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SuSE Businesses

S.u.S.E. 6.1 Ships Today 82

Drizzeth writes "Today S.u.S.E. Linux 6.1 will be released, this is what's new: Kernel 2.2.5, XFree86TM 3.3.3.1, Support for all 3Dfx cards: Voodoo I + II (accelerated) Voodoo Rush (accelerated) Voodoo Banshee / Voodoo III (beta), KDE 1.1 with koffice, GNOME 1.0, Ghostscript 5.10, ijb (non-cacheing HTTP proxy server that filters contents as described in the configuration files), freeamp (MP3-Player), netbeans (Cross-plattform Java IDE, Demo) And lots of updates."
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S.u.S.E. 6.1 Ships Today

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  • by Anonymous Coward
    Well, I noticed that announcement a while back that Chumbo.com would open up a Linux store, so I finally checked it out. The great news? SuSe 6.1 lists for about $24 for the official version: 450 page manual, 5 CDs. Can't get a better value than that! The bad news? They have it listed as shipping on (I think) the 19th! Their extremely nice customer support people said they'd look into it, but I still don't know if I feel like waiting that long.
  • by Anonymous Coward
    What docs are you looking for? I just switched to SuSE 6.0 a couple months ago and found all the available documentation in English as well as German and other languages.
  • by Anonymous Coward
    I just tried to install SuSE 6.0 on my box
    here and gave up after finding that much of
    the relevant documentation was only in German.

    Also, they haven't yet responded to three tech
    support emails I sent two weeks ago, and I hate
    their monolithic YAST tool. And why did they
    have to deviate from the standard way of installing PPP, making it difficult to run diald
    AND have manual control of PPP in the same setup?

    I gave up in disgust and have ordered RedHat 6.0.

    In SuSE's favor I have to say that the ability to
    manually load kernel modules in the setup was very
    useful, and I found the GUI to be uncommonly well
    organized.
  • by Shiska ( 131 )
    'Beta Voodoo III support' ?? Does this mean I can play q3test with a voodoo III? :)
    ----------------- ------------ ---- --- - - - -
  • Looking at their ftp site (ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/SuSE-Linux/), there is an ISO of apparently a 6.0 evaluation. I'm not sure what the evaluation bit means, but maybe they'll replace it with 6.1 soon...
  • I checked freshmeat.net and couldn't find it...
  • I check freshmeat.net and couldn't find it...
  • ...is 6.1 using? I would think 2.1, but I don't see anything confirming that on the list of features.

    TedC

  • No SuSE user has to use YaST, just like 'you don't have to use linuxconf & co. in RedHat.
    --
    Michael Hasenstein
    http://www.csn.tu-chemnitz.de/~mha/ [tu-chemnitz.de]

  • > find it amusing that S.u.S.E. always seems to
    > come out with a new version very shortly after
    > Red Hat comes out with another version...
    > and always with a slightly bigger version
    > number...

    Maybe this stems from the fact, that SuSE (the dots are gone) was already shipping distributions, when Red Hat didn't even exist? SuSE started business in 1992...
  • There actually were quite a few changes with the 6.0 release.

    Redhat 6.0
    glibc 2.1
    gnome 1.0
    kde 1.1

    The unstable 5.9 that your friend was playing around with was actually the 6.0 beta. Which explains the short availability, and the bugginess.
  • Ive used most every distro out there and SuSE has been my choice ever since Ive installed 6.0
    YAST is a pretty tool but you DONT have to stick with it! You CAN play around and modify the conf scripts by hand, YAST just backs up its own version of those scripts but is happy to accept yours as well.
    Whats better is you just edit /etc/rc.config or one of the desired scripts under /etc/rc.d, re-run YAST to make the changes take effect and your out of there.
    Now that is EASY face it.
    After all SuSE is more of a precision work than RedHat could ever be.

    Well but still its choices that makes Linux stronger. This shouldnt flaming around but the kick to keep all the distros improving.

    MaymunCuk
  • by aheitner ( 3273 )
    My understanding was that while the Banshee and V3 (same 2D hardware as Banshee) had more-or-less working Xservers, there was no Glide support for the boards.

    Has this changed? Is there (even almost-working) support for V3 in Linux?
  • ijb is the Internet junkbuster see:
    http://www.junkbuster.com/ for more details
    --
  • 3Dfx card support for GLIDE and other 3D is only available for Voodoo 1, 2, and Rush, however is not available for Banshee, and Voodoo 3 yet.

    Those two are only available as X servers and that is it. Be warned.

