Your Opinion of Suse 10 Full Edition

[mmills]

Ok, since I cant decide whice distro to turn from since I am leaving ubuntu, I am considering SUSE ver 10, a friend of mine has ver 10 the 5 cd set and loves it, but he thinks linux should be just suse, so I need someone else to tell me the great and the ugly.

[je_fro]

Isn't SuSE an RPM distro? Need I say more?

[nikodell]

It Works Well Need I Say More.

[serz]

Isn't SuSE an RPM distro? Need I say more?
lol rpm distros are not that bad, I've used them and I only had little probs with them.

[Calipso]

lol rpm distros are not that bad, I've used them and I only had little probs with them.

seriously, I dont know why people always seem to bad mouth/hate rpm based distros. Tools like YUM, YOU, SMARTpm seem to do a great job. The only complaints I have is that you cant update an old version of the OS to a newer version using those tools. Like you can in Debian distros using, apt dist-upgrade.

If you can, then Im not aware of it :D

[JayMan8081]

I would second the argument that RPM distros aren't really all that bad. I use Mandrake at home and with a properly configured urpmi it isn't an harder to manage than apt. And yes I have used apt, it is currently on my work machine with my Ubuntu install. I think that package format really doesn't matter much anymore as each as its own management system that seems to work well now. Slackware uses tgz and has swaret, slapt-get so even source isn't that hard to manage. Just my two cents. :)

[Hayl]

I have tried many versions of Suse (in the past) and I never had one not freeze during install... I am definately not a fan.

[enshum]

If you want a really great Linux operating system go with Suse. If not try some of the forty or fifty other distros and you will find a fit.

ed

[pezplaya]

All this really boils down to is what distro you prefer. Everyone is going to have different opinions about distros... exactly like everything else in life. There is no point in trying to convince someone that one distro is better than another. Use the one that you like best. They are all basically the same underneath.

[enshum]

"I have tried many versions of Suse (in the past) and I never had one not freeze during install... I am definately not a fan."
I have never had a Suse install freeze. I would strongly suggest you move to a warmer climate or move your computer indoors :)

ed

[enshum]

"They are all basically the same underneath." So if the top part is really great then the underneath will be too!

ed

[Hayl]

All this really boils down to is what distro you prefer. Everyone is going to have different opinions about distros... exactly like everything else in life. There is no point in trying to convince someone that one distro is better than another. Use the one that you like best. They are all basically the same underneath.

yes exactly which is why I hate all these threads like this :P

imho, it is like having to phone your friend to ask them what kind of toilet paper to use :P

[dkeav]

charmin extra

[mmills]

What I prefer is something that isnt killed 18 months from the release date, this would weed out ubuntu, I prefer a simple desktop, kde or gnome doesnt matter, I like the way debain package system works, and I understand it better since I have been fooling around with debain type distro's, but I cant get debian installed on my system mainly becuse my bios is very limited, and it gets hung up on the usb legacy, I like ubuntu, they way it works, but 6 months from now, the backports will be gone and updates will die off in say 12 months, its posted on there site, I like a large screen, 1024X is plenty but even suse put me at 800X600 which ticks me off. :mad: I tried installing slackware becuse I have been told it is very stable, but I dont understand the installation process, if it were as simple as the ubuntu installation I would more than likely use it from day to day.

I love linux, and my wife has finnaly quit nagging me about microsoft......

guess I just have to find the one I like the most.

mmills

[Calipso]

You could try VectorLinux (http://www.vectorlinux.com/) .

Its a Slackware based distro and I think the installation is straight forward but I wouldnt know personally cause I still havent gotten around to trying it...soon though, I promise :D

[CaptainPinko]

ebuilds and debs would suck too if you had to manage dependcies by hand. For ebuilds there is portage, for debs there is apt-get and for RPMs there is YAST/YUM/RPMDrake etc. Anything else is an unfair comparison.

SuSE was the best general audience distro I have ever used. Loved it from the minute I tried it.

