The new SUSE LINUX 9.1 Personal and Professional features an enhanced product concept and many new, innovative technologies, says SuSE. Chris Schlaeger, Vice President Research & Development at SUSE LINUX, explains the most important new features in detail.
What Is New in SUSE LINUX 9.1?
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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-integrated water proof firewall
Phew, now I can surf in my pool.
Gnome 2.4 or 2.4.2? It says 2.4 in the Professional link, but I read somewhere 2.4.2.
“… with Kernel 2.6.3 and KDE 3.2 when Mandrake 10.0 has been out for two weeks. “
Well, Mandrake 10 Community is out…that is the final beta before the official release. Mandrake 10 Official will not be released until I believe mid may. That will make SuSE the first distribution to offer it officially.
Anyone who pre-get screenshot??? I love to see KDE GUI of this new version. Let see who can beat Mandrake KDE…
“I” really like that theme.
” The new, greatly improved version of the popular graphical desktop environment KDE. KDE starts up faster than previously, automatically plays inserted media (CD, DVD)”
the only thing i hate about suse is that they always advertise dvd playing in their ads but dvd comes disabled because of “potential lawsuits.” i understand they’re protecting their asses, but why advertise dvd playback ability and not have it?
“For Linux veterans, the time has come to part with a Linux peculiarity many have become fond of: the mounting and unmounting of removable media. CDs and DVDs can now be ejected with a button click without having to unmount them manually.”
Sweet
Great 2.4 is coming out just in time for gnome 2.6’s launch
GNOME 2.4.0 is current; GNOME 2.5.x and beyond are currently in beta. SuSE is releasing a tested version
http://www.distrowatch.com
Is “Student Professional” edition the exact same thing as the regular professional edition with maybe less support? I never need SuSe’s support but really want and need the extra software that comes with pro.
Anyone know if like regular pro, it includes both a dvd AND CD’s?
Thanks.
If you look on their website, when they describe the student version they link to the regular professional version. All it is is a price difference. Consider it… it’d cost way too much to provide TWO more different boxes, manuals, labeling, contents, etc.
You can probably just get the personal edition and then amend by download once SuSE puts Pro on the web.
On the other hand – I’m sure Novell/SuSE doesn’t mind more support. Maybe some of it will even go back into promoting Linux.
$#%$^$ 9.1 is AWESOME!!! I LOVE THE GUI! It’s even better than that of Mandrake. Check it out:
http://www.suse.de/en/company/press/services/images/screenshots/sl_…
There are three more screenshots available:
http://www.suse.de/en/company/press/services/images/screenshots/sl_…
http://www.suse.de/en/company/press/services/images/screenshots/sl_…
http://www.suse.de/en/company/press/services/images/screenshots/sl_…
On the last one you see the nice OOo integration into KDE (icons and style). 🙂
I don’t have to mount and unmount my CD rom from command line to eject or use it! No wonder 2004 is the year of the Linux desktop!
On a serious note though I am glad to see the personal version is now $40. SuSE is a bit more polished and stable than Mandrake, but Mandrake is free and you can pick up a MandrakeClub (for packages) membership for $60, which was the cost of boxed copy of SuSE.
Mandrake also doesn’t need mounting of cd
they use magicdev ( + automount???).
So SuSe didn’t ionvate so much there.
I don’t see what changed from suse 9.0 to 9.1, only rpm’s get upgraded.
“For Linux veterans, the time has come to part with a Linux peculiarity many have become fond of: the mounting and unmounting of removable media. CDs and DVDs can now be ejected with a button click without having to unmount them manually.”
Nice to see that Suse can finally do what Mandrake has been doing for 4 years, except that Mandrake users get to be flamed for innovating first, because this was an unimportant feature at the time for all the self-proclaimed gurus.
When should we expect to be able to install SuSE 9.1 via FTP? Did they specify a date for that?
If I use Gnome, will OpenOffice still have KDE icons, or will they be Gnome equivalents or the standard OOo icons?
BTW, why is icons DE specific. After all its about the same arrows, media symbols, not to mention mime-type symbols that is used in all desktop environments. Some reuse would be in order.
After all making a good collection of icons involves a lot of work, so why not make it useful to more people.
Why can’t there be a ~/.freedesktop.org folder that contains settings that are common to most desktop environments? Other than icons, such folder could also contain a common bookmark format, and a common addressbook format.
