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SuSE Businesses

SuSE 6.4 Announced 120

Posted by Hemos from the making-it-look-prettier dept.
Smoking writes "It seems like SuSE 6.4 has been announced at SuSE's german site but not yet at their US site.
It includes an (hum!) enhanced graphical installer and new stuff like XFree 4.0 (not installed by default). The release date for the german version is March 27th and the little mathematical function on the box is cooler than ever. " They also recently announced that they will be working with the folks at SourceForge for some of their new development.
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SuSE 6.4 Announced More

SuSE 6.4 Announced

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  • Nooooo!!! Stay back! I yield. Here's the free space on my array of IBM 75GB HDs. Take it! Take it all, man! Just please don't hurt me!

    SuSE is always just soooo huge! So... how many DVDROMs is SuSE filling up this time?

  • Biscuit 6.2 announced (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I am pleased to announce libBiscuit.20.62 is available. Tarballs can be found here [207.153.211.64].

    Have you tried Powdermilk Biscuits?
    My, they're tasty, and expeditious...

    thank you.

  • Hrm... 1 day before the free release of BeOS 5. Wonder if there's any significance? :)
  • Exactly. SuSE kix ass for the bandwidth challenge. Plus if you just pick one of the templates you don't have to go through all the packages one at a time.
    Also I don't mind the english version being released a month later. It gives them a chance to get some updates in.
  • Not to be a redhat cheerleader or anything, but: RH does give you a choice of Gnome, KDE, or "just plain". And I believe that with Anaconda, they're working on the unified install/admin tool.

    Not that any of this makes Red Hat better than SuSE -- in fact, it mostly demonstrates that it's good to have competition.

    --

  • 4.0 isn't an alpha, technically that is.

    Whether it should be one is a different matter...
    I like it a lot even with all the bugs
    (The most annoying ones for me being in the Xvideo/v4l code, e.g. the server segfaults if you load the v4l module, which is luckily fixed by a one line patch...
  • Its good that I have a sense of humor.

    "Linux: None of the price, None of the Calories!"
  • I'm not saying that SuSE is the *only* European distribution, but rather that it's much MORE common in Europe than in the United States. I've had people laugh at me, here, for using it; I imagine that's not the case in Europe.

    Ah, that's because those Europeans have no sense of humour; they can't see the funny side of using a distribution that tells you to 'Have a lot of fun' :-)

  • XFree86 4.0 is not alpha. It's out.

    -- Thrakkerzog

  • Well, you certainly can't complain about it not being updated frequently enough! :)


    -- Thrakkerzog
  • Huh? We've been shipping the most current libjpeg for quite some time, there's just been a lack of agreement among linux vendors as to what to name the library file.
  • Not another version already! I only brought 6.3 to upgrade from 6.1 about 3 weeks ago. Why so many versions? What value do we really get between them? I've not seen a list of what's in the new kit, but thinking about it -- 2.2.15 isn't out yet, so they can only have gone up one version of the kernel. Same with XFree86 as 4.0 is too new yet to go mainstream.

    Maybe they've made some improvements with the sys admin features in Yast. Yast was good when it first came out, but has fallen way behind the competition in features and ease of use. I hope so anyway. Either that or they should dump it and go with Linuxconf.

    This time I think I'll out-psyche myself. I'll buy it as soon as it's out so that the gap between the next version at least *seems* a bit longer.

    Macka
  • YAST2 is just the new GUI installer, which I did use and liked a lot. Once you're done and the system is up you're back to using the old Yast for post install system setup and configuration.

    Macka
  • I'm not positive in this case, but the explanation is probably that, while RH and SuSE both use the RPM format, they don't keep all their files in the same places. If you install an RH RPM on SuSE, or vice versa, nothing terrible will happen, but it might not be so clean anymore. I run Mandrake 6.1, which is essentially the same as RH in layout, and SuSE RPMs cause no problems.
  • SuSE or Slackware? SuSE or Slackware?!! AAuugghh!!!
  • It is not used by default because of stability concerns. The XFree devel team themselves recommend that if you need stability, stick with 3.3.6

    Just like new kernel series, it'll need some time, and people playing with it to get all the kinks worked out.

    pilot

  • Yeah. We could all be using software that's about a year old. Sorry, I just don't buy that. I want CURRENT software and a CURRENT organization that stands up for me.. not one who has so many developer fights about who has the bigger "codebase" and how holy they can be.