[enshum]

sounds like you need Mepis 3.3.2.

ed

[mmills]

not sure I like the layout of that distro, might be a nice core underneath, I like the simple gnome or kde look, eventually mabye fluxbox, I like simplicity, and I the one thing I always liked about MS was even when the new version came out the still updated the old for years.......
I think ubuntu would be an awsome distro if they would just update there distro, not rebuild it every 6 months. :o

[je_fro]

wow....imo, slackware is the easiest install of them all.

[MMYoung]

wow....imo, slackware is the easiest install of them all.
ditto

MMYoung

[timothykaine]

What I prefer is something that isnt killed 18 months from the release date, this would weed out ubuntu, I prefer a simple desktop, kde or gnome doesnt matter, I like the way debain package system works, and I understand it better since I have been fooling around with debain type distro's, but I cant get debian installed on my system mainly becuse my bios is very limited, and it gets hung up on the usb legacy, I like ubuntu, they way it works, but 6 months from now, the backports will be gone and updates will die off in say 12 months, its posted on there site, I like a large screen, 1024X is plenty but even suse put me at 800X600 which ticks me off. :mad: I tried installing slackware becuse I have been told it is very stable, but I dont understand the installation process, if it were as simple as the ubuntu installation I would more than likely use it from day to day.


You dont have to use the Debian Installer to get Debian. You like Debian, so stick with it. If you think youre going to get a Debian-like experience out of Suse, youre dead wrong.

You could find ways around the Debian installer, but if you want out-of-the-box operation, try Kanotix or Mepis. They use the Debian Sid repositores so you dont have to get a new version every 6 months like Ubuntu to stay current.

[mmills]

You dont have to use the Debian Installer to get Debian. You like Debian, so stick with it. If you think youre going to get a Debian-like experience out of Suse, youre dead wrong.

You could find ways around the Debian installer, but if you want out-of-the-box operation, try Kanotix or Mepis. They use the Debian Sid repositores so you dont have to get a new version every 6 months like Ubuntu to stay current.

I have already tried mepis, not a big fan, although is the Kanotix a dvd ISO, 718mb
was gonna try, but I didnt think I could shove that onto 700mb disk.

mmills

and since when was slackware a simple install?
mabye its just the format of the installation layout that threw me off

[MMYoung]

and since when was slackware a simple install?
mabye its just the format of the installation layout that threw me off
I've installed Ubuntu (UGH!) and found the Slackware installer easier than the Debian installer, although they were similar in some respects. Of all the "Debs" I've tried, MEPIS is by far and away, the easiest to install and use, but admittedly it's been a while. Most people (and not saying this is true in your case) are so comfortable with the "point-n-click" thing that when there "blanket is stripped from their hands" they forget that the original input device for the PC was a KEYBOARD! ;) The reason I know this is because when I first tried Linux I was that way and had to be slowly "weaned" away from the mouse.

Later,
MMYoung

[mmills]

I dunno, last time I tried to install slack I think it was 9.0 and for some reason I coulnt get past the partitions for some unknown reason, I like the simple kde or gnome look, when I say simple, I mean original not the new ugly $&% icon on ubuntu 5.10,
I know thats an easy fix, if you know the string command but, call me retarded, I like something you can update, not upgrade the system, and a original GUI look. I prefer the debian package system mainly becuse I have played with it the most and feel most comfertable with it. I would love to try slack but im down to 2 blank cd's.

mmills :rolleyes:

[Calipso]

I would love to try slack but im down to 2 blank cd's.

ah..the wonder of cd-rw's :D

[mmills]

funny, I never considered getting cdrw's..............
"thinking" im such a dumb#$%"

[Calipso]

Oh and Im probably the only one thats confused about this, but whats the difference between updating and upgrading . To me they seem to mean the same thing.

:confused: :confused: :confused:

[mmills]

sudo apt-get update (this would be an update via debian)
and upgrade ubuntu style is 6 months from the release date they put out the new version, that has all the software and kernel upgrades. you can upgrade and keep the prior version but the support is rather minor. :o

[mmills]

here is a reference guide to ubuntu's update

http://ubuntuguide.org/#manualupdate

now becuse of this it is only good for 18 months......

