“I have been using SuSE Linux 8.2 Professional for two weeks now, and it is as close to Linux desktop perfection as I have found so far. (I know I’m not the first to say this, but I figure saying it one more time can’t hurt.) This doesn’t mean it’s totally perfect, and my experience is on one particular laptop and may not be duplicated on your hardware, but this is the first SuSE version I have actually liked — and the first one I’ve kept on my “production” machine for any length of time.” Read the review at NewsForge.
SuSE 8.2 — Better than Mandrake for New Users?
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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I agree SuSE 8.2 is much better than Mandrake.
The installation itself as well as YaSt are very good for new users.
I’ll throw in my two bits here. I’m a happy SuSE 8.2 user, but I’m not new to Linux. SuSE is professional and well organized and easy to install. But I think Mandrake’s automount and dynamic desktop are big selling points for Mandrake and go a long way towards making Linux easier to understand for new users.
I hate explaining to people how they have to “mount” floppy disks in SuSE. I’ll be glad to see floppies disappear from modern hardware if only for that reason.
Hi there
I am looking for a new Linux distro for my server, which is running Red Hat 6.x.
Is Suse 8.2 good enough to run as a server installation.
It is just for my own webserver with MySQL, PHP, Apache, and also a mail system. Nothing important is running on it.
But i want updating and installing software and stuf like that to be easy, and painless.
I have been running Suse 8.1 on my laptop and was pretty happy with it
>I agree SuSE 8.2 is much better than Mandrake.
>The installation itself as well as YaSt are very good for new users.
The installation procedure of Mandrake *9.1* is FAR superior than SuSE’s.
Don’t use Suse! It’s very bad! It may fuck up other partitions on your machine! Suse Bad!
SuSE has worked IMHO much more “newbie friendly” than the other distros I’ve tried but as with any distro, hardware compatibility is the point where you tear out your hair in dispair at not being able to get your modem etc working.
When SuSE reaches the level Knoppix is at for detecting, I’ll probably move back from RedHat.
In response to SØren, I hear that SuSE’s online update YOU is finally working as it should so updating software on 8.2 should be almost painless
– for use as a server someone else will have to comment.
Thanks for the answer.
I just need an easy to maintain server, not something as secure as a BSD ditro, or as optimized as Gentoo.
I just want something to host my webpages on, and something to keep track of my mail
i wouldnt run the server with suse. better go with debian woody (the stable branch) for better maintainability and patching.
Yes, SuSE works wonderfully as a server. There are 2 great things about it:
1. SuSE provides you with 2 years of updates/security fixes, while Mandrake only offers you 12 months for desktop packages and 18 months for base packages. Even worse, RH only offers you 12 of updates for all packages.
2. YOU (Yast Online Update) can be configured to update all your machines automatically. This is sweet.
Although I don’t use SuSE as my desktop OS, I love it as a server OS.
Well Debian comes with unlimited updates for all packages and apt-get can easily keep your system secure automatically.
Not trying to be Debian troll, just pointing out that those two points aren’t good points.
Well, that’s true about Debian. Still, I think my points are valid in the sense I have found SuSE easier to install, set up, and maintain than Debian (i.e. since it’s one of the commercial distros, like RH and Mandrake). For me, I can install SuSE and have it all set up and have all my hardware configured and my servers configured in an hour or so. It has taken me a lot longer than that with Debian.
But, you’re points are well taken regarding Debian. For those that have the time and experience to set it up, sure, it’s probably easier to maintain than any commercial distro.
I was thinking about using Debian instead, but have not decided yet, but i might try Debian, because i just can download it.