    It's called production. Try doing it.

  • Dear, everyone's in it for the money. Anyone who isn't in it for the money is still in college and living off their parents' money. Once they get out of college, they either have to be in it for the money, or they have to get out of Linux. Life is only big enough for one occupying profession :) Welcome to reality. Linus' plan of world domination is going to require linux to look a bit like Microsoft in many things. After all, they wrote the book on world domination :)
  • And Debian, the one you leave out, last released a distribution One year and 8 days ago. That's 373 days. (Yes, I know about potato, but come on.. one release every 373 days, and counting?) Maybe these "Over commercializers" just want to keep things relatively current? BTW, the last Suse was released in December. This Suse is 4 months away from the last one. That is ~3 releases a year, pretty damn good considering that the Linux Toolkit from Infomagic at one time released 4 times a year (an still does). I think once every four months is a good turn around time, in this fast moving linux market.

  • The hum! was because I had so many probs with YaST2 on the 6.3 version that I had to use the old YaST...
    BTW It's really clever from them to let you choose between graphical and console install, and the way they do it is cool too: Just pop in CD 1 for the GUI or CD 2 for the console install...
    What I would like to see is a graphical version of the configuration part of YAST, because it's already quite effective as a console app...
  • People in the US seem to assume that everyone in Europe uses SuSE. While it may have a stranglehold on the German market, that's certainly not the case in the UK. Yes, it's available, but Red Hat seems to be more prevalent.

    I'll second that for Sweden and probably the rest of Scandinavia. Red Hat is far more used and in the "spotlight" (press, media) than any other distro. Heck, I doubt that any other people than experienced Linux or UNIX users in Sweden know that Red Hat is not synonymous with Linux.

    If I go to a random bookstore and look for Linux books (guides to Linux, "dummies" books, etc.), chances are 90% of them will cover Red Hat and Gnome.
    On the other hand, I've visited bookstores in Germany and there those 90% of the books were about SuSe and KDE. The rest was generic. I couldn't find anything Red Hat-specific at all. So Germany is pretty SuSe-centric, to say the least.

    But it always amuses me when I read headlines or comments on Slashdot implying that since I'm European I should be using SuSe "like we know all Europeans do".

  • RedHat is less expensive than RedHat depending on the stuff you get.

    I don't get your point here. ;)

    Seriously though, I assume you mean that SuSe will get you more stuff for the money.
    However, a lot of what is shipped with SuSe on that impressive pile of CDs is unstable stuff. Plus, as soon as it makes it on that CD, will be outdated by new versions. So I don't really think that this is much of a value for people with faster Net connections and/or an obsessiveness for the latest and greatest stuff. And most of the Linux people I know have both of that ;)

  • Same boat as me, except my AWARD BIOS v4.5 doesn't like >33.8GB either (see IBM tech note [ibm.com]).
    I did come across a fix for 2.2 somewhere which presumably has now been integrated as the previous poster says.

    cheers
    alex
  • Am I the only one not even able to get it to start? I got an AGP Voodoo3 2000 recently from someone I knew, XFree 3.3.5 worked fine, then I try to start XFree 4.0 (compiled from source, and using XFree's binaries) and all I get is "Unresolved function called" and it crashes. 3.9.18 worked fine on my Riva 128 but haven't got to ever try my Voodoo3 in XFree, ironic as how it is one of the supposedly best supported cards.
  • yeh, and then they could make rainbow, special edition ones, and create special "bear-chameleon" releases....

    maybe this would eb a good way to get it out to the "masses"... all we need is a stupid collectable gimmick, and it owuld sell like hotcakes...

    or grits, if your a troll

  • well... i think that you'vew been shipping libjpeg.62, and the newest is libjpeg.62b... i dunno the exact specs, but the problem is that it is missing the libjpeg.so.62 module that is needed by just about everything...

    and if you upgrade to the latest, then KDE and A ton of other apps get real cranky...