"Ubuntu comes with full commercial support from hundreds of companies around the world. Ubuntu is released regularly and predictably; a new release is made every six months. Each release is supported with free security updates and fixes for at least 18 months." <----- I like this part "at least" which really means lousy support and updates not exactly 100% more like 75% or 60%

[blackbelt_jones]

Without more information, I can't get a good fix on your particular situation. Why did you leave the Ubuntu tribe anyway? If you simply want to try something different, SuSE's a perfectly legitimate choice. I tried 10.0, and I didn't care for it (e.g. couldn't figure it out) but I have 9.3 installed on my secondary partition. I like SuSE. For one thing, I can get it to connect to the internet when I can't get Fedora or Windows to connect, so it's good to have handy when I have my weird DSL problems. Without more information, I can't tell what kind of experience you'll have (SuSE is not a distro for old or low-end hardware.) But if you want to try it, try it! If you have a friend who knows it well and is willing to give you some pointers, that's probably worth taking advantage of. Anyway, it's not a lifetime decision.

Unless you want to spend a lot of time hunting down rpm depandnacies (you don't) you're going to want to have a package manager in place when you adopt an rpm distro. When you've got that taken care of, my experience is that rpm-based distros are just as easy as debian-based distros to maintain, though without quite as many available packages. (You get, say, a choice of 4 or 5 irc clients instead of 10 or12). I use apt-get for SuSE. You can get a lot of good infor on apt get for SuSE here. (http://linux01.gwdg.de/apt4rpm/)

Don't ask us for advice; we'll just confuse you by trying to recruit you into the cult of our individual pet distros. I think you should just do it. Let me say it in verse:

Don't be a PuSE
Go ahead and try SuSE. ;)

[mmills]

well from 1-5 all cd's burned properly, I didnt much care for the layout, guess Im just a debain package system type of guy, for my laptop I will eaither stay with ubuntu or find another distro that is close on the build, as soon as I get my system built, it will be straight debain all the way. I have alot of bios limitations so ubuntu so far has done the best for my compaq presario 2210US, it is 100% compatible with breezy, I just hate how 6 months from now I will be forced to upgrade my system.

mmills

[blackbelt_jones]

I've got SuSE installed on two of my four Linux partitions, 9.3 and 10.0. I've yet to get apt-get-- or any other package manager-- working with 10.0... the nifty installer script doesn't work as well with 10.0, so I've been sticking with 9.3. Let me know if you manage to solve that problem. I'm using SuSE more and more, partly because there's something seductive about SuSE, but also because of some weird problem with my connection that seems to come and go. Sometimes Fedora won't connect, debian won't connect, Windows won't connect-- but SuSE connects every time. How weird is that?

[mmills]

I tried suse 10, and I will have to say they have come up in the linux world as far as I am concerened, but my opinion with suse is they are better for servers or office desktop enviornments, suse never did my desktop any justice, I have never liked MS, so I will never go back to paying $$ for software that you have to upgrade all the time. I like debian package systems, and since there is pro version software that I have paid for like limewire pro and so forth I will more than likely stay with a debian distro so that I wont have to pay for more software again....... :rolleyes:

mmills

and if I was a gamer, I would buy the mac edition......:D

[blackbelt_jones]

It's impossible to judge fairly from such a brief exposure, but after a night and a day spent with SUSE 10.0, I have returned to SUSE 9.3. There were a few performance issues-- 10 froze up on me a couple of times-- but a lot of it was about apt-- apt was much easier to configure and manage with 9.3, and I was able to find a lot more of the software that I wanted on the repositories that were available from the apt4SUSE how-to page.

So I have to say that most of what I didn't like about my experience with SUSE 10.0 had to do with issues that were not strictly about the OS, but more about the support for apt. The overall picture is likely to improve but for now 9.3 is just fine.

My understanding is that version 10 is the first version of SUSE to include apt as a part of the distribution, to be installled off the CDs with yast-- and yet, the plan is that after version 10 support for apt is to be phased out altogether. :confused: Kind of a mixed message there, guys!

