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SUSE Linux 10.1 Screenshot Tour

Posted by CowboyNeal on Fri May 12, 2006 04:27 AM
from the have-a-look dept.
Software Businesses SuSE Linux
An anonymous reader writes "Distrowatch reports - Following some eight months of testing, the openSUSE project has finally released the long-delayed and much-awaited SUSE Linux 10.1: 'After lot of work and several delays, we proudly announce the availability of SUSE Linux 10.1. As usual, we ship all the latest open source packages available at the time. We want to give special mention to Xgl for 3D acceleration on the desktop, NetworkManager for getting painless WiFi access everywhere, the completely open source AppArmor 2.0, and the full integration of Xen 3 in YaST.' OSDir has some great screenshots of the fresh SUSE Linux in the SUSE Linux 10.1 Screenshot Tour."
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  • Looks nice! (Score:4, Informative)

    by Whiney Mac Fanboy (963289) * <whineymacfanboy@gmail.com> on Friday May 12 2006, @04:28AM (#15316115) Homepage Journal
    This is looking great!

    Nice simple clean theme unified across KDE & Gnome, the install, the boot screen [osdir.com], partition manager, etc. They all look the same & really pretty nice.

    Good job Suse!

    Oh - and this release includes XGL - if anyone wants to have a look at what it looks like - check out this video [youtube.com] (I think it's Suse 10, but with lots of extra's included in 10.1) - man it looks nice!
    • While I have to agree with the AC to some degree -- most of the stuff is fairly underwhelming, I don't really need the windows to distort on moving, and I don't ever use alpha transparency in Windows XP -- what makes it all worth is that it apparently offers Exposé functionality. That not only looks cool, it's also extremely useful and something I wish I had in Windows. (BTW does anybody know of a good, modern tiling window manager [wikipedia.org] for Win XP?)
      • what makes it all worth is that it apparently offers Exposé functionality.

        Yup - that is the most immediately useful functionality!

        But I disagree with you that Alpha transparency isn't useful - it's just that it's does not do anything useful in Windows.
        • It pretty much doesn't do anything at all in vanilla Windows XP. But since the support is there, many tools make use of it, so if I wanted to I could have a semi-transparent IM contact list, etc. And of course there are tools that can set any given window to be semi-transparent. I just don't see why I would want to do that. It's nice in a highly graphic user interface, such as many games, but in a predominantly text based world like a browser, email app, development environment, P2P client, not so much. Of
          • Of course you're quite welcome to have a different take on it!

            Thanks - I do :-)

            The API in windows is a bit hard to get to, so a lot of people don't use it!

            I think translucency can be useful in a windowing envionment can be good when it's used well. I'd like to see larger mice pointers that are translucent, sometimes I can't see the trash properly when I'm dragging large items into it - would be nice if the items were translucent.

            Also - I sometimes run a music player that likes to sit on top of all other wi
    • Yeah great job SuSE - you finally pulled off what Mac and Windows had ten years ago in desktop themeing and consistency???

      Come on... it's GNOME and KDE, and both still look like something out of 1998.

  • That blasted image viewer (Score:3, Insightful)

    by sl8r (104278) on Friday May 12 2006, @04:39AM (#15316139)
    *WHEN* will osdir change their image viewer to something smarter? Loading all images again every time you select a new screenshot is kinda tedious, and probably adds to the strain on their server, what with all the times osdir's screenshot galleries get mentioned on /.

    Add a JS image swap script, keep the current linking as it is (to appease the usability poo-flingers), and save bandwidth!

    That said, Suse looks nice! :D
    • If OSdir hosted all those screenshots just so we could all take a quick tour of some OS, yes that would be the way to go.

      If however you want to do the above and , while doing so, make some money from advertising, you would make damn sure every view of a screenshot generates $blah banner views.