  • ...it would be a pretty sad distro, basically going against the whole idea of "free," since they would charge for shipping a CD.

    Chris Hagar
  • In other words, SuSE may not be just for Europeans any more.
    Yeah, and they even happen to support both german and english speaking users in the same application at once... Look at http://www.suse.de/de/produkte/susesoft/linux/gifs /screenshots/gnome.jpeg
    This is exactly the kind of crappy configuration I expect from SuSE. (No, please don't blame it on GNOME, I don't have a "Zurück" and a "Forward" button at once in my gmc.)
  • They only let you download a 1 cd cutdown version

  • Not having a copy of your XFree86.0.log file, this is only a guess as to the problem... You have a Riva128... Did you ever attempt to use the accelerated GL server/libs/glx module from nVidia? If so, did you remove /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/glx.so? If not, that will *definately* cause your server to crash.

    If that doesn't help, you could always post your log file on comp.os.linux.x, or even the dri-devel or dri-users mailing list (check out dri.sourceforge.net for more info).

    Adam
  • even with the problems you are having, SuSE may be your best bet for a fix. The SuSE developers do hang out on the mailing lists and you may get a quick fix there [suse.com] as a SuSE user that should be your first option as you do get 30 days of support. Also the development team members contribute a lot to the XFree project and often release custom X servers for various cards. I was having problems with an SiS chipset and received multiple replies from developers and users alike. Soon they had their own XSiS server for public consumption and its now part of XFree. Hope this helps.
  • Release early, release often. Sound familiar? You don't HAVE to upgrade, but it's nice to have the lastest packages available for d/l, instead of having to compile them and mess up package management. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
  • Looks like we have to wait a couple more weeks.

    SuSE is a great distro for both seasoned and new Linux users. It has a friendly graphical install program and a very comprehensive administration tool.

    I highly suggest to anyone who hasn't tried it, and isn't already set in their distribution ways, to grab a copy and give it a go.

  • All the large Linux venders (except Debian) are just pumping out releases every month now. A lot could be said of this but I'll let you come to your own conclusions...
  • I said Debian was the only one who abstained from this trend. Linux as a whole is VERY fast moving but a minor-minor revision in the kernel and GNOME doesn't merit a new release from SuSe and/or RH. It just proves to you that they're only in it for the money.
  • >Flexibility
    So's every other distro.

    >A unified installation/administration tool
    I'll give it that.

    >KDE rather than GNOME (I prefer it)

    It has both. Plus a horde of wms. Flexibility. You said it yourself.

    >Less expensive (at least here)
    RedHat is less expensive than RedHat depending on the stuff you get.

    >More packages
    Past 4000 it doesn't matter anymore.

    >So -- SuSE is potentially aiming to take that >market domination. It might just teach Red Hat >that they're NOT the only game in town, even in >the US, anymore.

    When I see SuSE m68k for my Amiga I'll use that too.
  • I would have liked to see the KDE 2

    I believe the latest pre-release version of KDE2 is going to be in the 'Unsorted' section of the CD, along with XFree86 4.0.

    The most appropriate place for it, given that it's not finished yet, but people (like yourself) will want to try it.

    --
  • That's another good thing I forgot to mention. The documentation is exceptional. I spent around $60 on Sam's Linux in 24 hours, Linux Complete, and another book and they aren't as thorough as my trusty SuSE manual.
  • I concur with respects to the unified administration tool bit. As far as I've seen, the slick integration & functionality of YaST, as well as the exceedingly thorough distro and documentation, makes SuSE Linux really the best choice for end-user-flavored workstations.
  • Yes, I've become quite attached to Suse (6.2), for a few reasons. One is that I like the single non-GUI YAST tool that does pretty much everything without a lot of fuss. Second is that they do a nice job of setting up the defaults for the window managers like KDE and FVWM2, and they include all the nice icons that I used to have to download. Third is that their X-config. tool, SAX, is really excellent, better than most Windows screen utils. And fourth, I find it mildly amusing when they occassionally forget to translate a dialog item or manual topic from German.
  • I don't think it's really a bug-- you have to actually click on your correct "keymap" during the installation (instead of just clicking "next" when the one you want is highlighted-- just because it's highlighted doesn't mean it's activated).