The most decisive reason why I'm using SUSE right now, when I'm trying to to get into Fedora is that something weird has happened to my DSL connection. Fedora doesn't connect (neither does Windows) but SUSE does (so does Kanotix). I don't look forward to calling verizon about this. Someone at Verizon once asked me if Mandrake Linux was a Windows operating system.

[mmills]

I looked in the closet at all my old suse box's, I have 8.0, 8.2 and 9.0 pro and personal versions. I downloaded 10, and some things I liked more than the older versions, but some things still the same for me, for sure I would use it as a server, no doubt, but suse's gui isnt my style, I like a nice blackbox or gnome on my desktop. honestly I would love to ween myself from ubuntu, but I cant get debian to get past the USB on the install, and there is no way to shut of USB Legacy in my Bios. I guess thats what I get for getting a cheap motherboard. I have a wife at home who really digs at me on my computer time, so If I ran it for a couple of days and then reinstalled something else.........yeah.....there would be hell to pay.

mmills

[blackbelt_jones]

On Friday, I spent a lot of time setting up SUSE 9.3, and just about as I was finishing up, I got my first inkling of what yast is all about. I became aware that whether SUSE 10.0 has good support for apt-get is pretty superfluous when it has yast.. So after some agonized deliberation, I came to accept that I needed to do it all over again. Saturday I installed SUSE 10.0, took the time to configure YAST with the contents of the five CDs installed to the hard drive (this means that I no longer need to fumble with the disks when installing software) and I added a couple of online repositories. By the end of the night I was working on the look my desktop. (Nothing says "I am done distro-hopping for a while" like customized desktop icons made with GIMP! I worked on SUSE from the time I got up to the wee hours.. My God, I love it! I think I've finally found my distro for the next couple of years.

One big reason is YAST. We've got a lot of great distros, and a lot of great package managers, but I can't think of another distro that's built around its package manager the way SUSE is built around YAST. I think that's great, for a lot of reasons. The vast majority of people on this planet (including me) are never going to be successful with Linux without a package manager. There are two reasons why, when I was starting out, I wound up installing Linux about 1000 times, and one is that it took me so long to learn about package management.. (THe other was that I put off learning the command line. )

I've got a big fat recent Fedora manual, where only a handful of pages are about yum, according to the index. The introduction to "SUSE 10 Unleashed" says explicitly that yast is mentioned in every chapter. Nobody is going to run SUSE for any length of time without learning about yast..

Of course, if you're used to adding packages at the command line with apt-get, yast can seem pretty slow and overdone, with its lumbering guis within guis that only let you search and install one topic at a time.. The first time I tried SUSE, it was with a 266 mhz processor and 150 GB RAM, and do you want to talk about slow? Even with a 3.0 P4 and a gig of RAM, I'm pretty sure I could have done the equivalent of what took me a few hours in SUSE setting up my system during just a few minutes with debian. I have a single apt-get command that I keep online in my yahoo notepad. It contains just about every package I need to get debian the way I want it. I copy it at the command line as root, and I'm all set up.

However, setting up one's system after an install isn't something a person does everyday, and for some beginners, the intuitive (in this case, the word really applies) gui that costs a user a couple of hours may wind up saving him months of frustration trying to get a handle on his system. Even for more experienced users, the GUI adds precision and control to the package management process, and turns out to be especially useful for UNinstalling software.

When I talk about my newfound enthusiasm for SUSE, I'm deliberately trying to use subjective language to convey a subjective impression. It seems a little goofy to talk about how I "love" my new operating system, but it's more honest and accurate than if I tell you SUSE is better than, say Debian, the last Linux that I called my own. I don't think it really is, for one thing. For another thing, I don't feel particularly qualified to evaluate any distro, only my experience with it. As a beginner, it was sort of thrilling to run something as powerful as debian, even if I couldn't always do everything I wanted to do with it. With SUSE, I can pretty much can do everything I want with it, and that's even more thrilling. After much more time than it should have taken, I feel that I am at last completely in control of technology that is worth controlling-- and THAT is cool.