They are still worth credit for it. Good features like this should be on every Linux desktop. The more distros that adopt it the sooner it will be the defacto standard.
That’s why it’s called 9.1 — not 10.0. It adds even more polish, and of course features and updates, I hope this is not a bad thing in your view.
Besides, why are there so many Mandrake-comments in here? Are they envious because Mandrake is bug-ridden as ever with their 10.0..?
Wow, those screenshots do look really, really nice. I’m not so sure about the window decorations though – they seem slightly peculiar. I wonder what their GNOME looks like, if Ximian has given them an extra hand at all.
Does SuSE include anything along the lines of Yum or APT? Or will they just use Ximian’s Red/Open Carpet product? Dependency solving is rather 2002.
At CeBIT one employee said 2 weeks, for 9.0 it was IIRC 4 weeks and for 8.2 it was 6 weeks or more.
I’m pretty sure Gnome current is 2.5 (because I downloaded it) and is in rc for 2.6 right now. I may be wrong but aren’t the odd numbers the unstable releases and the evens stable – so 2.4 is the current stable. 2.6 looks great btw.
http://www.gnome.org/~jdub/garnome/download/
2.5.92 – Download!
* GNOME 2.6 Desktop & Developer Platform Release Candidate 1
every distro has had this feature for ages, heck, even debian has it with autofs
Ugly. Doesn’t even come close to Galaxy2.
Yes it is Gnome 2.4.2 & Kde 3.2.1, the only thing that i have heard but is not spoken about in the links provided above is that gnome is the new default display manager, plus it only stats that it is kernel 2.6 not 2.6.3…
> is that gnome is the new default display manager,
I heavily doubt this. The current betas ship with KDE as the default (which makes sense as most people demand KDE as the default). And KDE is the only desktop which is available on the SUSE Linux 9.1 Personal.
Apart from that Ximian has been split apart and doesn’t really exist anymore – the only thing left is the brand name.
I’d been hoping they’d really polish off both desktops. Maybe for 10.0. As regards the widget theme, one of the screenshots appears to be using Keramik, I hope this isn’t the default as it’s a bit extreme for a typical desktop.
> I’d been hoping they’d really polish off both desktops. Maybe for 10.0. As regards the widget theme, one of the screenshots appears to be using Keramik, I hope this isn’t the default as it’s a bit extreme for a typical desktop.
Um, Keramik has been default in Suse for a long time.
Personally I’m not a big fan of those antialiased fonts.
Could it possible with SuSE to have the same fonts I’m using under Windows2K ?
I don’t like antialised fonts too much…
Last time I used 9.0 when I unselected “Antialias fonts” option the fonts “were crappy”
Thanks,
Apart from that Ximian has been split apart and doesn’t really exist anymore – the only thing left is the brand name.
Hmm..Didn’t hear much of this. Got any links? If so, and this means a bigger “SuSE” influence than a “Ximian” influence in the future for Novell’s distro, I’d have to say that’s pretty disappointing. SuSE’s cool, but they need to streamline a bit. They’re messy.
Then again, I’ve noticed some Ximian-like touch-ups in 9.1, so I guess the Ximian guys are working on SuSE Linux now?
For the guy who asked about GNOME: Yes, it’s there, and it uses the same icon set as KDE, along with the “Geramik” theme, a KDE-like Panel setup, etc..In other words, it’s GNOME, but it behaves like KDE — But IMO, what they should do is “Gnomify” and use a “Korilla” theme for KDE
You only get ugly fonts or antialiased fonts in a lot of linux distributions because of patent issues.
You can compile a patched freetype-lib yourself and you get real (windows-like) quality. You only have to install some nice truetype-fonts from your windows 2000 installation (verdana, georgia, times new roman, etc).
No problem for the experienced linux user.
Fonts have been great for quite some time. Actually, the fonts of MDK 9.2, 10 and Suse 9.0 knock the socks off of any Windows 2000 fonts I have layed eyes on.
“and this means a bigger “SuSE” influence than a “Ximian” influence in the future for Novell’s distro, I’d have to say that’s pretty disappointing.”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
SuSE is in *full* charge of “Novell’s distro”. Ximian never was. SuSE 9.1 doesn’t even includes Ximian’s desktop. Best visit Novell’s website. They made a press statement about it weeks (or month? I don’t remember) ago. There is also an interview with SuSE’s CEO floating around.
