the floor. In my basement, the circuit breakers are at one end, the water shutoff is at the other end, and the security system hub is in the middle. Again, I ask you: what’s a “control center?”
It’s not much of a review but it isn’t garbage (and I’ve been a keen SuSE user for a long time now). He’s right on the money when he says that if Linux is to become truly popular, then those behind it have to step right back and look at the computer from the POV of Jack and Mary in the office. They don’t have much if any technical knowledge and no interest in acquring any either. Almost every comment here dodges this question, or dismisses it as unimportant. It isn’t. It’s the centre of the whole thing.
Well after reading all the comments on this article I am not gonna even bother to read it, but I must comment on this wonderful operating system. I confess to being a complete idiot when it comes to computing but am learning. I desired an installation of SuSE for some time now. From this newbies point of view the install was effortless, painless
and effecient. The OS is incrediblly refreshing, and different. I found YaST, and installed from my first tarball last nite. The terminals found within the file manager greatly assisted me in compiling the tarball. This system is designed to work! From what I see this OS is also designed to play. Many years ago I was told you get what you pay for, if you buy cheap, you get cheap. This concept does not apply to Open Source, GNU. This in my humble opinion is a gift from god. Thanks much to all of you who have devoted so much to all of us.
I dont really care about the point of that “reveiw” if there
was indeed a point but i must say SUSE is a great operating
system…..linux
because eugenia give everybody a chance to express their views and experiance on any OS.
BTW, If you prefer to read more balanced reviews, stick to her ones.
to all of you, happy new year
Well, how many ‘real’ applications are there for linux.
I lost count after the first thousand or so.
Ones that have standards, compatibility with other apps, well there are not any.
And that, my friend, proves that you don’t know what you are talking about. Linux apps, in general, tend to comply to existing, open standards. If they don’t, guess what, you have full acces to the code and can write a compatibility layer for your application if you want to. That’s why open is good.
How many desktops come pre-loaded with linux, lets see maybe three….
Point being?
Another thing, this is like the 3rd review on this, can you not find anything better?
Wow, something we can actually agree upon.
I’ve read several SuSE 9.0 reviews now from this site and none of them tell me if SuSE is a good choice for me or not. I’m a 2 year Debian user. Can anyone tell me what’s to like or not to like about SuSE 9.0? I’d like to move to a distro that’s more current than Debian.
I’ve used both quite extensively, and while OS taste is subjective, I think you will find SuSE limiting. It’s a good system, but Debian is easier to update and easier to install things on.
If you want a more up-to-date experience, why not run Debian unstable? Do you think that Gnome 2.4, XFce4, Window Maker 0.81, etc. are any different on Debian unstable than they are on SuSE, RedHat, or any other “up-to-date” OS? They aren’t.
Don’t waste your breath. That guy is someone impersonating Archie. He’s a troll, plain and simple.
This guy can’t tell the difference between Linux or Windows.
How is it possible that you, once a good distributor on benews has been this retarded? YES retarded!!!
ARGH, I’ve shut my mouth too long now, can’t do it anymore.
For the love of god, please wake up Eugenia
(((
Are you doing this because you want OSNews to be as Slashdot?
Furthermore, EVERYONE that tells you something negative, and I mean EVERYONE, is dissed by you. Wake up, or if it’s the case, step down from that high horse…..or what the hell you are riding on
– Vecc (So disapointed with Eugenia)
I was a newbie when I got SuSE 8.0. It explained what YaST meant a few lines into the instruction book. I don’t have 9.0 but I would bet there is an explaination for every name this guy had problems with. Of course different companies call the same thing different names. They don’t want to seem like they are copying. Netscape uses bookmarks and IC uses favorites for the same thing.
I don’t think this guy read the book. SuSE gives some great instructions. If I could get a Linux system installed with minimal problems anyone can. I would recomend SuSE to anyone who wants to try Linux.