    -Alan
  • I have yet to see a "release" X server that properly supports the ATI Rage Pro LT (the regular Rage Pro isn't a problem). Until then, I'm stuck with good old NT as my only OS on my Dell I7K (I already blew away the boot sector virus known as Windows 98). There's a hacked X available, but it breaks on the current Dell BIOS. Bummer.

    Other than that, I used SuSE 6.0 for a while at home, and it's pretty nice. Right now I'm playing with COL 2.2, though.
  • I have had it pounded into my head over the last month or so (mainly on DellTalk) that the A09 BIOS breaks frame buffer support - otherwise I'd go that route. But fb only works with the 2.2 kernels - and my real hope was to take an off-the-shelf distro and run it as-is. Until a few days ago, my only option was a 2.0-based distro (I played with getting SuSE 6.0 running on it, with some success - I had X up with a patched server, but I couldn't get the PC Card Ethernet to work right). My point is that I don't even care about X support in a server PC, but for a laptop, my only _easy_ option is to have a ready-to-use X that supports the LT Pro without mods. Sure, I can hack it, but I shouldn't have to.

    As for the fellow who said I shouldn't have bought the card - Hello! This is a laptop, the card's built-in! I get no choice there, plus the Rage Pro LT is about as hotrod as it gets in laptops right now. A TNT doesn't go in there... I doubt it would fit! Besides, I bought it for the office, and that's why it runs NT. Very nicely, too. I'd like to use Linux more at the office, instead of just at home - and that's why I brought this up in the first place.
  • by TBone ( 5692 )
    At least SUSE didn't move all of the standard GNU include files to "gnu/*" as opposed to the standard / of the /usr/include directory tree, breaking all of my programs when the computer I have access to decided to upgrade to RedHat. What a bonehead thing that was, I spent about 3 days before I thought "Maybe the files really aren't there" and ran a 'find' on them....
  • The new version of Redhat is definitely a major release. Firstly, a reason to choose the .0 number is that there is a glibc version shift which probably means that 5.x users will need to do a clean install as opposed to an upgrade. Secondly, they are using a different desktop KDE/GNOME. The 6.0 release marks the inclusion of GNOME 1.x.

    The *.0 also indicates that this is a relatively unstable release ( mostly due to the new library version + desktop ) , so a lot of stability-conscious users ( such as sys-admins ) will probably stick to 5.2 until 6.1 is out.

    -- Donovan

  • Yast is great for newbies, but SuSE has an unfortunate tendency to try to force you to do everything through YaST. For people who are already used to linux and like to just hack the config files, SuSE can be a PITA.

    I agree that sticking to curses and staying clear of X is a good idea. ( try using a GUI over a dialup line some time ... )

    Meanwhile, Redhat also have linuxconf which does a lot of what YaST does. I can't say I've explored RH's GUI stuff though. What I like about Redhat is that you can just ignore the config tools and everything works nicely.

  • I find it amusing that S.u.S.E. always seems to come out with a new version very shortly after Red Hat comes out with another version... and always with a slightly bigger version number...

    oh well, I can't say anything bad about S.u.S.E. because I still have to use a boot disk of theirs to boot my system anytime something goes wrong. No other distribution seems to have figured out my scsi controller (which seems odd, since they (initio) have had a linux driver (with source) on their web page for this card for a year or more)

    Also, their boot disk has also been kind enough to allow me to run the installers of other distros... like slackware and debian, my distros of choice.

    so i guess my point is S.u.S.E. seems to have better hardware support than others... maybe if i have a spare puter lying around someday i'll give S.u.S.E. more of a try. (i don't think using their boot disk to boot another distros installer counts as using their distro... =)
  • oops... well, i don't remember reading about the international version of S.u.S.E. 6.1 on /. and therefore it never happened... ;)

    thanks for that correction... i just thought i noticed a trend and it just seemed sorta odd to me....

    and i definitely must agree on the slackware thing.... excellent learning ground. i think i learned more just from dealing with slackware then i did in an entire semester of my Operating Systems class.

    but now i use Debian, cuz i'm lazy... don't have time to keep up to date the slackware way...
  • yeah, i was definitely surprised when red hat announced this whole 6.0 ordeal. it seems like it came out in a bit of a hurry.

    i mean, all of a sudden i hear of this 5.9 (which a friend who used it told me was very buggy) and within a short period of time, there's 6.0

    but then again, i like debian, where the version number is still in the 2.*'s... or slackware where they're getting close to the 4 mark...

    so i guess this whole bigger number is better thing is sort of a farce...

    then again, m$ brought out win98 which wasn't much more than an overglorified service pack. of course, i think they had to, since they made the stupid pr move of putting the year in the title of their product, so that windows 95 was just sounding out of date by its name alone...

    so of course, if you're running win95 you have to update to win98 cuz it just sounds so much newer...

    marketing is nothing short of brainwashing, methinks... cept you have to make it entertaining too...