I have heard plenty of nice things about apt-get
Well, a couple of weeks ago when I decided to move from Windows to GNU/Linux I tried three distros before I settled down with what I have today. My first try was Yoper and even though the installation was quite easy I didn’t like anything else about it. It was hard to configure and everything had to be done by editing text files (even though I learned some nice tricks I wasn’t looking to learn Linux, I just wanted to use it). Then it was SuSE. I borrowed my friends 8.2 discs and was impressed by nice graphics during the install but, sorry to say, that was the only thing that impressed me with SuSE. It took me almost an hour to get YaST to even begin installing the system on my computer. This was due to: 1. My mouse always stopped working halfway through the install setup (I have a fairly common Logitech mouse) 2. A couple of minutes into the actual installation it stalled and the progress bar wouldn’t move an inch (I later discovered that by not installing my printer it would install just fine) 3. The screen went black if i left the computer alone for some time (this was because of some power saving setting in my BIOS which I had disable, but shouldn’t YaST do this by itself?). When it finally installed it looked nice and was quite fast to work with but there was one show stopper. The mouse moved really choppy and could completely freeze for several seconds. I did some Googling about the problem but came up with nada. I gave up on SuSE and decided to make one last try with Mandrake. Mandrake’s setup worked like a charm and the system installed in about 20 minutes (30 minutes including the setup). Once installed I was surpriced with how easy it was to configure the system with the Mandrake Control Center. The system updates just fine with Mandrake Update and urpmi is just a blessing which seemed to’ve taken care of most of my dependency problems (partly thanks to PLF and texstar who offer great third party RPMs). My conculsion is that, for me, Mandrake blew away the competition with 9.1. It truly had everything I was looking for, and still has!
While SuSE doesn’t have an ISO available for download per se, you can download a “live evaluation” version that runs off a CD. It’s available on LinuxISO.org. I’m downloading it now…
You can also just do a FTP install which was very painless for my SuSE 8.1 install, it’s been working wonderfully for months now.
I’ll be glad to see floppies disappear from modern hardware if only for that reason.
Godness damn you. I boot all my 4 installed Linux distros with floppies (my BSD boot manager doesn’t detect ext3).
but i might try Debian, because i just can download it.
You can make two floppies to boot up the SuSE installer and install-download SuSE (minimal) via ftp (for free) and then chose the server packages and (XFree-Blackbox) windowmanager you like.
http://www.suse.com/us/private/download/ftp/int_mirrors.html
I did not tried 8.2 but 7.3 is nicer than RedHat 7.3
___________________________________________________
I recomend you try to learn ZOPE “dtml” language to organize your website (and email, maybe). Zope runs well on SuSE and is lightweight.
http://www.zope.org
BTW, besides the installer details !!
anyone has tried SuSE 8.2 and Mandrake 9.1 all together, which was more pleasant to work – use ?
chicobaud:
I have 8.1 on DVD, but is it possible to get V8.2 byt FTP ?
I know Zope, but i am using PostNuke for CMS at the moment, and i am pretty happy with it
But thanks for the tip, i might try it when i have the time.
>> I hate explaining to people how they have to “mount” floppy disks in SuSE. I’ll be glad to see floppies disappear from modern hardware if only for that reason.
Just future reference, you can put ‘floppy:/’ in the address bar of Konqueror (if you have mtools installed), and it will use mtools.
>> I have 8.1 on DVD, but is it possible to get V8.2 byt FTP ?
Not yet, but it should be soon (I thought it was meant to be two weeks after release, but it is already four weeks).
I am lucky to have downloaded Suse 8.2 pro (5 isos) from Linuxiso.org’s forum (someone posted a link which got banned later). One thing I can tell you: it’s lots better than Mandrake 9.1. Yast in Suse 8.2 is very powerful; it’s extremely fast and very functional. Updating the system through YOU is fast and takes few minutes (if on cable). KDE 3.1.1 rocks; it’s stable and you wouldn’t know if it was Windows XP (through customization). Gnome 2.2 equally rocks. Suse 8.2 pro has an unbelievable selection of applications; from office suite, cd burning, advanced development tools, dvds to games and many others. Installation is as easy as Mandrake 9.1. I would definitely recommend it for new users.
I have 8.1 on DVD, but is it possible to get V8.2 byt FTP ?
I think one has to wait 4-5 months to get the newest version, not sure.
On most ftp mirror sites there is only the live-eval_8.2. I guess you got me here or the sites aren’t updated yet.
>>I hate explaining to people how they have to “mount” floppy disks in SuSE.<<
It’s pretty easy actually, since SuSE 8.2 by default provide you with an icon (among other devices) that’s look like a floppy disk and it’s called (obviously underneat this icon): Floppy Device!
Just click on it a konqueror window will open and tada: automounted and ready to copy, etc. Oh, how about right clicking on it, then select Mount instead of Open. Too hard?
Nay!