    They even give you a text box to try it out on, too.... Shame on you for clicking "next" too fast.

  • You actually can; using YaST, you can tell it to use an FTP server, as I understand it, and then update your packages. Not fun, but certainly doable.

    "I may disagree vehemently with what you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it."
  • I actually had never heard of buying Red Hat as a resold set; but I suppose it happens. The reason I wouldn't buy a Red Hat set that wasn't retail is because (a) you don't get paper documentation [unless I'm mistaken], and (b) you get no tech support or anything.

    With my boxed SuSE set, I get floppies, my 5-CD set (they're up to six now, I haven't upgraded past 6.1 yet), an installation/configuration guide, and registration certificates for the StarOffice and SuSE tech support.

    Plus, don't forget the cool translation errors in the installation guide! *laugh*

    "I may disagree vehemently with what you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it."

  • Why is this a problem with the others? I'm not aware of any current distributions that ship GNOME but not KDE. The only difference is the GNOME is the default in Red Hat, while KDE is the default in SuSE.

    The problem arises in that each uses a defalt configuration, and SuSE's KDE configuration is nice. I'm too lazy to do it all myself. Plus, the screensavers and bitmaps are all really nice, and harder to find in non-KDE-based distros.

    While it may have a stranglehld on the German market, that's certainly not the case in the UK. Yes, it's available, but Red Hat seems to be more prevalent.

    I'm not saying that SuSE is the *only* European distribution, but rather that it's much MORE common in Europe than in the United States. I've had people laugh at me, here, for using it; I imagine that's not the case in Europe. Regional differences. My point was that Americans ... may start to see some merit in using it, in large enough numbers for more retailers to carry it.

    "I may disagree vehemently with what you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it."

  • CompUsa is selling the 6 disc box set for $14.95! Now that's a bargain....
  • Nooooooo.. I almost did not make it out of the hamster dance :-(

  • I think most of it is available. The trouble is 6 CD's is quite a large download.
  • Hmm... they announce SuSE 6.4 the same week that I shelled out my thirty bucks for 6.3. If I didn't know better...

    Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you. :)

    --

  • Why is this a problem with the others? I'm not aware of any current distributions that ship GNOME but not KDE.
    Debian is the one that springs prominently to mind. To my knowledge, they're not including it because of the conflict that the GPL has with Qt (which is non-free [speech]).

    Or do they include it in the non-free tree? I just visited their ftp site and could not find it.

    --

  • Maybe they've made some improvements with the sys admin features in Yast.
    Possibly -- I'm not sure how new YaST2 is (new SuSE user -- running it alongside Slack 7 and [ahem] another operating system), but in the 6.3 box set I got (this very week no less ;) ), there was a note included that said they found a bug right before it shipped. The note basically said, "Don't use YaST2 if you're going to install LILO in the superblock of your /boot partition."

    So I used YaST1. And I gotta say, the install was really nice. (Really got into Linux last August and started with Slackware.) YaST is such a slick little tool -- just about everything went as smooth as silk.

    BTW, how is SuSE pronounced? Is it soo'-suh (as in John Philip $_)? soo'-zee? soos'? Haven't quite figured it out yet...

    --

  • All Cheap Bytes does is just grab the data from RedHat and SuSE's ftp sites (yes, they sell $1.99 SuSE CDs as well, contrary to the previous post).

    Buying a Cheap Bytes CD doesn't count as buying a copy of the distribution, so being able to buy a Cheap Bytes CD for distribution X doesn't make it less expensive than distribution Y, because you can just go to X and Y's FTP sites and get the whole enchilada yourself.

    Ian

  • I bought the SuSE 6.0 box last year and have been a happy user since. YaST setup / updates via FTP have kept me with SuSE. On Tuesday of this week I took the plunge into 6.3, but instead of trying the upgrade path I went for the whole biscuit and installed on a new partition. You can get 6.3 from download.sourceforge.net (try /pub/suse/suse/i386/6.3/suse), although I don't recall if it's just the eval version. After making a boot disk and a modules disk (I needed the old DEC Tulip module) I rebooted with the floppy and installed via FTP onto my machine. Total time to install the default setup, configure X (using SaX), and get and /net install Star Office (from sun.com) was under two hours on a cable modem. This weekend I'll be wiping out a buddy's Win box to do the same to his.