  • The official mirrors (ie ftp.suse.com, etc) have an ISO CD Image. This includes nearly all of the installation on a single disk image. It looks as though the ISO is similar to RedHat's GPL distro.

    This probably isn't excatly what you are looking for but it might help. =]
  • I bought mine at Fust in Zurich last Thursday for CHF 69. Not $25, but not too bad.

    Mike
  • I'm probably going to take some heat for this, but have there been 6 _major_ changes since it's release? The switch from lubc5 -> glibc2 is one, and maybe the kerel jump, but 6? Makes me wonder if Suse and RH aren't just trying to sound more advanced.

    Anyway I used Suse once. I couldn't stand YaST.
    You have to use it to do pretty much everything and I really don't like the interface. To each his own, I suppose.
  • Not a flame... but I think SuSE is the best. The following is all IMHO:

    I was a RedHat guy, but I just got so fed up. Redhat has gotten way to corporate and they don't seem to care if their software sucks, as long as people use it anyway (sound familiar?). SuSE puts a lot of care into their dist, and they include a lot of extra packages that RedHat never would bother with. The RedHat 5.2 install disk had a bug that would wipe out your entire extended partition!!! Even if you didn't install to that drive! That's crazy, and from what I've seen, SuSE takes more time to do it right and would never let this happen.

    ...and have you ever tried to actually download anything from RedHat? I find it amazing that noone seems to mind that they have what must be the most unreliable and slow ftp server around. This is AFAICT to get you to pay for a CD. SuSE's sites are fast (though I am losing faith right now... where is 6.1 on their servers???).

    SuSE is not perfect of course, no distribution is, but I'd say for people who want an easy to manage system and up-to-date packages pre-tested for your sustem, go SuSE. I first tried it back with 5.x and thought it was the absolute best, except that it wasn't glibc. This shortcoming was corrected in 6.0 and as soon as I had the chance, I SuSE'ed both of my machines and have never been happier.
  • So you wait a few more weeks or months with the other distributions. So what. Having a stable release with an easy upgrade path is much more important than being first.

    If someone does both, kudos to them.
  • Internet junkbuster is an excellent bandwidth saving product. It looks funny at work when I browse without it. I've become so used to not seeing ads.
    You really should check out http://www.waldherr.org/junkbuster [waldherr.org]. They have a modified version of ijb which is a lot cooler + they maintain an excellent, regularly updated blocklist.
  • I found bugs in SUSE 6.0 and sent them in and got no help, becuase I was not a registered user, you'd think they would want ot fix there bugs, but no.. so I went to RH5.2 and when I found bugs in there stuff I reported it thru there bugzilla.. they emailed me and helped me.. EVEN THOUGH I AM NOT REGISTERED USER.. I do not care about how anyone bad mouths Redhat, they are doing more for Linux than any other distro. Yes they have there bugs, as do all distros, but so far the still seem to believe in the OPEN SOURCE / "LINUX" way... if debian was easier to install I'd probably go with it over Redhat... SUSE sells demo cds also which is bad (IMHO) they tell companies like Linuxmall and Linuxcentral, what to put on there ftp cdroms, DON'T be fooled by an SUSE 1.89 cdrom.. it is probably only half the files on the ftp site.. I used to use then, and they are just out for money, it seems what have they done for Linux lately?
  • I'll probably get flamed for this...

    well I ask you what distribution has done as much as Redhat has for the Linux communbity other than debian? Certainly not SUSE?

    redhat brought us Gnome. They rejected KDE until the QT liscense was acceptable.

    what has suse done? brought us a few drivers maybe .. Yast is you like yast (I do but, yast is no reason to buy a distro)

    yes there are some plusses in SUSE, but IMHO they are not a GNU/LINUX kind of people... debian, slackware, and Redhat are thou.... TL is more GNU than SUSE....

