Ladislav Bodnar writes: “Before we start, here is the link: boot.iso. Click on it, then save it to your hard disk. By the time you finish reading this review the ISO image will have downloaded. It will only take a couple of minutes to burn the 16MB image onto a bootable CD, which upon boot, provides easy, logical and well-structured instructions. Several hours later, you will be greeted with a beautiful screen running on top of one of the most popular Linux distributions – SuSE Linux 8.0. The full review by DistroWatch.”
Distribution Review – SuSE 8.0 Download Edition
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 is great ot see SuSE has a downloadable version now. SuSE is what I’ve used almost exclusively for a long time, especially because of Yast and, if that fails somehow, Sax2. I was unaware that they had been criticised for shipping two boxed sets, personal and professional.
I’ve used both and am currently using 8.0 personal edition. The criticism that the personal edition has so little software is preposterous! Just because it doesn’t have 2,000 programs doesn’t mean it skimps on software. There is plenty (the reviewer even said that, at first, he couldn’t find any DVD player, but then corrected his mistake). And the software is so easy to install with Yast. I’ve started my one year Lycoris and Lindows commitment, but I think SuSE Personal edition is the closest to a desktop version, as far as the “traditional” distos are concerned. As the reviewer said, it is a brillant disto.
About a week ago in another thread when someone said we don’t see any positive reviews of Linux here in OSNews (!), I said the only positive reviews of Linux I’ve ever seen are from people who a) Have an obvious bias towards Linux from the beginning or b) Install the thing and never attempt to use it much past installation.
In this article, I think we have a strong case for a
Did you try SuSE 8.0 and came to a different conclusion?
How was this a biased review? Have you ever even installed SuSE 8.0?
If anything, I would consider this review to be b) since it mostly focused on the installation (which was the stated purpose of the review if you read it).
I usually use Debian, but occasionally install other distros to stay on top of what everyone else is doing.
I installed SuSE 8.0 this week and here are some things I liked:
1) Easy installation
2) The user can easily encrypt their partitions during setup
3) Support for the dvorak keyboard from the beginning of the installation
4) Yast2
5) Availability on DVD so you don’t have to switch CDs during installation (the base installation only requires the first CD if you don’t have a DVD drive).
6) A huge amount of software available so user don’t have to spend a lot of time downloading things from the internet.
7) Obviously well tested and quite stable (unless you have an Athlon XP or MP chip).
Here are a couple of things I didn’t like:
1) The right shift key doesn’t work during installation. If you use passwords with capital letters in them, you may be confused when you can’t log in once the installation is complete.
2) Online update displays every updated package instead of only displaying updates to the packages already on the machine. I think this could confuse new users.
3) The firewall setup isn’t as intuitive as it could be.
4) Xine is on the personal version but not the professional version.
5) I know that SuSE has been doing work on the Athlon bug, but I didn’t see any of that work in this latest distro, although I could very well be mistaken.
And another review that doesn’t go far beyond installation and initial configuration. Why does it talk more about SuSE as a distributor than about the product itself? It’s not like I wanted to buy the company…
Hmm… I would say we have a strong case for both “a” and “b”. At least they don’t mention much usage beyond installing.
The author of the test is probably quite fond in using Linux so he would know what to do with the KDE system on his desktop, how to install Software, etc. Once you know the stuff, there just aren’t any suprises anymore. There is no point for such a writer to do a review like “now I clicked there and this happened”, etc.
SuSE does really a good and solid product, which I used to recommend to newbies (I also started with SuSE, 6.1 or 6.2) but not anymore. It’s not because I don’t like the company (for it’s proprietory YaST license) but rather the following reasons:
– As was already pointed out, they pack a shitload of software on the CD and usually also install a shitload of them (remember the reviewer writing “it’s finished in a few hours”, my god!). This is a good thing for starters becauser they don’t have to go and install software from the net, but it’s really bloat.
– Upgrades used not to be as reliable as first time installation. Upgrades of simple packages mostly work, but upgrades of the system not so much.
– You are pretty much out of luck if SuSE didn’t package your software of choice. You don’t even find SuSE’s packages at rpmfind. RedHat RPM’s are sometimes incompatible to SuSE (good example are Gnome/KDE apps, which SuSE installs in /opt/gnome and /opt/KDE and Redhat in /usr).
So at the moment, there is not a single distribution I would really recommend to a newbie. SuSE, Mandrake and RedHat all suffer from the problems stated above, while Debian and Gentoo are too difficult.
I think SuSE is a good way to take a “first look” at Linux though. And it’s a lot of fun discovering such a OS for just a few bucks, so if you got a free spare partition…
I’ve been using the personal edition since it came out in the spring and it’s been great. Even with the personal edition, if you install right, at login you can choose between KDE or Gnome (or WM).
At the time it came out, some pundits were surprised, wondering why they would come out with a new distro right before KDE 3 and Gnome 2 were to come out. I guess we know why now
I am personally not biased towards Linux. I use Mac OS X, Mac OS 9, BeOS, Windows XP, Windows 2000 and even ProDOS on my old Apple IIe, just for fun. I would like to learn more about Unix and Linux, as far as being able to install distros like gentoo, etc. I don’t really compare OS’s to each other, at least on a certain level – I enjoy them all in different ways.
I am a long time SuSE user (since 6.3) and I have been using SuSE 8.0 since it came out (professional edtion).
I read all the reviews and I am very surprised nobody mentioned two rather serious problems I had with SuSE 8.0
1. no 3D support. One of the printed manuals actually says that all 3d support in Linux is experimental, and this after it is the default option in Mandrake! Getting 3d to work on SuSE turned out to be pretty difficult, involving using shell commands and such. Finally I gave up, as i don’t need 3d.
