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SuSE Businesses

SuSE 7.0 114

Posted by timothy from the verrueckt-aber-nicht-ganz-geistekrank dept.
DickBreath writes: "It looks like SuSE 7.0 is released. See http://linuxpr.com/releases/2272.html. Now I wonder how soon it will be on my local bookstore's shelf." cloudmaster points to this description -- in German, there for the babelfishing adventurer -- of the new release. In addition to the ever-evolving SuSE logo, you'll find there that SuSE is branching ala Red Hat and others into Personal and Professional versions; the Personal comes with "three easy to understand handbooks" intended to guide new users, one of which is all about system configuration.
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SuSE 7.0 More

SuSE 7.0

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  • I dunno, I mean the naming thing is a facade. You really have to compare OS by value of features. Honestly, you have Linux-Mandrake 7.1 which is just Red Hat 6.2 and some other stuff, I think. So, what the heck is the deal with the revision naming? Maybe the best indicator is just a comparison chart of features on some website. Anyone know of a "trusted" comparison chart?
  • I know that Caldera/Corel cater to the newbies mostly, RedHat/Mandrake for the mid range users, and Debian/Slack for the advanced users. Where does SuSE fit in? I've used all types of Linux distros, and found that the newbie ones are very limiting and you end up customizing them to no end which usually screws the package system. I've been wondering about SuSE and TurboLinux which are the only distros which I haven't used as far as where they lie on the difficulty/customizibiltiy scale.
  • ...and splitting their distribution into a "Professional Edition" aimed toward IT professionals, and a "Home Edition" aimed at the home users who are new to Linux. I hear the professional edition is going to be expensive as hell, too (something like 41 pound sterling, which is like about $85.).

    In any event, I think I'll just get the whole thing for free off the FTP site.
  • Anyone who actually thinks that hasn't even looked at it. Really. For one thing, RedHat 6.2 doesn't use Grub as a boot loader, and there are TONNES of other differences.


    Fawking Trolls! [slashdot.org]
  • With the version 7.0 SuSE new ways goes. After seven years as most successful Linux Distributor in the German market it is now past with the " Linux Einerlei ": With " personnel " SuSE Linux starts the extensive " Professional " through on the domestic Desktop PC, meets all desires and request, which a professional places to its Linux.

    SuSE Linux 7,0 personnel contacts Linux Einsteiger and private users, which would like to become acquainted with the advantages of the free Unix clone on a Desktop computer. Apart from current Linux system, are contained on three D-CRcOcMs numerous applications from the areas Games, Multimedia, picture handling and Internet. Which home and Officeanwender estimate: with StarOffice a complete Office package is attached to 5,2, which guarantees a smooth data exchange with other Office applications owing to revised import and export filters.

    Three easily understandable manuals arrange spielerisch handling the new system for the Linux beginner: The " Quick Install manual " describes the Linux installation on 64 multicolored pages with numerous pictures step for step. With the new " Konfiguration" book learns the user, printer, scanner, D-CBurner, diagram -, to merge sound and TV cards optimally and to arrange the KDE Desktop after its taste. Netscape navigator, Gimp, Acrobat reader or Midnight Commander obtains the resuming manual " the programs " in compact form an overview of the most important functions of the most popular the acct the acct idiomacct idioms such as StarOffice.

    SuSE Linux Professional 7,0 offers to ambitionierten home users such as IT professionals admits extensive collection of over 1500 current Linux tools and software packages. With SuSE Linux Professional can be implemented Intranet and Internet solutions likewise like the connection and the protection of heterogeneous networks. Profesionelle users find here all Tools, in order to WWW -, Proxy -, Mail -, News servers under Linux to put. The user has the selection between six D-CRcOcMs and a DVD, which is all together contained in the Professional package. Altogether four manuals supply on over 1000 pages current Linux Know how from first hand - also to special topics such as network configuration and security.

    SuSE offers a economical update version beyond that to experienced Linux users. Their software scope is identical to SuSE Linux 7,0 Professional; in place of the 650-seitigen, detailed SuSE manual a compressed 60-seitige informs documentation about the most important innovations.

    Substantially extended also the installation support contained in the purchase price presents itself: Immediately the SuSE Hotline is in five - instead of so far two - afternoons per week to services. Professional customers keep in the future 90 days long to support from the SuSE professionals, one month longer than so far. Users of the personal or update version have requirement on 60 days installation support.

    More comfort offers also the again extended YaST2: In addition now the Nachinstallieren and Deinstallieren belong of single packages just like a NIS Client module or the configuration of the t-cDrl-acces. Also a graphic inetd.conf wordprocessor is new in Yast2 with which server services also separately from the Clients to install leaves itself. KDE enthusiasts can be pleased already now about the more than 200 Tools of PRE-KDE 2,0, the all-newest status of this " NEXT Generation" Desktops really succeeded.

    Thus SuSE Linux is the only operating system that the complete installation enables to also blind users. The Braille lines are detected automatically with the start of the installation.