    I tried there SUSE 6.0 from linuxmall.. it only had half of what was in there ftp site, and that was because SUSE TOLD linux mall what to put on the cdrom.. as they told everyone else.. like cheepbytes, and linuxcentral..

    sorry but every 4 months each of these companies comes out with a new distro, that upgrades some files, has more packages, and stuff, and fixes old bugs.. that to me is great.. I always have the most up to date software.. if I can afford to spend $30 to $50 dollars on a distro.. that comes to $90 to $150 a year.. thats why I want the cheep cdroms .... I don't have the time to download 1.2 Gigs of files form an ftp site, nor do I want my computer to be connected on line all that time, if I did I'd set up a server, not a workstation..

    since SUSE 6.0 ftp cdroms were 'evaluation' and inclomplete, I do not feel that they support the OS community very well.. they have copyrighted Yast, how OS is that? people who could improve / add to Yast are provented... Redhat uses Linux conf which works on almost any distro including SuSE and can be turned off (so can Yast)..

    use SUSE if you want.. but I will be using Redhat.. till a better distro comes along... or when debian goes rpm, and has an easier install (LOL)

  • I don't really think it's gaged on Red Hat. The international version of SuSE 6.1 has been out for a couple of months now.

    The US (English?) version always lags behind a couple of months, and when it does ship it takes them forever to get it out.

    I have a subscription, and they just send me the new release w/o my having to order it, but I didn't see 6.0 for about a month after it was realized. :(

    It is definately a great distribution. I used to run Slackware, but gave up on it actually. I had too many problems trying to upgrade libraries and such and then having to completely re-install b/c my system didn't boot anymore.

    They didn't come out w/ new versions fast enough. But - it was a great learning ground.

    Too bad I can't install until after finals are over. But then again, I probably won't see the new version on my doorstep till then. :)
  • If you want more stable versions, you'd have to look for update packages or get the entire newer package.

    I haven't quite figured out why SuSE does this. When they release the international version, everything is pretty much new and current.

    But as soon as they ship the US version, it's all dated. 2.2.5 is shipping w/ 6.1 and we're up to 2.2.7. Granted, 2.2.7 was just release a couple days ago, so maybe that's not the best example, but you get the point.

    I don't know why it takes them so long to ship the US version. Maybe it's not completely translated when the international version ships. I guess it would be a good thing to inquire about.

    Maybe I'll go do that now.

  • My bad, I was grouping the German version in w/ the French, Dutch, etc releases.
  • Yeah, but at least their new versions don't require a ton of errata updates.

    I find it very convinient (sp) for them to release new versions every 6 months. It's hard to d/l new packages and sources over a 56k modem, and there is a lot of easy w/ just having to update new packages.

    Unfortunately for me, it's not quite that easy b/c I have to recompile all programs that use shadow password to make them compatabile w/ the kerberos system that I use (it's university specific) - but it doesn't take me that long to do.

    I'd rather deal w/ that then trying to d/l the errata updates.
  • As someone else already alluded, people definitely need to be re-educated about X servers... if there's no XF86_Weirdass_Gfx_Card, try vesafb and XF86_FBDev. The eventual goal is to get all of the acceleration working via the FBDev server (which will be nice, since 80% of the server binary is identical on most gfx cards).
  • They ship too many new versions!

    I stick with the best REDHAT 6.0 Extra
  • I'd have to guess that they are using the xxedgexx banshee server. Which means, sorry, no q3test. You can run it, you can get a framerate of about 1 frame per 5 seconds, if the wind is behind you, you can quit (slowly).

    The Banshee X-server (which also supports V3) has some 2D acceleration now, but no 3D yet. Still, now that the 2D work is more or less done according to the page, maybe 3D is on it's way.
  • I'm about a month into my linux experience and the majority of that time I've spent installing and playing around with all the distributions I can get...cheap. (I was only one version behind ie: rh 5.1, etc)

    From my experience SuSe was easier to install than red hat (and red hat isn't even slightly difficult to install). Hell, I thought Slackware was straight forward.

    But the one thing I really liked about SuSe was YaST (Yet another Setup Tool) it kicks ass. It's (if someone reading doesn't already know) just a setup thingy that centralizes all the things you (read *I*) took ages to figure out where they were and what they did and how to change them in other distributions. And it's a console app, none of this X-rubbish (not that I don't like X, it's just too slow on my DX33).

    Moderaters, moderate away.
  • Don't forget the Solaris version jump from 2.6 to 7.

    Their reasoning for that, BTW, is that they aren't going to make any changes to Solaris big enough to justify releasing Solaris 3. So, since it's going to be 2.x forever, they just decided to drop the 2. Which makes me wonder when they're going to replace Solaris entirely...

    And, confusing the issue further, there's now Solaris 7 the original, Solaris 7 3/99 release, and soon I hear Solaris 7 5/99 release. Although I guess they were doing the same thing with Maintenance Release X, these releases now include driver updates for x86. Of course, that means if you buy a release through the Free Solaris promotion and it has buggy or missing drivers, you have to pay for the update. Not too cool IMHO.

