The LinuxFormat printed magazing reviewed SuSE Linux 9.1 Pro and rated it 9/10 (PDF scan here).
LinuxFormat Reviews SuSE Linux 9.1 Pro
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
After a thorough examination of the Linux Format ‘Review’, I found my self-thinking this was not a review but an advertisement for Suse Linux or Linux in general. In my educated opinion, an operating system review should cover installation procedures, hardware the operating system was installed on and overall performance testing. This article did none of the above leading me to think that this was ‘padded’ for Linux enthusiast. Do not take this the wrong way, I enjoy using Linux, but for the average Linux user one requires more intuition and involvement in the core of the operating system environment.
In conclusion, the review only left me with jilted feelings about the author’s true intentions and thoughts.
Leonard Smith
SuSE looks more and more yummy every day… I might jump ship from Red Hat/Fedora…
…just ordered a copy of professional to play with.
another useless single linux distro review
I used to despize SUSE for several reasons… what Novell has been doing though collectively are amazing me… SUSE 9.2 is supposed to reflect everything they have been making news about, and I truly can’t wait! SUSE, with the guidance of Novell is fast becomming my prefered distro – at least one paper…
I am a majour fan. I stopped using Linux because I nuked my Mandrake to install Fedora 1. I found it less usable then XP, but when SuSE 90.1 came out I became excited about running it as a desktop again. I d/l-ed the Pro iso off suprnova.org and since then I use it non-stop. I couldn’t recommend it more. For people who like full featured rich kde desktops with lots of apps I could recommend stronger.
actually i wasn’t too dissatisfied w the review. installation is a non-issue on every distro nowadays except the harcore distros like gentoo so it isn’t even worth talking about any more. and if they had encountered some hardware compatibility issues, i’m sure that they would have mentioned them. i found the review far more fair-minded than the GNOME bias that pervades certain publications’ reviews of KDE-centric distros like SuSE.
i also forgot to mention that i don’t even use suse. i’m a debian user but i recognize that suse is the only non-debian derivative that will have a strong place in the linux future.
About the lack of installation instructions, I think it’s because the magazine is not bringing Suse on their bundled CDs/DVD, otherwise you’d have it. They probably assume that since a novice reader would have to buy Suse to install it anyway, they can use the complete installation guide in the box.
Everytime they bring a distro on the cover CDs (last month it was Mandrake 10) they put _very_ complete installation procedures inside, including troubleshooting (something most installation guides skip).
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/9.1/README.txt
FTP install will be available on June 4th
Got it wrong here – I have yet to see any gnome bias in printed media.
Unfortunately LXF is notorious for KDE/SUSE bias
How long does the FTP install take anyway??? I would buy a copy of 9.1 Pro, but with as fast as the new versions come out I would hate to plop down 80 bills for a copy.
>>How long does the FTP install take anyway??? I would buy a copy of 9.1 Pro, but with as fast as the new versions come out I would hate to plop down 80 bills for a copy.<<
I’ve seen 5 cd sets of suse 9.1 selling on ebay for $0.99 + $4.00 s/h (within the USA). Even with HSI, I think I would rather do that, than to spend the time downloading and burning cds.
If I remember right with my adsl at 640kb the 9.0 took from 1.5 to 2 hours.
Have a look at the domains
http://www.wahldebakel.de/
http://domaindiscount24.com/
The logo of that looks like the SuSE-gecko. But insted of the SuSE-gecko it looks ugly.
>>How long does the FTP install take anyway??? I would buy a copy of 9.1 Pro, but with as fast as the new versions come out I would hate to plop down 80 bills for a copy.<<
Bittorrent is your friend – suprnova.org, Apps/Linux
My understanding is that the ebay sales are illegal, but that SuSE is fine with free redistribution.
Linux is free software and comes under many forms (distros). With the dozens of good distros out there, some guys manage to steal copies of Suse 9.1 Pro. Pals, get rid of that bad habit : the Pro version of Suse isn’t free; if you want it that hard, buy it. If you can’t, wait for the FTP version or even better download another good distribution; Distrowatch or Linuxiso will show you the way. I’m sure you pirates are capable of << stealing >> a flower in an open field.
SuSE is free as in beer. If not, point me to the part that is not. People keep saying there is “commercial” software bundled with it — true, in DEMO-versions, which can be had for free at the manufacturer either way (for example Mainactor). So: Happy copying…
The commercial software doesn’t have to be paid software, but instead it can restrict the re-distribution of the proprietary software. For example, Macromedia, Adobe, Nvidia all provide free downloads of their proprietary software, but their licenses do *not* allow the free re-distribution or re-packaging of their software. That is why Mandrake, SuSE, and others require you to pay for the versions that include these pieces of proprietary software. Mandrake 10 Official was just released today, but the free version does not include CD #4 which contains this proprietary software for these very reasons. When SuSE FTP version comes out next week, you can download it for free but it won’t have the proprietary software.
