SuSE Linux, until now known mainly as ‘that European flavor of Linux’ with many Americans, is getting ready for a big push with businesses and government organizations, with the introduction of SuSE Linux 9 with 64-bit processing and 2.6 kernel enhancements to the Americas Thursday.
SuSE 9 Hits American Shores
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSAlert.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Right now 64 bit processing is still not even out really in a home user market. I would say in about a year or better yes, but right no. Plus, other than a kernel upgrade and a few other items one can download for free what is the need to purchase this?
What about laptops, Linux is still not even close to being able to be installed on a laptop without hours spent on configuration, then hunting down drivers that might or might not work.
Right now, I would run Windows 64 bit for the desktop. Plus, there will be applications developed so it would be worthwhile for the consumer. Even then, it will be a few years for most 64 bit software to mature.
I snagged a DVD of Suse 9 last week and did a trial install earlier this week. While I haven’t had much chance to really explore the wealth of software they include with the distro (TGIF!), what I have seen is impressive!
As I’ve posted previously, I’ve had a hard time finding a Linux distribution that will set itself up correctly on my new system (3GhzP4, SATA Raid 0 drives, ATI 9600 video w/dual monitors, DVD burner, etc.).
In fact Gentoo’s the only distribution prior to Suse 9 which would install correctly, and even then I couldn’t get the ATI drivers to run both monitors simultaneously (with xinerama!).
Redhat 8 & 9 both failed, as did JAMD, which is a really cool rev’d up version of Redhat 9, basically.
Fedora also failed as did Ark, Yoper, Mandrake, and Vector. While all these have performed admirably on older hardware, they seemed to not have the neccesary drivers and software to run succesfully on my newer Canterwood-based system.
But Suse 9 not only configured everything correctly (with the exception of the SATA drives, which it seems to acknowledge, but cannot read from), but it’s also the 1st system I’ve been able to get my Radeon 9600 to drive both monitors under! This was accomplished with very little troubleshooting on my behalf (Hint: Disable APM!), and the system as a whole works flawlessly!
Not that there are a few rough spots… For example, I’m having a helluva time getting Yast to add new online software sources. It keeps trying to access a non-existant path to the software no matter what path I give it for the server. My workaround was to install apt and Synaptic for additional software not included on the DVD.
But overall Suse has provided me with a beutiful start to my dream Linux system! Their packaged software is remarkably up-to-date (No Mozilla 1.5, but that “just” was released, so I can forgive them of that), and although items such as DVD and CD rippers aren’t included (My new machine’s aimed more at multimedia editing and such), they’re easily added via the aforementioned Synaptic.
It’s fast (not quite as fast as my Gentoo system was, but I get to use both monitors, so a slightly less optimized desktop’s a workable trade off for me!), looks great, has tons of software, and it’s all well integrated.
I’ve read some early reviews stating that it’s not enough of an upgrade for existing Suse customers to justify the price, but for those of us who want to live more on the cutting edge of hardware (and really, the Canterwood chipset and Radeon 9600 are no longer really “cutting edge”, it’s just that Linux is always playing catch-up with drivers), Suse is the best distro out there as far as I’m concerned!
Be carefull with SuSE 9.0. I had nothing but problems with it in the 3d area, including driver corruption, etc. Also started seeing crashes in KDE, which is a first for any linux distro I’ve ever installed, including previous version of SuSE. Overall, it wasn’t worth the money if you already have 8.2.
Avoid.
SuSE Linux/Deak:
“What is the need to purchase this?”
Nurturing, Otherwise it won’t get on its feet. And we’ll all be choked by the monopoly.
SuSE9’s very impressive/Mr.Banned:
I have Radeon 9600 (not Pro) and am happy to hear that it works.
Disappointing that SATA does not work. I was hoping SuSE had back ported it in. Given up? Tried the test kernel?
“And we’ll all be choked by the monopoly.”
It will be curious if Asia and Europe both end up switching to Open Source, and we’re still running MS over here.
Would like to try but, Suse does not provide driver for Adaptec 39160 and wont install. RedHat 9.0 had no problem.
What about laptops, Linux is still not even close to being able to be installed on a laptop without hours spent on configuration, then hunting down drivers that might or might not work.
I totally understand what you are talking about. I just recently purchased a Compaq laptop and spent hours trying to get linux to work as it should. First I installed Red Hat, and at the first installation screen my keybaord would freeze. I later found out that for some reason the keyboard times out? After that I could not get ACPI working at all. I spent 3 hours trying to recompile the kernel and all this other stuff and it all ended up being a failure. Afterwards I did install SuSE 9 from the FTP server, and it was much easier to get ACPI working. I simply had to enabled it in the runlevel editor. But still…that shouldn’t have to be done.
I still haven’t been able to find out if SuSE 9 has a VPN client configuration tool/software or something?
Does anybody know?
Thanks.
I installed SuSE 9.0 last night. So far I like it very much. From a commercial distribution point of view it is very good. I have found it to be much more of a higher quality product than for example Mandrake or Gentoo. I think MS Windows users would not have a problem switching to SuSE.
“I have found it to be much more of a higher quality product than for example Mandrake or Gentoo”.
What the hick does that mean? How do you judge a quality product?
What the hick does that mean? How do you judge a quality product?
I guess it all depends on how long a piece of string is
It is like the “Foobah operating system works great on by computer! everyone should run it because I do!”.
Now, it is true that some people have really crap computers and no matter what operating system they’re running, they’re still going to have a crappy time, which is of their own doing by being a cheapskate the time of purchasing a computer.
Anyway, back to the topic at hand, what one person says is great could be crap to another person because both people could be using only a small set of features of the operating system. It would be like the end user saying, “Window is awsome” whilst the programmer will say, “Windows has a API crindge factor worse than anyone else”.
Suse (8.2) was the only distro that installed on worked (correctly) on this laptop so far. I might add that was with basically no configuration. Makes me want to try 9.
Candidates that failed: Mandrake, Redhat, Debian, Ark, Gentoo (hell I tried for 3 straight days with gentoo, I got it installed easily on a P2 266), and Peanut.
Evil Entity was on it before, and with a little work, it actually did ok. Are they dead and gone now?
Knoppix has worked nicely on most laptops i’ve tried ..
>Now, it is true that some people have really crap computers and no matter what operating system they’re running, they’re still going to have a crappy time, which is of their own doing by being a cheapskate the time of purchasing a computer. <
I resemble that remark! I’m running SuSE 8.2 on a $300 Sam’s Club PC and never had any problems whatsoever.
Cer, this is nonsense. 39160 support has been in SUSE “for ever”. I am having a 39160 and there hasn’t ever been a problem with that.
Gang:
Just FYI, I have 8.2 running on a past-its-prime Dell with win98. No trouble, ever. Auto-configured the dual boot and everything.