[mmills]

dude......you rock...lol
I like suse, some things about it, yes yast has a true love of users, if not suse would be more like slackware, and not that Im putting slackware down, but its more to compile, more hands on, and yast makes things so much more simple. My wife prefers suse more than ubuntu or debian, but she has her laptop and is MS curupted...haha. I may end up going back to suse 10 and running a different GUI, since my biggest flaw is the desktop, I may blackbox it, Im not sure, I know it picked up every piece of hardware my laptop has with the exception of my wireless card which ndiswrapper will fix, ubuntu coulndt find my dialup modem, so 1 up 1 down, I may just run with it, and install blackbox, since you ran your sales pitch so well, I may go ahead and buy...lol

mmills

[blackbelt_jones]

You know what's really funny? Somewhere in that other SUSE thread I go on and on about how SUSE sucks. Wrote it just a month or so ago. Luckily, I don't embarass easy.

[mmills]

uh wow, lol
I reinstalled suse, altho I would love to go away with KDE for diskspace, I am currently running blackbox, and by doing so I have fixed the one issue I always had with suse, I will no more the I use it
but so far, its a good distro. it is the 1st time I have successfully installed a desktop other than gnome/kde. I wonder if it would be possible to remove kde altogether. if not no big deal, I will say that suse loads faster than ubuntu, ubuntu always hangs if Im not connected to my home network, suse cruzes right along.

:D mmills

[blackbelt_jones]

. I wonder if it would be possible to remove kde altogether.

This exactly the sort of thing SUSE makes very simple and secure. You should be able to find out very easily by going into yast/software management and unchecking everythihg you don't want. Yast should tell you exactly what you can and can't remove before you get into any trouble.

By the way, did you copy your disks to the harddrive? Assuming you have the hard drive space, you can copy all of your disks to your hard drive, add the path to the first disk to your sources, and you won't need to handle the disks when you want to install and uninstall stuff. You'll find detailed discussion under yast/installation source.

I don't want you to think I haven't encountered a few bugs and problems. Sometimes I can't get the volume control mixer to open up on he first try, stuff like that. But SUSE is everything I need it to be, and it's nice... make that wonderful-- to finally settle down. For the past couple of days, I've put a lot of effort into customizing my desktop because I don't plan on reinstalling any time soon.

[micro]

Still being a Slackware fan, I tried Suse 10.0 and I like it very much.
The mount automation is great, the nvidia module automatic install worked perfectly (in other Suse versions it didn't), my non-usb-mass-storage camera - the one that needed libgphoto to work - was automatically seen and browsed into, the software it installs is huge, including programs like kmymoney or kmldonkey (in other situations I would have to look around for) and a great update mechanism. Not to mention the games.

Although I prefer to - and still do - change configuration files by hand, Yast2 is great, not only b/c it can change things, but b/c it also understands all the manual alterations I have made.

Of course, I changed the default runlevel to 3 and configured the gpm, got rid of the splash screen and used the 1024x768 console mode, upgraded some rpms to solve the media restriction issue in Suse, found gftp for Suse, installed a Netscape too, found a lilypond (textual symbolic music typesetting program) and now use it without problem (lilypond could not work well in Slackware 10.2). I am still searching for kuickshow though.

I am amazed on how little I installed or tweaked on Suse 10.0 in order to make a Distro that I can use. And it's very tweakable by hand, still having the most powerful and centralized tool I have ever encountered in a Linux distro.

The only drawback (unless i am mistaken) is that I can not find a Yast for console, although previous Suse versions had one.

[micro]

Correction. Yast exists for the console. Its name is just "yast" and it is a terminal application, while "yast2" is graphical.

[GmarAppledude]

I started out with Suse and really liked it, but moved through Kubuntu to Mepis. I currently don't have Suse installed anywhere. I am thinking about Suse 10.0 64bit for my new X2 system. From what I have read all the 32Bit software will run fine, but that was Novells own "propeganda". Does any one have any experience of the 64bit version? How is the hardware detection in 64Bit, as bad as XP64, as good as suse 10.0 32bit?

I'll probably go for 10/64 soonish and let you all know how it goes.

[dannah]

Well,
So far as a complete newbie I am having a terrible time with the Novell purchased edition.
Please see my thread in Software Forum.