Thanks you guys, I’m really glad I clicked on ‘comments’ tonight before work
I haven’t read the article yet but after your comments I have too. You guys are sooo mean. Maybe he is just honestly a first time linux user or this is his first review…in any case it’s nice that he’s trying linux. Back when I tried linux the first time, I spent a few weeks Trying to think of reasons I liked windows 98 more, but in the end it took awhile…even going back to windows for about a year…but in the end and to this day I only use linux and will never go back to windows. Why do you guys take yourselves so seriously? As long as windows grates on the nerves of so many people there really isn’t any reason to be insecure about the future of linux. I doubt that this guys next review will be posted on OSnews…but it will probably be much more favorable to whatever version of linux he tries next!!
One thing to note for those saying SUSE is on the slow side (including me!) is that the default kernel install on the 9.0 CD’s (2.4.21-99) seems to cause trouble with certain laptop configurations. You will know if you have this problem if your fan is blaring away during the install. Running “top” will report 40% CPU load at idle! The good news is that the kernel upgrades available during install fix this problem. You will have to reboot once to get the kernel modules all arranged correctly. Also, if you want to use the Nvidia drivers, DON’T configure them during install, because you will have to redo it anyway when the new kernel is in place.
I’m still going back and forth between SUSE and Mandrake. I can’t quantify it precisely, but SUSE feels “heavier” during use than Mandrake. Of course, in SUSE’s favor is that it has yet to get confused by any hardware I throw at it. My Inspiron notebook has both a wireless (linux suppored orinoco mini-pci) and Broadcom LAN. Mandrake became confused by this, setting up my gateway/firewall config on the wrong interface (yep, I typed it in right!). SUSE handled it flawlessly during install. No doubt Mandrake would have been good to go with a bit more tweaking.
SUSE is getting points from me for being the only distro who’s stock kernel sources work with frequency scaling, SMP, ACPI, and highmem all turned on when recompiling.
Anonymous complains of the reviewer’s poor english, but in his rant I count 2 errors in punctuation, 2 errors in spelling and another in usage. Hmm.
Have you ever tried Libranet? This is the only dist. I have EVER seen no one left after trying.
Please try before posting. I know it’s a pay-for-dist, but it’s so good you will not regret it.
I agree the review is crap, even for a 15year old non english-speaking dropout. However, I do understand his point about names in Linux and his general “wtf is this?” impression. I can remember when I first started trying to use Linux how it felt. What’s the command to rename a file? How do I stop the ping command? My file manager’s name is Konqueror, and it’s also a web browser? What is a Midnight Commander? What the hell is emacs? Even most icons (if there is one) don’t give you a clue about what it does. MS has used designers and artists for years to give it’s products a smooth, uniform, and intuitive look. Who designed the look of most Linux apps? Usually the same person who wrote the code, and frankly, it shows. I’m not trying to be a troll here, but come on guys, seriously, it needs work before it’s ever gonna match MS or Mac. And not so much the work of coders either, I mean Linux GUI’s need the help of the artsy-fartsy crowd to make them better.
Is a Linux GUI good enough to use? Sure it is. But stop thumping your chest and acting like it’s a better interface than MS, because to the unwashed masses it just plain is not. Most of us reading this already know how to use and configure our Linux systems, but trust me, for Joe Desktop coming from a lifetime of MS usage, it’s like Chinese arithmatic.
I think a lot of Linux users right now are under the impression that if we can get everyone to just try Linux, they’ll all love it just as much as we do. They won’t. Not in it’s current state anyway. Why? Because it’s fucking hard to learn, the desktops look wierd, and they can’t quickly find the tools they need to do the job they want. And don’t say RTFM because Joe Desktop wouldn’t do that if his life depended on it. Linux as it is right now takes a geek to love it. We are the geeks, people. The rest of the world are NOT geeks. They actually want things to look pretty, have meaningful names, and let talking paperclips tell them what button to click next.
And don’t even get me started on XWindows performance.
/end rant #Feel better now
He has a point with the names of Linux applications. They used to be very foreign to me too. YaST? comon. This is THE configuration tool on SuSE. And a large one. No other distro has anything even close. And then they call it YaST of all things. I don’t think that’s the first place a newbie looks when looking for a config tool. YaST is the name you use for something when all other names are already taken. I guess time was running out for SuSE or something and the publisher had to know now.