  • I used to use SuSE regularly and I still use it on a server but I have 6.0 sitting on the hard drive taking up 2.5 gigs and no way of putting it on CD because I can't find how to split it up anywhere. Does anybody know how to do this w/ 6.0? It's really annoying. I've bought two boxed sets from SuSE and I think that is enough for now...

    -Aaron
  • I'd like to try it, but $50 is too much for a trial. plus noone i know has it. does anyone know if there are things i can download/install without the dough?
  • X3.3.3.1 supports it. I got a bunch of gateways with ATI's of all sorts (RAGE, RAGE II, RAGE IIc, RAGE Pro, RAGE Pro LT) and boy did I have a fun time digging up the right driver.

    But they all worked in 16bit, and no larger than 1024x768 (some larger but it wasn't really worth it). I also had to fool X to recognize the chipset as something it knows it supports.

    Although that worked, I must warn you that moving windows screwed up the whole fscking screen or just some horizontal lines, or just the border regions of the windows, but once the screen was stationary again, it all worked fine. Also I stopped having that problem after Xfree I did a clean reinstall of X3.3.3.1 instead of substituting XF86_Mach64 in the X3.3.3 distribution.

    Don't know about dell's, never tried a machine with a different bios, but I think it could be done. The good thing about linux, is that if it is open source, then it will probably work on more things than you expect. A driver will support all cards with the chipset. In windows, you need a driver for a particular card.
  • I don't get it. I have waited forever for this release. SuSE is by far my favorite distro. Today was to be the big day and yet, I can't find it on their FTP server. I run linux on my Trek2 laptop. None of the newest distro's (except Debian, which I loathe) support the JDK from blackdown. I hope SuSE 6.1 will. Has anyone here gotten the JDK to work on Redhat 6.0 or Caldera 2.2?

    Ben
  • Don't blame the lack of drivers for your not being able to use Linux. If you were truly bent on running Linux, you'd have done some research first and bought a vidcard that has existing support in Linux.

    I'm waiting for the TNT2 but I'm not buying anything until I see decent drivers available.

    Vote with your dollars!
  • SuSE gets out a release every four months - it was about time for a new one, last was published in December / January. This wasn't about Red Hat!
  • Translation - SuSE's definition of Beta - If you try doing anything with this for an extended period of time, it will dump a huge core somewhere on your drive, have fun.
    You'll probably be able to play, but I'm not even sure that Q3Test has VIII support.
  • I have been using 6.0 SuSe since it was released. Looking forward to this new version. But just what does Voodoo3 Beta support mean? Is it Derek's 2D only XServer? Or is it actually supporting 3D Accleration? Hmmmm...


  • ...? It's been available in the UK for Order for a week or two... don't forget, all that stuff's gota be tested &c as well. 2.2.5 is still a pretty good kernel, and it's not _that_ hard to update.

    (Half the fun, some would say!)
  • Strange. The 6.0 box I bought a few days ago had all the docs in english and many other languages, including the german. Of course, you have to make sure you specify the english packages in setup to be loaded or the german gets the default.

    RB

  • I'd like to try it, but $50 is too much for a trial.


    They usually put together a single disk "evaluation", though
    it's a perfectly functioning system.

    As soon as a 6.1 version comes up someone is sure to
    make a CD of it
  • Your not running Linux on your dell i7k ?!

    For shame, it works just lovely with the Vesa
    Fbdev running (hell, thats what we are running
    here right this very minute). It goes upto 1024x768 at 16bit (the size cant go higher due to LCD constraints, but the colours could go up as long as you plummed for the 8mb option).

    If you need more information on how to get it configured properly, read the documentation on the kernel source, failing that, go to the linux laptop page and click on the i7k page.

    Still cant get the oss modules to properly detect the i7k's maestro chip (Ess - 2). Yes it finds the soundcard, just hangs when probing. Damnable code does hard irq probing. *sigh* aff well, cant have everything.

    always,
    Steffs
  • yeah. nice comment.
    the dell i7k is a laptop and only comes
    with that one card. If you want a i7k
    (and its a VERY nice machine) then you
    cant do that.

    ordinarily, yes, otherwise, no.

    always,
    Steffs
  • SuSE ships with Gnome 1 and KDE 1.1. Does that mean that its not install them if you want the more stable versions i.e. Gnome 1.1 and KDE 1.1.1?

    Patrick

  • I had the same problem, and ended up just
    burning all the files to a couple cds with the ftp
    directories.
    As far as I have figured out, the best option is
    to make the 'suse' dir as the root on the cd, and
    make sure the first CD has the setup, images and
    a1 directories.
    Otherwise I think you can just specify the path on
    the cd where the files are during setup, maybe ;)

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