But I am not giving up hope yet. :confused:

[psych-major]

I have SuSE 10.0 on a workstation and a 64bit Opteron server. Overall I am very happy with it. I had an issue with the install on my workstation where it couldn't detect the onboard video, but gave me no feedback to that effect, disabling it in the BIOS and installing an AGP card fixed it. And on the 64bit server, I can install a fibre-atttached virtual tape library due to a conflict with the SATAhard drive.

Other than those two issues, I have been extremely pleases, and as for the RPM issue, you can still compile from source if you're a slacker like me...
./configure && make && make install!!!

[psych-major]

I started out with Suse and really liked it, but moved through Kubuntu to Mepis. I currently don't have Suse installed anywhere. I am thinking about Suse 10.0 64bit for my new X2 system. From what I have read all the 32Bit software will run fine, but that was Novells own "propeganda". Does any one have any experience of the 64bit version? How is the hardware detection in 64Bit, as bad as XP64, as good as suse 10.0 32bit?

I'll probably go for 10/64 soonish and let you all know how it goes.

I'm running 10.0 x86_64 on an Opteron and it is sweet! I dual boot the server with Windows server 03 and SuSE blows M$ out of the water, both in terms of ease of install and smoothness of use.

The ONLY issue I have had is trying to mount a fibre-attached virtual tape library becasue of a conflict with the SATA drive, as mentioned previously, but I think that will be fixed when I get a chance to log into the SATA controller BIOS and change its ID from SCSI 0 to something else.

You can see my notes here (http://www.justlinux.com/forum/showthread.php?t=142687&highlight=opteron), next to last post.

[Barney_DK]

I'm considering getting Suse 10, and saw on Novells site that it has ipod support out of the box.
Can anyone testify that this is really the case? I have never managed to get mine working with gtkpod on Suse 9.2 despite spending a while fiddling around with it.
If it is working with something like Amarok, I would definately go for it. As for the earlier posts about rpm based distros, it really is just a case of setting up the Yast repositories though. I did mine a while back, and very rarely get problems with dependencies now.

[nikodell]

Woorks great here as it is seen as removable drive and is worhing with gtkpod after setting the correct mount point.

[blackbelt_jones]

Wow, this thread is back! It's fun to read some of the things i wrote a couple of months ago, when I first started using SUSE.

Is the "full version of SUSE the free 5cd version that I downloaded, cuase if it is, I love it!

It's all about YAST, baby!. A great package manager and administrative tool built right at the center of everything. It's important to note that yast is more command-line friendly than you might think-- I read in one of the books that yast is actually older than most desktop environments.

But if there's a time when you want a nice GUI, it's when you're doing system administration. At the gui, which is how most people use it, yast is bloated, yast is slow-- but yast is not designed to be run 24-7. You don't do sysadministration all the time, so the drag on resources is pretty ephemeral-- and it isn't just eye candy. It's organized to do everything possible to make sure that you know what you're doing when it matters most. It lays out everything. It thinks of everything. It's a great tool for beginners. And I don't think that advanced users can complain that it dismpowers the user the way that many gui tools can.

[GmarAppledude]

I'm glad this threads back. So I bought Suse 10 64Bit and am using it now for this post. I like it so far but we'll see, only installed it yesterday. I couldn't get the Nvidia driver installed using the automated YOU method and ended up installing it at the command line (driver from Nvidias site) Maybe thats just me. Just tried TuxRacer to prove it was working and it is. I will shortly start a new thread with an Xorg related issue, if that get sorted I'll probably stick with it for a while.

I chose the install everything kind of approach and there seem to be a lot more apps than 9.2. Well impressive. Updates to this comment I'm sure.

Oh yeah, also I'm triple booting with XP and Mepis. Windows booted fine afterwards but I had to edit menu.lst to get Mepis working. Just a little number wrong in there that all. Again all working now.

[amgeex]

I just installed 10.0 today, and I already installe the nvidia drivers on my system, but I feel like the whole display is kinda slow, way slower that it was on Windows XP, dragging windows around fast produces ghosting, a serious evidence that the hardware acceleration is not being used at its full potential. I installed the nvidia drivers via YOU, if that helps. My video card is a GeForce 6800 made by eVGA.