    • Have you ever tried Firefusk Firefox extension [firefusk.com] ? Ok I know, it was designed to watch a long serie of porn images in a single page. But it can also be used for "non evil" things ;).
    • Doesn't your browser cache the thumbnails? Personally, I find those screenshot galleries tedious because they're just a bit dull. I guess I'm spoiled by the cool Gnome release notes featuring heavily annotated screenshots.

    • Re:That blasted image viewer (Score:4, Insightful)

      by sfraggle (212671) on Friday May 12 2006, @04:26PM (#15321478)
      More fundamentally, when are they going to start providing _useful_ sets of screenshots for Operating Systems? It seems like every time a new OS comes out, osdir.com has a set of screenshots documenting every single step of the install process and every single menu of every single program that comes with the system. Come on, who actually needs to see this much detail? I'd much rather see a concise set of screenshots showing the interesting and unique features of the OS rather than this.

  • NetworkManager vs. dhcpcd (Score:4, Informative)

    by Optikschmoptik (971793) on Friday May 12 2006, @05:09AM (#15316193) Homepage
    I've been using NetworkManager for wireless on 10.0 for a few weeks. It's a huge improvement over dhcpcd (standard install on 10.0), at least for ndiswrapper-based card drivers. Before, I had to open kwifimanager to get a list of available networks, but I couldn't connect with kwifi. I had to go into YaST, change the network settings to whatever I found with kwifi, by hand, restart the Network with YaST, hope I typed everything in right, then maybe connect; I also sometimes had to do it from ifdown/ifup in the command line. It was enought to make me want to boot into windows.

    Now with NetworkManager, I can wardrive again! Thank God for NetworkManager!

    • You think you've got problems? I've got an Avaya card using the orinoco_cs driver, which doesn't support scanning for networks. There's an updated driver which does - it wouldn't build for me on ubuntu beta. So I don't get to join a network unless I've found it already, and in order to do it I have to enter the ssid manually either using the network-config tool or iwconfig. It seems to figure out the channel automatically, though not always (has problems with ad-hoc) and it doesn't support master mode, eith
  • Does anyone recognise the multilingual background in this screenshot [osdir.com]? I've seen it before somewhere, while working for Sun I think... perhaps a Solaris screen... or something to do with the old java stations?
    • Sun used it in their SUSE-based 'Sun Java Desktop', which has now been discontinued.
      • You mean this? [osdir.com] I remember it looking more similar...
        • That's the one, JDS 2, but I think the one I played with didn't have the black bars in the background, making it, as you say, more similar.

          JDS was quite a disappointment for me. Over a year ago, we were testing it alongside RedHat and Gentoo and we were amazed at the lack of polish of JDS. I mean, a company with the size and expertise of Sun could very easily devote some effort to make its Linux distro not look like some half-finished college project. I wasn't surprised when they killed the project.

          Cheers,

          M

  • I've always found Suse to be a nice distro, but... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by QCompson (675963) on Friday May 12 2006, @05:34AM (#15316242)
    is yast still slower than a one-legged turtle on ambien?
  • It might have XGL eye candy, but it's running an outdated version of GNOME. Is SUSE still favouring their KDE heritage? It was Novell that sort of pushed GNOME upon SUSE when they bought them.
    • I think the features freeze was a month or two ago, and the main changes since then have been bugfixing. Gentoo only unmasked 2.14 a couple of weeks ago, so possibly Suse didn't think it was stable enough at the time either. It also only has kde 3.5.1 since 3.5.2 came out slightly too late.
    • Just add Gnome in your installation sources. That way you get the updates as they come along.....Actually, having just looked at http://ftp.iinet.net.au/pub/suse/Suse/i386/supple m entary/GNOME/ [iinet.net.au] it looks like they only have the updates for 10.0 at the moment so you might have to wait for a couple of days for the update_for_10.1 folder to come up. Have a look around though.
      Novell will be using Gnome as the default on SLES and Novell Linux Desktop but the KDE libraries will be be supplied on both as well.
    • Is SUSE still favouring their KDE heritage?