Tried both MDK9.1 and RH9, chose SuSE8.2: faster, prettier, more stable, less bugs, powerful, productive out of the box. YaST2 is just way much better tool than others. Install apt for SuSE and synaptic too 😉
Have fun 🙂
This doesn’t mean it’s totally perfect
And herein lies the rub. What is perfect? Windows? When is someone going to review Windows as objectively and critically as these people who search for desktop nirvana in Linux? Is it even possible to review Windows in that way? Windows is the standard by which desktop linux is judged, so that means Windows is “perfect”, doesn’t it?
How perfect has linux got to be? My feeling is that so long as it’s not accepted for what it is, it’ll never be “perfect”.
I think no one here says that Windows is perfect, if not, why use Linux at all? Many of us are paying for Linux too.
But if you ask me, I think Windows is very nicely decided for normal desktop use. It is almost perfect if you are not trying to tweak it or admin it.
First of all urpmi sucks! It cannot and will not match apt-get!
Mandrake has a reputation for delivering ‘buggy’ tools.
If you want quality use Debian!
I just bought and installed SuSE 8.2 Pro. 2 DVDs and alternatively 5 CDs. $80. Almost half of Redhats price. With the MSs core web fonts downloaded from SuSE I don’t think it can look much better. If you have an nforce2 board you’ll need to get the driver from NVidia because it is non-GPL. Default filesystem is Reiser and it is fast. So far no complaints and no need to look any further. Maybe also because KDE is on home turf.
You are certainly NOT talking about SuSE 8.2. I insert a floppy, click on the floppy icon on the desktop once and there you are with your floppy contents.
Tip 1:
During install with the live evaluation, don’t try to setup the printer — the install will hang.
Complaint 1:
AFAIK, Mozilla 1.2.1 in SuSE 8.2 is not compiled with xft support. Hence, you don’t get anti-aliased fonts. This was a mistake in my opinion. Mozilla looks just plain horrible without aa fonts, but it’s so beautiful with them. Mozilla without xft leaves a bad impression for neophytes. Mandrake 9.1 compiled both mozilla 1.3 and galeon with aa fonts, and they both work pretty well. I suppose they’re trying to support konqueror, which is a fine browser but still not as stable as mozilla.
Otherwise, I was very impressed with the evaluation version.
Mandrake 9.1 is also nice, but it does have some annoying bugs. It’s definitely not as polished as it should be. Also, the Mandrake Control Center is dog slow. I can’t understand why a configuration tool should be that slow.
No desktop in this world is perfect. We human ourselves are far from perfection so How do u expect Windows that is designed and developed by our own species is a perfect product. As far as i am concern no operating system is perfect. Every OS has its own pro & cons. You can only do one thing i.e. take the OS which suits your purpose and your wallet.
SuSE runs great as a Server, I have been using SuSE for my servers for 3 or 4 years
SuSE is the best Linux distro on the market for newbies and non-techies. YaST is a big help and SuSE 8.2 does more to show this.
Why again does urpmi suck? What do YOU think it cant do that apt can?
Download all the required packages from the internet? Check.
Uninstall/Update old packages if they are conflicting? Check.
Able to look through several different repositories for available packages? Check.
GUI and text based versions? Check.
So what’s so all high and mighty about apt-get that is so far superior to urpmi? Have you used urpmi? If so, did you know how to use it?
Anyone been able to use Brahms effectively on either of these? I don’t want to go through the trouble of putting one of them up, just to find out I still have to go back to my Windows 98 partition and run QuickScore Elite to compose music.
BTW, don’t bother me about alternatives, uloess they have:
Scoring
Piano Roll
Track Sheet
Mixer
Song Arranger
..and all the other stuff Brahms is supposed to have.
‘twould be nice if SoundTracker, ShakeTracker, and CheeseTracker (recent versions,) all worked, too.
Maybe I shall try it when Yast2 is not a proprietary software. It is not even Open Source (as defined by the OSI : http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php) because of its article 3 that prevents redistribution without the consent of Suse, and so is not compatible with the article 1 of the open source definition.
I will be honest in that I have not tried SuSE 8.2 but I moved from 8.1 to Mdk 9.1 and am glad I did. Mdk 9.1 is the best distro I have used so far in that it did everything I needed with little or no setup required.
I was not impressed with 8.1 at all and so would recommend Mdk 9.1 to anyone, this may change of course if I ever get the chance to give SuSE 8.2 a go
while apt4rpm and Synaptic have problems on Redhat 9. I don’t understand why Redhat doesn’t provide their very own version of apt or urpmi. Have to continually rebuild the rpm database every time a package is to be installed or removed is quite annoying.