Um... also, I've tried to add mp3 support to Rhythmbox, but to no avail. What package do I need to download to get my mp3s playing?

Thanks a lot! I'm not a newbie to linux (I used debian like 2 years ago), but I'm sure feeling like one!

AMGeeX.

[blutzy]

I have tried many versions of Suse (in the past) and I never had one not freeze during install... I am definately not a fan.
I started learning Linux with SuSe 9.0 and never had any problems till I went to install 10.0.
It freezes everytime during repeated attempts to install. Then I tried it in "Safemode" and it installed in a breeze.
[/FONT] :)

[Dr. Shim]

I need someone else to tell me the great and the ugly.

Awesome: It's open source, and free to download now.
Good: It's amazingly, amazingly easy to use and maintain. I haven't touched the terminal in a long time now.
Bad: It's very bloated, and can get slow. I recommend you install SUSE with KDE, as it seems to run the fastest on my 800 MHz server. Be sure to check what packages it's going to install as well.
Worst: Hard to get your nose to the metal. It's not the most power-user-friendly distribution in the world.

For me it's great. AFAIK it'll even upgrade the kernel for you.

[enshum]

Okay this one is pretty easy there is no other Linux just use SUSE period.

ed

[Torch]

I'm considering getting Suse 10, and saw on Novells site that it has ipod support out of the box.
Can anyone testify that this is really the case? I have never managed to get mine working with gtkpod on Suse 9.2 despite spending a while fiddling around with it.
If it is working with something like Amarok, I would definately go for it. As for the earlier posts about rpm based distros, it really is just a case of setting up the Yast repositories though. I did mine a while back, and very rarely get problems with dependencies now.
It does work, but I found it a little tricky to set it up exactly the way I wanted it all to behave. Unfortunately, Amarok is not an option, at least not with fifth generation iPods, because Amarok 1.3.x cannot reliably talk to these newer devices, apparently. This is supposed to be fixed in the upcoming Amarok 1.4.

I've written an article with my findings on the matter and instructions on how to work around some minor and major annoyances: SUSE Linux 10 and an Apple iPod (http://www.volker-lanz.de/en/toys/ipod_suse10/) The article also contains a patch for the KDE sources to make "Safely Remove" work, but unless you know what you're doing, I wouldn't recommend trying that out ;-)

[blackbelt_jones]

I just discovered another reason to love SUSE: the system repair tool! I had accidentally messed up the boot loader. I booted up the SUSE disk, hoping that I could at least use it to boot my system, and found the repair tool by accident. It not only automatically analyzed and fixed the boot loader, I think it may have fixed a couple of other problems I'd been having at the same time! I was very impressed.

If you're running SUSE and you've never done so, I think I would reccomend running the system repair tool on "analyze" just to see what it happens to find. (Of course, it wouldn't hurt to back up your data first.)

[blackbelt_jones]

Okay this one is pretty easy there is no other Linux just use SUSE period.

ed

You sound like me a year ago, when I was a "Moonie for Debian"

Maybe I'm taking you too literally, but I feel obliged to pint out that there are exceptions. For example, you miight not want to run SUSE on an old machine. (I have a 3.0 ghz Pentium 4 with multithreading and a gigabyte of RAM), and sometimes running YAST is still like watching paint dry! The available YAST repositories aren't as well stocked as what's available for Fedora or (of course) Debian. And I still think that in many cases, Debian (or Ubuntu, Mepis, or whatever) is a great newbie distro, especially for the newbie has the common sense to not wipe his windows system right away. Nowadays, all Debian distros that I know are a cinch to install, and as comprehensive ans powerful as YAST is, no one will ever come up with a package manager that's eaiser than apt-get.

But SUSE is what I'm running now, and I love it.

[zeroth]

Ok, since I cant decide whice distro to turn from since I am leaving ubuntu, I am considering SUSE ver 10, a friend of mine has ver 10 the 5 cd set and loves it, but he thinks linux should be just suse, so I need someone else to tell me the great and the ugly.