I like the K and the G prefixes. Put them on the MS names and everybody is immediately at home. KExplorer, KOutlook,KExcel,KPowerpoint… And maybe a lawsuit. Like with Lindows.
But some of the existing K names are already better than MS’s names. KMail,KWord,KSpread,… Konqueror though should be KExplorer,KBrowse or KWeb instead. And YaSt should be KConfig, KSetup or KControl – allthough YaST is not a KDE app.
And then it all comes down to… is Linux for enthusiasts only or for everybody. If the latter then the names must be a little less alienating.
I think one of the most missed points in computing is not that we should “match windows” and such, one is not “easier” than the other… It almost always comes down to where you start, then ability with such things second.
My girlfriend for example started with SuSE 6.2 (I think, early anyway) and since then has continued to use linux, she gets LOST in windows. And she is NOT a “technical person”.
One example, but a realistic one. IMO, ofc.
It is clearly a rubbish review in my point. Anyway, even whether or not a such review exists, I think that Linux Distros make computer users playing ping-pong. What a mess-up! Today Mdk, tomorrow FC core, then back to SUSE or so on. Bad luck for Linux newbies, they keep trying many distros, go back and forth, non-stop changing but solve nothing. It isnt called as an OS revolution. Just slowdown the development circle. I see a lot of reviews, comments and so on, almostly they talk about installation, *DE, configuration rather than a big jump in IT techno
my favourite one is Slackware Linux forever :-).
[email protected]
Boy you guys are an uptight bunch. Lets lay off Eugenia and the reviewer. Nobody is forcing you guys to read the review. If you don’t like it don’t read it. No need to insult people for no good reason. Some of your comments are worse to read than the review. Did you have a bad Christmas or something? If your going to criticize lets be constructive about it otherwise don’t bother to post it because it’s trash.
All this mentioning of YaST but I have not seen any mention of the excellent printed documentation that comes with SuSE Linux least of which will clearly point out WTF YaST is! This is for the Pro version which has traditionally leaned more on the side that user is knoweldgeable. I would venture to say that the personal edition would have catered more to the the reviewers ignorance.
At some point users have to become accountable for themeselves. If that is too much then stick with Windows and quit complaining; with freedom comes responsibility – simple as that.
True, the manuals are excellent for SuSE. You are right too about freedom coming with responsibility to learn, that cannot be a bad thing either to learn something new……
“…talking paperclips…..”
I love it!!!!
You made my day.
John
OK, so this wasn’t a usefull review and I _was_ hoping to actually learn something about this distro.. but I gives me an IDEA !
Window Dressing ™
A set of soft-links and icons that map the (sane but unfamiliar) linux controls and file systems to their Windows (lame but ubiquitous) counterparts. If designed properly It could make the fresh-off-the-Windoze-boat newbie immediately at home. It could have a method of gently revealing the true names and workings so that said n00b would learn the linux way painlessly.
well ?
Thank you Eugenia, I had never heard of ‘www.a1-electronics.net’ before. I now know to avoid them like the plague.
>> A1-Electronics reviews the latest version 9.0 from SuSE of their Linux operating system.
I know English is not your first language and I am sympathetic (I know it is not the simplest of languages), I think perhaps you meant:
A1-Electronics reviews the latest Linux operating system from SuSE (version 9.0)
That was one of the funniest things I’ve read all year! Oh, wait. It’s January 1st…
Really, though, I can’t believe that anyone took that seriously enough to post it as some sort of professional review.
8.2 went on easier.
9.0 seem to have trouble with the nvidia geoforce card/lcd monitor combination. I couldn’t even start X at first.
I still don’t have the “press f2” and the progress bar when booting – just a low res text screen instead of the lovely high res ones with 8.2
On the laptop the wifi was picked up immediatly on 8.2 and worked straight away.
I still havn’t got it working on 9.0
Even so Suse is so much better than the Redhat install I’ve got. (hate to say it but redhat can’t get it right)