    The revolution will not be televised, it wil be slashdotted.

  • While SuSE has done a great job of the 'bit' distributions, they've been terrible (at least in Canada and I'm guessing US) at the 'atom' (physical mass - books/CDs/colorful boxes) distributions. Go to any Chapters bookstore, Future Shop (only if you must) or any vendor and try to find a SuSE box! Nothing. Lots of Red Hat, some Mandrake, and more Corel (no comment). If anybody I talked to in the last six months has heard about Linux they will start talking about Red Hat -- they've never heard of SuSE. And after a year of using 6.0 myself I still don't know the correct pronunciation for it!

  • SuSE does put an ISO of their current release on their ftp site. *But* it's only an evalutaion version, which gives you most of SuSE but you don't get the commercial apps (like a full version of OSS). You can get the current (SuSE 6.3) Evaluation ISO from:
    ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/evaluation-6.3. iso
    or the much fa SuSE does put an ISO of their current release on their ftp site. But it's only an evalutaion version, which gives you most of SuSE but you don't get the commercial apps (like a full version of OSS). You can get the current (SuSE 6.3) Evaluation ISO from:
    ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/evaluation-6.3. iso
    or the much faster mirror:
    ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/Linux/distributions/suse/ suse/i386/evaluation-6.3.iso

    Keeps watching those sites, the SuSE 6.4 Evaluation ISO will be most likely be uploaded there soon. Most SuSE users will agree the evaluation ISO is very good, so give it a try.ster mirror:
    ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/Linux/distributions/suse/ suse/i386/evaluation-6.3.iso

    Keeps watching those sites, the SuSE 6.4 Evaluation ISO will be most likely be uploaded there soon. Most SuSE users will agree the evaluation ISO is very good, so give it a try.
  • They could do a whole Geek Beanie Baby (GBB) series... there's the penquin, the chameleon, and thanks to OReilly, a whole herd of others. I don't know what MS would have as their mascot... Bob maybe? Is it merely coincidence that Bob was the bad guy in Twin Peaks, filmed only a short drive from Redmond?
  • Incorrect, it is a German distro. The proper way to pronunce it is sue-sah, like the composer John Philip Sousa.

  • Well, you can download the bootdisk and install it via FTP.
    You don't even need to have a CD-ROM drive.

    Just read the FTP install HOWTO [sdb.suse.de].
    However, I'd strongly recommend not to install from ftp.suse.com, but from ftp.gwdg.de [ftp.gwdg.de] as due to US export laws the US server does not contain cryptographic software (such as ssh).

    Only the bundled commercial software will be missing (OSS, Staroffice etc.) of course.

  • I just got a preview version of Suze 6.4 at CEBIT (it comes on one disc). During installation I noticed a few annoying things. At the end of the installation you have to create an account for yourself. when entering my user name I noticed that when I press "Z" on my keyboard, I get a "Y" on the screen. I also noticed that the installer did not detect my monitor rihgt and it kept refreshing the screen a few times per second resulting in a useless login prompt. In suze's defence however I must admit that previous versions worked just fine.

    Setting up Apache webserver with PHP support was done automatically in contrast to other distributions. I also like Suze's efforts in helping developement of KDE. Suze is also the first to incorporate the Reiser File System in it's distributions. At least that is what a spokesperson said on "Computer Club" (this is a tv show on German television).

  • Aaargh (Score:2)

    by joss ( 1346 )
    Spent last weekend sticking 6.3 on my new 40G maxtor. Left me feeling pretty up to date for er, 4 whole days.

    Now I feel like a putz. I should have gone to the pub instead, waited a few weeks and stuck 6.4 on a 75G IBM.

    Does anyone know if you can overcome the ATA 33.8G limit with 2.2.14, (2.3.??) ?
    How can I install 6.3 and get to use the whole drive instead of a measly 33.8 gig ?