Learn a Linux aplicable to any distro: Slackware. Then move to Gentoo and call yourself a Linux veteran.


:-)

[enshum]

"You sound like me a year ago, when I was a "Moonie for Debian" I've been using Suse as my primary OS starting with 8.0 just about three years I believe. I use a slide tray system and muliple hard drive so I can evaluate other systems right now I have Mepis 3.4.3rc3 running on the second drive the final release should prove to be really good.

ed

[-nick]

I'm running SuSe 10 on two home machines - a Thinkpad T21 (800MHz, 512Mb, 40Gb drive), and a custom desktop (3.0GHz P4, 4GB RAM, 250Gb SATA, 256Mb nvidia card). Yep, YAST is even slow on the desktop. Although suse has had no problems setting up the thinkpad (just don't use their configure-thinkpad tool, you don't get anything extra for it) or the desktop.

I still use XP for media stuff - watching dvd's, copying dvd's (I mean backing up...) And I have yet to get the wireless up and running under suse (more of a problem of my card selection).

Anyway, I'd recommend it. I upgraded from 9.3, and RH8 before that. Just be sure to spend some time looking through the packages to pick during installation - the kernel source is not installed by default. Then spend a while with YAST and SAX and you're ready to go.

nick

[mmills]

blackbelt.........WHAT HAVE I DONE? I created a MONSTER THREAD!!!!! :eek:

[techwise]

I realize this thread is ancient but since last weekend I tried SuSE 10, I must comment. I got the DVD as a freebie in a Linux rag and had used SuSE 7* some years back. It was one of the first couple distros I spent time with as a noob. I just had to see what had become of this since my last experience. I know some people love it and some people dont, I mean no offense to those SuSE lovers out there but this stuff is complete ****e. I was even dissapointed because I wanted to like it but I just cant. I wont give all the details but among them are X not starting witht the "nvidia" driver installed, certain YaST appletts not working at all and the rediculously huge amount of programs installed by default. It takes more time and effort to cut out the crap you dont want than it does to install most other distros as a base and then add what you do want. I got X working eventually bun was underwhelmed by the whole experience. This is just not a good representative of wht Linux and OSS is all about (agreeing to the license at the install was pretty disturbing). Im afraid converts will try SuSE and think that SuSE is what Linux IS, like so many people think AOL is THE internet. I cant actually think of a distro that I would reccomend less than SuSE at this point.

m

[goingtopot]

I DLed Vector SOHO 5.1.2 Live 2. Is that the right one? I'm a total newbie to Linux so any assist will be appreciated. There are other files on the site later than that one (smaller size) that I may have to DL as well.

[KRiSX.net]

i have used many many dists over the last few years and i have to say that SuSE in one of my fav's... what can i say.. i love my eye candy... lol

my other fav is ubuntu/kubuntu... yes i've used normal debian.. and i liked it... but ubuntu just makes things a little easier i feel and with all the user support and developments such as automatix, you can't go past it for being easy to setup.

i am currently in the process of choosing my windows replacement... suse is definatly up there in my top 2.

going back to some of the first posts... one thing i hate about suse... rpm... lol

suse is debian form.. now that'd be sweet!

[goingtopot]

I think I'll try both Vector and Ubuntu prior to looking into SUSE. Of course, as a newbie, I'm still trying to figure out what to do with the install packages. At least I have an available desktop I can use without messing up my notebooks. Thanks.

[KRiSX.net]

honestly i think the best combo for a new user is Ubuntu + ubuntuforums.org + Automatix...

you seriously can't go wrong.. the forum is great and automatix works awesomely...

[jaja]

how difficult is it? it seems like all the deb fanatics are running the show here. I've used suse since 7.3 and i've also used ubuntu. In my oppinion suse has a scalability that is very good. Yast(2) is pretty good even over ssh. I wouldn't hesitate to advertice for suse. Works perfectly every time. the best distro ever!

[micro]

Suse and Slackware are the best distros in my opinion. Different approach , but both doing exactly what they are supposed to.