Review: Suse Linux 10.0

General Computing *nix and other operating systems
1

Don’t know if this has been done yet being I have seen a couple of members run Suse Linux, but here goes anyway.

Test Platform Setup:
Custom Personally Built AthlonXP 2400
1GB PC2700 Kingston
2 WD Caviar 80GB (Primary 80 XP and Boot Loader, Secondary Linux (100 mb /boot, 1GB Swap, Around 40GB Linux /, rest FAT32 Swap Out Partition))
Emprex 16x Double Layer Dual Format DVD-RW
BTC 52/32/52 DVD/CD-RW
Silicon Image Graphics Sil 0680a ATA133 Expansion Card
nVidia GeForce2 MX400 Graphics Accelerated Card
Matsonic MS8177C Main Board (Via KT600 Chipset)
Onboard Via SATA Raid Controller, Via Rhine II NIC, Via AC97 Sound

Media Used-Suse Linux 10.0 Full Version (90 day trial) DVD

With my Recent stumble out with RedHat/Fedora, I have been in search for a new Linux/Unix OS to run along side my XP Home Setup. Tried Debian 3.1r0 Sarge, though was impressed with the size of Debian, wasn’t to impressed with the install process and the lack of more up to date packages and is a pain to configure and install everything I would expect from a recent distro. Next tried Slackware again, to little and not enough. Mandrake/Mandriva was the next spin around and was slapped in the face again by a RedHat similar pile of garbage with no mp3 and other mulitimedia support. Well, the search narrowed down to an Unbuntu variant or Suse and decided to give Suse the benefit of the doubt.

First Impression after install, give the Suse developers and Novell a 10 out of 10 penguins for a very well rounded Linux OS, easy enough to install and get around in, I could teach my parents how to use very easily. Besides memory requirements, it is pretty sharp, intuitive when it comes to Yast (System Configurator/Updater) and has a lot going on under the hood. With a little more muscle from Novell, I imagine pretty soon Suse will be able to compete nose to nose with Windows. A very easy OS to get around in, even for a beginner, and, being a well rounded Linux distro, very nice for the long time and expert Linux user.

Further exploration at the command line and Suse seems to have a basic Debian style core under the hood which is a bonus for a long time Linux user like myself for most long time users either transition to Debian or BSD and Solaris all together. Hardware support is one of the best I have seen in a straight out of install distro next to Debian (and Knoppix which has a Debian Core) being it detected, configured, and is able to handle the Sil 0680a ATA133 card without compiling a new kernel. The SATA Raid was detected and configured, though I am not utilizing the SATA just yet, the AC97 Via onboard sound was configured and ran right at first boot up after install, a bonus over the others I have tried recently. The Via Rhine II NIC card was detected like all the others and seemed a bit faster like it was under Debian over the others for some reason, could be I was just giddy, who know :wink: The HP Printer/Scanner/Copier/Fax/Memory Card All In One was detected, just had to configure the Printer and Scanner a bit to get running, but the HP PSC1610 worked just like under windows, even the mem card reader. The DVD and CD writers plugged into the ATA card after I seen the card was detected worked just like they should and I plugged them one into each ide port on the card so I could run on the fly disk copies if needed instead of caching before burning through k3b, cdrecord, mkisofs, and the dvdrw tools. MP3, RealPlayer, Quicktime, MPEG, Divx and a whole lot of other multimedia straight out of the box support, and I think I’m in love here :smiley: Hey, top the cream with a cherry, whole lot of multimedia creation support, mpeg, mpeg4, Video CD, Quicktime, WMV and a whole lot of others, forgot who was asking about this in another thread, but here you have your video editing. Desktop, well, desktop managers are abundant here, but the big notes are on Gnome (version 2.2) and KDE (version 3.4) are bundled in here, and you have your choice of which to install. Office software, OpenOffice2.0 for starters, as well as Koffice with KDE, and even Gnome has some looking like it might try to get into this arena or the Suse developers look to have added something. Programming, all the favorites are here, C/C++, Python, Fortran, Java, Ruby, Perl, and a whole list more just like every other Posix system I have tinkered with or spent some length of time in. Web Debelopment, again, bunches and bunches here, KDE’s Quanta Plus for html/xml/xhtml, and many others I didn’t recognize at first, but all seeming to have to do with html, xml, or both, and the grandfather of Mark Up SGML is still here also, even MathML and few other XML standards.