2. the gtk styles in gnome don’t work. Gnome has a very nice and pleasnt look in SuSE 8.0, but for me that is completely destroyed by the fact that most (and i mean MOST, nearly all) of the GTK styles provided don’t work, and the default one is smply not usable by me at my resolution. Don’t know whether this is a GNome 1.4 problem or not, but SuSE should have fixed it in any case.
3. The menus could be organized much better. Knews for instance is under Internet -> Tools, together with 100 other programs. It took me 20 minutes to find it.
None of these problems is really a showstopper for me, as i don’t depend on games and i use KDE, but it was petty disappointing to bump into them, after having a rather pleasant experience with Mandrake. On the other hand, I DO need antalias, and suse has excellent support for it, contrary to the mess in Mandrake (never managed to get antialias to work properly in mandrake).
Other reviews mentioned other minor but annoying problems, such as the absence of a /etc/resolv.host file, which i had to create manually. It was rather surprisding to find these imperfaction in a major SuSE release.
Has anbody else had these problems?
If a), then ask yourself why do these people have this bias towards Linux (and don’t use the word “zealot”). Maybe they just find it the best system for what they want?
And if b), so you are saying that positive reviews come from people who only install it and never use it? Therefore you are saying that it is easy to install? Hmm, surely not???
Believe it or not, a lot of people use Linux NOT because of a political idealogy, NOT because it is anti-MS, and NOT because they are too poor to pay for a commercial os. Some people actually like it for what it is in comparison to other os’s. This applies to myself. I’ve used Mac (System6 to OSX), Windows (well, DOS actually up to Win 2k), BeOS, Oberon (!), Minix, BSD, QNX, Gem, Geos, CP/M and even some old microcomputer stuff. I use Linux simply because I am more productive with it than any other os. Pure pragmatism.
Having said that, the review was a bit brief in that it did concentrated upon usage only from an experienced users PoV.
If you were using nVidia card, it seems that Suse has some issues with distributing the driver. I had to get the driver RPM from nvidia & install it myself.
If you were using nVidia card, it seems that Suse has some issues with distributing the driver. I had to get the driver RPM from nvidia & install it myself.
well, actually I have a Matrox 450, but i had a similar problem with SuSE 7.1, I also had to get the rpm from Matrox and install it.
“If a), then ask yourself why do these people have this bias towards Linux (and don’t use the word “zealot”). Maybe they just find it the best system for what they want?”
I would imagine it’s because they can watch 5 mpegs, get 90FPS in Quake 3 while burning a CD & formatting a floppy, or because they’ve been running it for 38 years now without a reboot, and other technical aspects of the OS they love so much, but don’t mean shit to people who actually use their PC for something besides programming and dicking with the OS all day.
And never have I found someone in Windows who uses the same type of apps I do make the jump to Linux and have a positive experience, who has actually tried to USE the thing for awhile – NEVER. That’s why I said that all postive reviews of Linux I’ve seen were biased – because, in this case, it’s obvious before the review even starts that this guy uses Linux and likes it, so it’s going to be positive any way you slice it, so why would I (or any Linux lover for that matter) care what he thinks about the Suse installation?
“And if b), so you are saying that positive reviews come from people who only install it and never use it? Therefore you are saying that it is easy to install? Hmm, surely not???
”
I’ve never argued that Linux wasn’t easy to install, Debian not withstanding
In fact, I’d say it was easier to install than Win2k. But after that, I think the installation is about the only thing that Linux does right for a first-time user, so it’s only AFTER the installation does the real test come.
Darius, it might very well be that you dont like linux and prefer windows, or whatever you use, and that is fine. But please dont pretend to know why those of us who use linux is using it, and why those who review it are giving it good reviews.
For what i use my computer, linux is perfect. I can write the letters i need to write, i can browse the new, i can manipulate images, i can make ogg and mp3 files from my cds, i can watch dvds, i can talk to icq and msn users.
I dont want to do these things from windows. I simply dont find the programs and environment good enough. Sure you might disagree, and thats fine. Just know that it is your oppinion, and not universal facts as you make them sound like. If you cant see this then you have a problem.
Give it a rest, dont use it if you dont want to, but please quit trying to make people who you dont know shit about, sound bad just because your needs or your taste is different from theirs. It doesn’t make you look better knowing, only stupid, which i hope you arent.
Writing a review is no longer a one-person opinion being imposed on others — on the Internet, it’s pretty much a dialogue. I enjoy the feedback, even the negative one. I know my opinions are not always correct and mistakes are made, but this exchange in itself is a great learning process.
I never meant to write a SuSE review. I’d never used SuSE before, but I started tinkering one weekend — one thing led to another and suddenly I had SuSE up and running. I was so impressed with the experience that I decided to write down the steps for all who have never used anything but ISO images to install a distro. I thought that some people might give SuSE a miss because of the unusual installation process via FTP and I wanted to pass a message saying – hey, it’s not difficult at all!
Later I added a few comments about the things I enjoyed and things I didn’t and decided to call it a review (sounds much better than “SuSE FTP Installation Instructions”). Some people might think otherwise, but at the end of the day it doesn’t matter. The truth is that I enjoyed writing the story and this enjoyment is the only thing I got out of this. Sure, I wouldn’t mind if SuSE sent me a complete review box, but I don’t think it’s going to happen.
Anyway, thanks for sharing your opinions. Definitely a lot more intelligent bunch here than on /. 🙂