  • KDE rather than GNOME (I prefer it)

    Why is this a problem with the others? I'm not aware of any current distributions that ship GNOME but not KDE. The only difference is the GNOME is the default in Red Hat, while KDE is the default in SuSE.

    SuSE may not be just for Europeans any more.

    People in the US seem to assume that everyone in Europe uses SuSE. While it may have a stranglehold on the German market, that's certainly not the case in the UK. Yes, it's available, but Red Hat seems to be more prevalent.

  • From the press release:

    The SourceForge CompileFarm enables Open Source developers to automatically create packages that can be installed on SuSE Linux using SuSE's YaST installation tool


    I always thought packages were installed on SuSE using Red Hat's RPM. Funny that.

  • Geez. I'm running 6.2, I've had the 6.3 box sitting around for a few weeks waiting for me to get a chance to reorganize my disks a bit before installing it (I've got bits and pieces of an old Caldera install and some other odds and ends - probably about 3 different root partitions, yuck), and here's 6.4 out already.

    But I'll probably hold off, if I can wait for a 2.4 kernel and a mature XFree86 4.0.
  • "Why so many versions? What value do we really get between them?"

    Last time I asked what was so great about various distributions on here, it got marked down as flamebait...

    After all, there IS nothing more to them than a combination of various versions of various packages, including some distro-specific things like YaST, or linuxconf in the case of RedHat, whatever - especially if you're a real developer.

    Developers aren't interested in "the distro" from the PoV of coding on a platform, you're interested in how all the various functions and syscalls behave in "this" given combination of libraries, etc.
    It's the "home user" who's interested in the chameleon...

    And speaking of proprietary non-free setup / admin toys, have SuSE open-sourced the flipping license on YaST yet?!
  • actually, it's more likely to see freshmeat get assimilated by sourceforge, and freshmeat eventually become a redirect to the what's new link on sourceforge with a user-config layout option to emulate freshmeat formatting.
  • damnit, I hope that they finally move to the newest libjpeg so that packages are easier to upgrade...

    i';m tired of the libjpeg.so.62 not being found... and then haveing to kludge around to get anything to work...

    and put a version of mozilla that can actually be used...
  • I don't know about OSS, but after you burned your iso-image and installed SuSE you can fire up YaST and then install the packages you missed on your EVALU-cdrom via ftp.

    So even if you get the evalu-iso image, you still have access to the full distro for free.

    After all a CDROM only(!) holds ~600MB. :-)

    cheers,
    Roland
  • SuSE is always just soooo huge! So... how many DVDROMs is SuSE filling up this time?

    Actually I think that debian is the biggest with roughly 2Gb of actual packages. That I think was with slink.

    Potato may be more and unstable even more.
  • YaST, in package installation mode, is sort of like an RPM frontend. They're all RPM packages, and I've used SuSE packages off of my CD set on an RH system.

    However, at the same time, YaST is nice because it's categorized and will even automatically fix dependencies errors. It checks to see if packages conflict, too. Very cool stuff.

    In other words -- it's an RPM-based system, with some enhancements. Sorry for being a hair wordy.

    "I may disagree vehemently with what you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it."

  • SuSE does put an ISO of their current release on their ftp site. *But* it's only an evalutaion version, which gives you most of SuSE but you don't get the commercial apps (like a full version of OSS). You can get the current (SuSE 6.3) Evaluation ISO from: ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/evaluation-6.3.is o or the much faster mirror: ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/Linux/distributions/suse/su se/i386/evaluation-6.3.iso Keeps watching those sites, the SuSE 6.4 Evaluation ISO will be most likely be uploaded there soon. Most SuSE users will agree the evaluation ISO is very good, so give it a try.
  • No, they won't have a problem with it -- XFree86 has been officially released [xfree86.org] (albeit with limited supported cards [xfree86.org], which is presumably why SuSE 6.4 doesn't use it by default).
  • SuSE is not, in general, less expensive than RedHat, because you can get RedHat from Cheap Bytes, but SuSE don't allow you to resell copies of their distribution. When you pay $50 or so for RedHat, you are supporting ten other users who got it for next to nothing.