      God, I hope so! My heart sank when I loaded the first image and saw the two little footprints in the lower left corner.

      Sorry if this comes off as flamebait, but I've tried a variety of environments and Gnome is the one I've liked the least. KDE is my favorite, even among other OSs (I've never liked the Mac UI, and OSX just added a few more things I don't like).

      • Try 2.14. I've been using KDE since thee the 0.x days, but I'm now a GNOME user. In the past I'd try every new release of gnome but would be fed up with it after a week or two and switch back to KDE. I've now been running 2.14 since FC5 came out and I have no desire to change. I really like it. It feels very fast, starts fast, and looks very nice. I'm really digging the "Applications/Places/System" menus.
  • how come so many germans use it? Is it originally from there, or is there some other interesting reason? Just curious...
    • And while you're answering that, I want to know why Slackware is popular in Brazil [vivaolinux.com.br].
    • It was originally a german translation of Slackware.

    • Re:I've always wondered about SUSE, (Score:4, Insightful)

      by arkhan_jg (618674) on Friday May 12 2006, @06:30AM (#15316345)
      SuSE was originally a packaged german-translation of slackware, but evolved into it's own commercial distro based in germany over time with a number of unique features such as YaST, the configuration and installation tool. I believe they also helped KDE development substantially, another german project. SuSE of course was bought out by Novell a couple of years ago (a US company), and is the basis for Novell's linux line these days. Since Novell also had ximian etc, SuSE stopped being a primarily KDE distro, and is now as much gnome as KDE. SUSE Linux is still a german based operation though I believe, with much of the same structure as when it was an independent company.

      Novell are doing something similar to fedora with openSUSE, i.e. an opensource-only version that's community driven, with commercial/boxed retail versions being spun off that includes licenced and closed-source components such as codecs and java.

      SuSE was my preferred distro for some time, but it was always a pain to update to newer app versions when they updated to a new version bump - the only way I found was to cough up for an upgrade DVD, or wait months for the free ftp version. Now they've got a truly open-source version (including a GPL YAST) with free updates as well as security patches, I've been looking at them again for boxes that don't need the configurability of gentoo.

  • Nice for laptop (Score:4, Informative)

    by mattcasters (67972) on Friday May 12 2006, @05:52AM (#15316269) Homepage
    Last time I wrote on Slashdot that Mandriva was installing fine but refused to even run on my laptop I got modded into oblivion.

    So it's with great joy I have to say that I've been working with SuSE 10.1RC3 for a couple of weeks now and it really IS very nice. I have a brand new laptop: Acer 5612, Dual Core, NVidia 3D card, etc.
    In hours I got everything working, *including* Xgl which is nice.

    Special thanks to the MPlayer guys who installed the video codecs on it at Linuxtag in Wiesbaden.

    Hey, I'm even starting to like Gnome. Who would have though it possible on SuSE? ;-)

    Cheers,

    Matt

    • I had the opposite problem, ubuntu beta wouldn't install properly on my laptop, but once I tricked the installer (somehow) it runs great :)

      First, I installed and told it to use the whole disk. It fucked it up. Then I tried to manually partition. It kept failing to recognize partitions I'd made, and trashing their partition types. About the third time I rebooted, ran the installer, and partitioned, it worked - after partitioning twice in the same installer session.

      Of course, it's a beta, so I'm not bi

  • Dissapointed (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'm becoming a little dissapointed with reviews like these where the main focus is on screenshots and the way the GUI looks. That always reminds me about the first wave of "Vista reviews" which went "A revolutionary 3D desktop interface" and somewhere further along the article would be some mentioning about the (IMO interesting) new security enhancements and all that.

    In a way articles like these clearly show that Linux is getting to a level where people can indeed focus on looks and decide on that instead
  • In this age of AJAX hypeness, can't OSDir come up with a better way to display screenshots? I'm getting a little tired of their...