This by far has to be the best, well developed Desktop setup in Linux I have seen in all the years I’ve used Linux. Server abilities are not slacking either, Web, FTP, Wndows File, NFS, Apple File Server, Novell File Server just like all other linux distros.

Security- Looks like Suse implemented at least some of the Security Enhanced Linux standards in case of a system crack in, even the root account, damage can be minimalized. ClamAv, spamassassin, even a lot of spam filters for the Mail Transport Agents like sendmail are present.

If I were Bill Gates, I’d worry about what the good guys at Novell are doing here, because Suse has everything I would expect to see in a rich, powerful OS with nice Desktop all in one package without having to keep paying Mister (Sir, have to remember the Queen BeKnighted him, yah, real impressed)no offense to the UK members Bill to get this and that or some other third party like Symantec, Suse has it all right in one bundle.

Install-
Install is very straight forward, a simple, nice Graphic installer, just a few bits of input, select what you want installed, (me it was custom selections, installed both KDE and Gnome, etc), and for me, 6 Gigs of packages, and it was reboot in around 40 minutes. After reboot, the configuration screen came up, set root password, (a plus here) downloaded all the current updates before let into the system from the get go, even downloaded and installed the Nvidia drivers and installed the Windows style True Type fonts in the process for me, setup new user account, setup automatic updating, system time, and couple other odds and ends. 10 of 10 Penguins, best installer system I have seen.

Pros- Installer is a breeze and Suse slips right in after the few decisions are made, Updates installed before system can be used, multimedia support and editing already added, no muss, no fuss. Great Hardware support, Yast as a single tool to configure and update the system, changed what Beginner Distro out there in my opinion, Suse at the top of this list.

Cons- High memory requirements, so a bit sluggish at minimum 256mb, 512mb recommended by the website.

Scores-
Installation- 10 of 10 Penguins for both Noob and Expert.
Usage- 10 of 10 Penguins for both
Security- 10 of 10 Penguins (though this isn’t saying that much being Linux is more tight than Windows and Mac, this distro has that little extra to make the transitioner feel safe)
Hardware Support- 9 of 10 from what I seen Bad Marks- as stated in the Cons, a little on the memory heavy side
Overall Score- 10 of 10 even with the memory requirements.

2

:thumbsup: Superb effort there - I think with such a glowing review I may have to give it a whirl :smiley: Now let’s see about sourcing a bit more ram for my test box :slight_smile:

DT.

3

Yep, nice review, I have been struggling with the MP3 and multimedia issues as well on Fedora. My have to give that one a try,

I could hardly call 512M an issues these days, this 512M P4 Fedora box with 2 instance of D2OL, a Gnome Desktop, 2 instances of Gkrellm, thunderbird mail client and a firefox browser running has 490 meg of real and 475 meg of swap used. A good desktop should probably have a gig of memory for all the intensive manipulations anyway. (the memory hog there is the browser with 10 tabs it uses 392M of virtual memory)

Do you know if it comes with a 64 bit SMP kernel? and what is the proccesor count limitation? :devil:

4

There is a 64bit version, and the standard installed kernel is a 2.6.13 version, and looking at the package tree of the install disk for the 32bit, smp, xen and a couple others are in there. I do believe 2.6 kernels can support 16 processors (? could be off on that), so worst case scenario would be you would have to compile a custom kernel with the source code.

5

Thanks for the review JD :thumbsup:

It was me that was asking about the mm creation stuff - having taken on board suggestions from the thread in question, I had already downloaded SUSE OSS 10 for ‘evaluation’ purposes.

Well, installation was a breeze on slightly newer hardware (GK8V with XP2800 Newcastle, 512Mb, 160Gb HDD & old GF2 Ti) for the most part which was detected without hiccup and then guided me through updating with YaST (a much more pleasant experience than up2date).