Long story short: if you are re-distributing a version of SuSE that is for sale and contains this proprietary software, you are breaking the law.
I have been using SuSe Linux 9.1 pro for two weeks and it
is great. I’m on a P III 600MHz with 256 MB ram. The boot
time is longer than Windows XP but once loaded its more
stable and with the newest Nvidia drivers the GL games
work well. Even when using WINE. KDE 3.2.1 is faster than
3.0.4. The kernel 2.6.4 is stable ,I will post a
great post from another site for compiling the lastest
version if you need to. All hardware was setup on install
and the thing I hated 8.2 for was its inability to read
some cd’s has been fixed in this version.
Just one gripe. I wish they would use single sided DVDs
instead of double sided. I do not mind paying an extra 20p.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>&g t;>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>&g t;>>>
You didn’t do anything wrong, however the kernel being used has the
4KSTACKS=y
Built in.
Here is what i did to get nvidia working.
**Note, if you can ssh to your box than you could just edit your /etc/inittab to refelect 3 instead of 5 and then boot it back up or change your “nvidia” in xorg.conf to “nv” and boot back up. If you can’t get to your box through ssh you might as well re-install since there was nothing on it.
Ok, back to the how to:
1.) su –
2.) cd /usr/src
3.) wget http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/linux-2.6.6.tar.bz2
4.) tar -xvjpf linux-2.6.6.tar.bz2
5.) cp /usr/src/linux-2.6.5-1.358/configs/kernel-2.6.5-i686.config /usr/src/linux-2.6.6/.config
6.) cd /usr/src/linux-2.6.6 && make oldconfig
VERY IMPORTANT!!!!
*** Anser “NO” to 4KSTACKS question and pretty much the rest of them.
7.a) make && make modules_install && make install
OR
7.b) make rpm
#rpm -ivh rpm -ivh /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/i386/kernel-2.6.6-1.i386.rpm
8.) vi /etc/inittab
*edit the runlevel to “3” instead of “5”
9.) cd /tmp
10.) wget http://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86/1.0-5336/NVIDIA-Linux-…
11.) reboot (chosse 2.6.6)
you should then be at a login prompt without graphical
12.) login as root
13.) sh /tmp/NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-5336-pkg1.run
14.) vi /etc/X11/xorg.conf
!!change “nv” to “nvidia” , also comment out #”dri”
15.) modprobe nvidia
16.) telinit 5
Login as user and welcome in the goodness of 3d nvidia and the latest kernel.
Out!
edit: step 6, thx jimbo
edit: step 7, include “make rpm” *just another way to do it.
Last edited by cybrjackle on Sun May 23, 2004 6:25 am; edited 3 times in total
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>&g t;>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>&g t;>>>
I know this is for redhat but the same applies to this
distro.
Regards
Aaron
I installed Suse 9.1 Pro and it took forever to install. Almost 1.45 minutes, where Mandrake took 35 minutes. This is on a 1Ghz Pentium III laptop with 384 MB of RAM.
After installtion, it looks very good,but it is a little slower than Mandrake 10, Knoppix or Slackware on the same hardware running the same desktop environment KDE 3.2
It’s configuration tools take forever to load and then after applying a change it goes through this other long list of unrelated changes that it needs to do every single time.
SMB browsing doesn’t work and I could not find the wonderful SMB4K utility that Mandrake 10 packs. Getting DVDs to play in Mandrake was as simple as adding a plf repository and doing urpmi libdvdcss. In Suse, it became a nightmare, so I am not going to keep it.
The above was on my laptop. I am yet to try it on a Proliant test server that we have at work. If it works nicely, I’ll leave it on that server as I don’t need any multimedia features on it.
Ok I’m running SuSE 9.0. Only lately Ximian was released (officially) and fits like a glove on 9.0.
Anybody using 9.1 knows if Ximian Gnome can be downloaded (even if not supported by the ‘manufacturers’ ?
I am a reader of Linux Format for many time now and must say they are quite fair on the opinions they make… so I don’t see it has an ‘advertisement’ of SuSE !
(Just pisses me off that they used the Windows Photoshop 7.0 for scanning and PDF generating — I always check “Doc Summary” on Adobe reader :] — )