    Scroll down, scroll right, click... scroll down, scroll right, click...

    And, yes, I'm running beyond 1024x768.

  • Cumbersome Install (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Hellboy0101 (680494) on Friday May 12 2006, @08:03AM (#15316683)
    The fact that the install covers 23 screenshots should tell you that they need to seriously streamline it. Xandros takes a half a dozen mouse clicks, and it's done. PCLinuxOS (which I think is the best home user desktop distro) takes about the same. PC-BSD is very simple as well.

    An install should consist of:
    1. Create users.
    2. Would like me to create the partitions for you? (offer an advanced feature as well)
    3. Are you going to use DHCP, or a static address?
    4. Would you like to review the software that is going to be installed?
    5. Click next to complete.

    That's it.

    Those who created the OS should know the apps that 95% of computer users use. A web browser (with plugins pre-installed), an e-mail reader, multimedia apps, games, OpenOffice, and of course, the hardware correctly probed and installed. The security settings should be reasonable, and the first set of updates should be applied automatically.

    Once the PC is up, take users to a Welcome screen, and ask if they would like to setup automatic updates, install additional software, and point them to an FAQ, or let them know how to get help.

    Suse does many of these things right, but bombarding the user with so many questions during the install makes an intimidating first impression that turns users off.
    • An install should consist of:
      1. Create users.
      2. Would like me to create the partitions for you? (offer an advanced feature as well)
      3. Are you going to use DHCP, or a static address?
      4. Would you like to review the software that is going to be installed?
      5. Click next to complete.


      That's pretty much how the Suse install has been since I first installed it in late 1999. I have a hard time believing those screenshots are an accurate representation of the process (and several of them a just loading screens, btw).

    • Don't confuse the OS with the distribution. It's not the OS which provides the apps. It's not the distribution which provides the functionality. You need both. The world is filled with barely computer literate WinME and WinXPHome users, who have, as a rule, been responsible for all the spam, DDOS and zombie attacks, and whose crappy pre-installed apps (Hello Outlook Express) are responsible for email harvesting attacks which fill my spam folder.

      You can go back and forth on too complicated or too simple
  • There used to be a list of working cards, and my ATI rv280 (9200pro) didn't work with xgl.. Is that fixed?
  • The "Start" icon in gnome looks like an erect penis. http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/637_or/26.png [osdir.com]
    • I always liked SuSE and found it is easy to use yet good and solid and easy to get into when you want to do something yourself. I just got Mandriva 2006 though so I will not rush out and buy it. With all these releases it is a bit like Windows, lots of hype but not really that much changes.
      • I always liked SuSE and found it is easy to use yet good and solid and easy to get into when you want to do something yourself. I just got Mandriva 2006 though so I will not rush out and buy it. With all these releases it is a bit like Windows, lots of hype but not really that much changes. So basically, you've got fuck all to say, but are saying it anyway.
      • > just got Mandriva 2006

        I really reccommend you take a look at the alternative repositories availible for Mandriva, to expirence Mandriva to it's fullest :)


    • Why the heck is this guy moderated as a Troll? Seriously, we need to stop giving mods to people who don't understand that dissent is not a troll. Trolling should be reserved specifically for people who say something without support such as, "Suse sucks." If I made a comment that said, Suse sucks, you could Troll me. The difference is that he attempts to back up his argument, whereas a troll just says it to start a fight. Just because he doesn't give great reasons, doesn't mean he's a Troll. As it is,
    • > As far as other choises go, the obvious one Ubuntu is way too much a software for hippies by hippies. I would prefer some German precision in my Linux.

      Are you trying to say Ubuntu is easier?

      Here is a typical example of me doing something under SuSE and one under Ubuntu.

      SuSe: Choose ATi driver from driver list in YasT's graphic card settings

      Ubuntu: https://wiki.ubuntulinux.org/BinaryDriverHowto/ATI [ubuntulinux.org]

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