Posting from the install now, just need to do some learning…

6

Tip of the hat for the review. I’m ineterested; may have something to play around with this winter after all…

7

you make it sound so good even I’m half tempted…

no, no, sorry uncle Bill, don’t hit me, please, I’ll remember, pengunes are bad, penguines are bad…

8

Ooh… it has media support “out of the box” now? Downloading :stuck_out_tongue:

9

I keep saying I’m going to give Linux another try … and failing miserably :smiley:

but seeing as uncle Bills OS went stupid on me last Friday (repaired but still unstable … format & reinstal) I might have to give this one a go :thumbsup:

5hr download commenced … wish me luck and prepare youselves for some very Neal like questions :wink:

10

Lost my main rigs hard drive yesterday ( darn Diamondmax plus9 ) as I am reduced to a 4 Gig hdd for a few days , I thought I’d give it a go as well - first impressions are favourable - I like YaST … but not enough disk space to install my FC4 load equivalent , time will tell .

11

I just downloaded the Eval DVDs (32 and 64 bit versions), will bring the images with me to mojos in case anyone else fancies a try. The eval version seems to sit in between the open source versions and retail versions in regards to the packages included and says is not time limited in any way. I’d guess most not-included packages will be downloadable anyway, and are hopefully the less commonly needed ones so wont likely be missed anyway.

12

To be honest, I just like playing around with software, particularly when it comes to linux as I have seen it grow considerably from what it was years ago. I just post reviews about what I feel are good and bad points so hopefully someone else can make a judged decision from it is all. I didn’t expect this big a response from it :). If it wasn’t for some things I do requiring Windows, I’d be running a Mac or straight Linux myself being I have become rather tired of paying $200 to $300 US a pop for a crapy excuse for programming.

But glad to see someone gain benifit from my experimenting :wink:

13

OK, downloaded, burnt to DVD … just waiting for time needed to instal it (and the HDD it’s going on):slight_smile:

… which brings me to my first question KBE or GNOME for a beginner ? … is there any real difference to a noob :shrug:

oh, and thanks IMFire3605 :thumbsup:

14

Install both and try them out to find your own preference , you only really need to make the choice if you have less than a 5 GB hdd .
My preference is gnome but only because all the distros I have tried, either defaulted to it or had poor developement for kde , I gather that SuSE has been pouring more resource into gnome recently.

15

The main, big difference between KDE and Gnome is memory requirements. KDE is a bit more heavy due to the fact it does have quite a few more bells and whistles over Gnome. Gnome is a bit more network aware and it is greatly seen and represented in how it acts. KDE has a bit more flash and graphical umph than Gnome, my two favorites are you can setup the background to rotate at given intervals with a whole bunch of images rather than just one, and the desktop coloring you can real fancy with as added affect. KDE is more geared toward the beginner, transitioning windows/mac desktop user where Gnome is geared toward your hard core, needing less memory hogging programmer and power linux user. Either than those they both act pretty much the same way a Win9x or 2k desktop works and both a very easy to get around the system with. HTH :slight_smile:

Agree with Mortlake, if you have the space install them both to see which you like, sometimes depending on what you install (other programs) like gedit (the Gnome Notepad Proggie) requires the gnome libraries even though you didn’t install gnome but opted just for KDE.

16

oooooer … post brought to you by suse 10 :smiley:

I chickened out on the install a couple of times because I wasn’t too sure about the HDD configuration stuff … didn’t want to risk screwing the windows partitions up :rolleyes:

… anyway, found an old 4.2 gig HDD and shoved it on that, all looking good so far :thumbsup:

I’ve just gone for gnome to start with, it all seems very strange … yet exciting :wink:

erm … do I put L plates on the Tower or Monitor :lol: :lol:

edit: and a remarkably easy thing to install too, thanks again :thumbsup:

EDIT 2 encountered a problem configuring email (selected POP, filled fields as I think are correct). Will play with it later … too busy going “ooooh” and “aaaah” at the moment :cool:

17

I have got my new hard drive but I havent reinstalled XP , I’m so impressed with SuSE 10 that I have done a comprehesive install and transferred all my mail etc to this rig . I’m going to see if I can do without Bills product for a while for my day to day computing .

18

.Great find! Thanks for posting this, that’s my something new for today learnt.

19

you know, sometimes I just want to respond to these bot posts with a :censored: off …

DT.

20

How could anybody be offended at you posting “censored off”? Go for it I say…