It’s Linux it must be better than windows…
Stop dreaming. The best you can get looks similar to windows. The default configuration forces anti-aliasing. That’s unsharp and suited for professional use.
But it’s said there are some people who are happy with it.
For others the first thing after installing Suse linux is to replace the font library. Not everybody is happy with shit.
None of the comments about SuSE vs. Ximian within Novell are entirely true. First off, neither one company is in charge of anything. The integrated company, Novell, is in charge. Yes, there was a press release about SuSE’s R&D guy being in charge of the Linux effort, this is true. But that does not mean “SuSE” is in charge of Linux. Novell is, led by the former SuSE guy.
Ximian still exists. In fact, the Ximian guys, led by Nat, are now the desktop division at Novell.
Don’t let the press fool you.
Let’s hope the option to turn it off is easy to find.
I hate it too, maybe we’re just control freaks or something but i like being able to click an icon in my gnome panel to mount/unmount cd’s or disks when i want to
SUSE Linux is a business unit of Novell. SUSE Linux develops the distribution. Ximian is now the Novell Ximian Services (btw it’s head is David Patrick and not Nat), an other business unit. Thus business unit wise it’s clear who is doing the distribution and who does not. Of course some work from the Ximian Services will flow back into the distribution.
I really liked Suse, but they continue to offer no drivers for the Adaptec 39160. RadHat and Mandrake have no problems with the 39160. If I was some kind of Linux wizard I suppose I could make something work using the drivers from RedHat or Mandrake, but I am not, and I need to get actual work done for my clients not spend time make up for short comings by Suse.
The default fonts in Suse 9.0 are anti-aliased and look quite fine. They are perfectly usable.
Yast’s software update program will download and install the Microsoft core fonts if you wish. You will
need to agree to the MS license though.
If you follow the Gnome weblogs, you’d see that the Ximian guys are just starting to tinker with SUSE. You cannot use 9.1 to judge what role Ximian will play in the mix.
LOL — Have you ever tried installing *any* revision of SuSE on an Adaptec 39160..? Appearently not. These drivers are not RH, Mandrake or whatever, they are Adaptec’s, hence they are in all distributions. I haven’t ever seen any distribution not having Adaptec drivers. They are in SuSE “ever since” and they always worked perfectly. I hope you didn’t come to the conclusion that Suse doesn’t support the 39160, or any other flavour of SCSI controller for that matter, by looking at their useless, outdatet hardware compatibility list.
the actual suse theme must be one of the uglyest i ever saw on any os… but that can be changed fast, so it is not realy an argument. but i doubt i will spend even more money on the professional version, considering how much software always came with it in an unusable state. if i have to download the whole stuff anyway, why would i want to pay suse for an not done job. And considering they don’t even test on such “exotic” setups like: system with 2 optical drives.
Obviously they don’t do any tests. No, i think 9.0 was the last suse i bought.
People get the funniest ideas around here…
I have a Wide SCSI CDROM, a plain SCSI DVD and an IDE CDR (plus 3 U160 HDs and one IDE HD)– there were never any problems, which is true for all Linux-flavors I tested. I hear this obscure accusation the first time, anyways. How about getting decent hardware?
the problem only happens with ide drives if you have an dvd/cd drive and a second cdrw. this has been a quite a topic through the suse support forums. but of course you are an typicall linux guy who likes to annoy other people especially if you don’t have a clue… which most likely is the case all the time.
a quite popular saying here in germany is: “If you don’t know what you are talking about, just shut up!”
the patent issue is one with apple… since they are profiting so much form open source, maybee someon could talk with them to give up their patent on those ttf features.
a workaround is to use the GNU Unifont which don’t look like shit without antialiasing. but i realy wish antialiasing was disabled by default, so i wouldn’t have to spend so much time getting rid of it.
LOL — Have you ever tried installing *any* revision of SuSE on an Adaptec 39160..?
Of course I have, from a retail boxed version of 7.3 and 9.0 Pro. Sevreal times with both the 29160, loads fine, and the 39160, dead in the water, Suse will not load with the 39160 period. Mandrake and RedHat, no problems. Win2K, XP and Win server 03 have no problems with the 39160 either. So the bottom line is – no matter how fine a distro Suse may be if they don’t provide across the board driver support, I personally don’t have time to waste making their product work on my hardware.