  • Re:When it is finally out can I just download an I (Score:3)

    by magnwa ( 18700 ) on Friday March 17, 2000 @06:33AM (#1195748)
    The ISO is good, yes. But I REALLY recommend buying the full. CompUSA sometimes has it for $19.99 , and hell, you get so much on those 6 CDs.. I mean.. it's incredible. ANd the MANUAL! It's the best one I've EVER seen. It doesn't explain how to do things like redhat's does. It explains WHY things work.
  • I have a nice high speed connection at work, and would rather just download and burn to a cd there. Does SuSE support this? Do they have an FTP install? Can I get around buying the CD?

    Hey Rob, Thanks for that tarball!
  • Yes, you can do an FTP install, the bootdisks are all on the FTP site
    (ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/6.3/disks/ [suse.com]
    for 6.3 - sure you can work out where for 6.4).

    As for burning a CD, I'm not sure whether you can or not - the problem being that YaST (The SuSE set up tool family) is not GPL. Info on this at
    ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i38 6/6.3/COPYRIGHT.yast [suse.com]

    --
  • I am so sick of people saying that SuSE is huge and bloated just because it happens to come with a lot of software. You do NOT have to install all the pacakages! I always install the minimum or default installation and use YaST to connect to SuSE's ftp and search for whatever program I want. Plus you must remember that not all people want to spend all day on a 56k trying to download every package they need, and this doesn''t even take into account the time wasted searching freshmeat, linuxlinks.com, etc, for the programs you want. I'm lucky enough to have a fast net connection (dorm ethernet rules) but I was happy to have all the software when I installed SuSE 6.2 on an old P75 I got my hands on that had no access to the net. Face it, SuSE 0wnz j00.

  • About graphical installation (Score:3)

    by aav ( 117550 ) on Friday March 17, 2000 @06:15AM (#1195752)
    I hated the hum! of the article poster. On one hand we want Linux to reach the desktop, on the other we are reluctant to easy installation procedures. I am sorry, but this is bigotry.
    Besides, why complain since Yast2 comes along with yast1 (yes, text mode, full of features installation software) ? Yast2 was written for those that don't know exactly what Linux is, who don't know what hardware is inside their machines and so on. Or for those that like inserting the cd, writing a few lines and going to smoke a cigarette while the system is installing.
    Of course, an experienced user won't use this tool (although I can tell it does look cute) because it doesn't offer you the complete control over the installation.

    As for myself, I would have liked to see the KDE 2 with the new release of Suse. I know, it won't probably be included until 6.6 - but still, one can hope, can't he ? Right now it's only a simple update of 6.3 (great distribution!). So, if you have enough bandwidth I think it's worth downloading (or even better take advantage of the update from ftp site feature).
    Wish (read it especially if you work for VA) : please mirror the distribution on your site sooner. ftp.suse.com works only at 50k/s which is a real pain when downloading 6 cd's .

  • Why the boring box? (Score:3)

    by u&t ( 138760 ) on Friday March 17, 2000 @06:02AM (#1195753)
    They should skip the box and manuals and instead just stuff that ugly little green lizard with a DVD version of SuSE.

    It probably wouldn't cost more than a box and manual if they made the lizard in some eastern sweatshop and if they changed lizards for each new version people would start to have real reasons to upgrade.

    They would also have the edge against redhat. Who wouldn't choose the little cuddly toy vs the stupid looking red hat. There is also no point in making variants of red hats. A red hat is just a red hat but people would actually start collecting the variants of the green lizards if they were cute enough.

  • This is pretty cool for us American users, because it demonstrates that SuSE is actually making progress in taking the American market domination from Red Hat.

    In other words, SuSE may not be just for Europeans any more. There are some distinct reasons that I like it:

    • Flexibility
    • A unified installation/administration tool
    • KDE rather than GNOME (I prefer it)
    • Less expensive (at least here)
    • More packages
    So -- SuSE is potentially aiming to take that market domination. It might just teach Red Hat that they're NOT the only game in town, even in the US, anymore.

    "I may disagree vehemently with what you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it."

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