    The 7,0 offers again a true filling horn at new features: Immediately the diagram chips profit from ATI, NVidia and Matrox from the XFree86 4.0-Grafikpower. - and gibtx27s only with SuSE - the support for dia. moon Fire GL1 is brand-new. Even if it is not yet official " raus ": SuSE already now brings a Linux Kernel, which one may call owing to numerous extensions confidently 2.2.17-pre. The extended USB support supplies experimental US multicolored supporting for ISDN, floppy one and Iomega Zip 250. For the first time now also scanners at the parallel port under Linux can be addressed. The support for the Adaptec RAID CONTROLLER is new. Also for the SCSI adapters on NCR base of the super+fast Symbios log IC chip SYM53C89Ä and SYM53C1010 participate now drivers. Also the advancement of the ATA standard on 100 mc/s is supported with the new SuSE Linux 7,0. Thus penetrates OATHS now into the performance regions from SCSI before Big bread ago including: SuSE Linux offers Videoconferencing in accordance with H.323-Standard. An extended bttv driver provides finally for a global support of TV cards. Also Java2 of IBM and Sun are not missing on the Professional. The Knaller from the o.l. SA labs: SuSE Linux 7,0 brings a hardware-supporting Plug and Play driver as the first distribution for all Yamaha (kompatiblen) Soundkarten with YMF72x and YMF74x-Chips.

    SuSE Linux 7,0 Professional empfielt itself by improved Raw DEVICE support, LFS (Large file support) and 4GB-Hauptspeicheradressierung vehement now also as server system for very large and complex applications of data bases. The optimized support for fully automatic installations and the new SuSE Tool ALICE (AUTOMATIC Linux installation and Configuration Environment) enable a rational configuration management in enterprise networks

  • Back in the day, Linux was the only operating system I'd ever touch with a 10 foot pole. I dispised windows for the simple fact that it lacked power. I felt so limited to what could be done or discovered by Windows, I simply refused to use it. However I eventually fell back to Windows for the simple fact that I wanted to play games and use well known applications. It's been a while, but now I find that there are so many distrobutions to choose from, it's difficult to determine "which is best for you". Slackware used to be my favoriate, simply because it was secure and neat, but it used old libs and sorta died. Which distro is the best for you? I guess the only way you can really determine that is by trial and error, since everyone has a different preference. Some people prefer simplicity which could fall towards Redhat for example, and some prefer it "raw". I find them all very similar, however some scream that Debian owns Redhat, and vice versa. Perhaps a comparison between the distros would be an interesting touch...
  • Finally, everyone's catching up to slackware :)
  • Wow, all these distributions are finally catching up to Slackware...

    ebw
  • At the risk of being moderated down for being a smart @$$ -- why don't you just go ahead and try it. The full shrink rapped copy is only $30 and of course you can download the trail version. You can get the entire thing through ftp from ftp.suse.com but that is somewhat painful.

    Anyway, SuSE is nice since the cds come with everything including the very useful kitchen_sink.rpm. You might think about getting SuSE if you are hooked to the internet with a 14.4 modem. If you go to the default yast2 then it is set for newbies. However, if you boot off the floppy or the second cd then you get yast1. Yast1 is quite configurable and should be fine for more experienced users. Almost everything is configurable with yast which may be the best part of SuSE.

    Yes, Yast is free as in beer but not as in speech -- get over it! SuSE does a lot for xfree86 and are worth supporting.

  • SuSE page translation (not just Babelfish!) (Score:5)

    by vertical-limit ( 207715 ) on Monday July 31, 2000 @05:11PM (#890254)
    SUSE Linux 7.0

    With version 7.,0 SuSE goes in new directions. After seven years as the most successful Linux distro in the German market it is now popular (?) with Linux developers. With Personal SuSE for a desktop PC and on through the extensive Professional SuSE for workplaces, SuSE Linux meets all the demands and requests.

    SuSE Linux 7.0 Personal

    SuSE Linux 7.0 Personal is recommended for Linux developers and users who would like to become acquainted with the advantages of a free Unix clone on a desktop computer. In addition to thecurrent Linux system, the three CD-ROMs contain numerous games, multimedia, graphics, and Internet applications. StarOffice 5.2, a complete office package, is included, guaranteeing a smooth data exchange with other office applications thanks to its revised import and export filters.

    Three easily understandable manuals arrange information on operating the new system for the Linux beginner: The "Quick Install manual" describes the Linux installation on 64 color pages with numerous step-by-step pictures. The new "Configuration" book teaches the user how to configure the printer, scanner, CD-R driver, how to merge sound and TV cards optimally, and how to arrange the KDE Desktop to your taste. The last manual, "The Programs" presents an overview of the most functions of Netscape Navigator, the GIMP, Acrobat Reader and Midnight Commander in compact form.

    SuSE Linux 7,0 Professional

    SuSE Linux Professional 7.0 offers to ambitious home users (such as IT professionals) an extensive collection of over 1,500 current Linux tools and software packages. SuSE Linux Profesional contains the tools to implement Intranet and Internet solutions, as well as the connection and protection of those networks. Professional users will find all the tools to operate WWW, proxy, mail, and news servers under Linux. The user can choose between 6 CD-ROMs or a DVD, all of which are contained in the Professional package. A total of four manuals supply over 1000 pages of current Linux know-how, as well as covering special topics such as network configuration and security.

    SuSE Linux 7.0 updates

    In addition, SuSE offers a economical update version to experienced Linux users. Its software scope is identical to SuSE Linux 7.0 Professional; in place of the detailed 650-page SuSE manual, a compressed 60-page informs users about the most important innovations.

    (Okay, I haven't taken German in a few years, but this should at least provide some information...)

  • suse is apparently really big in europe, i picked them because they came with lots of stuff (6 cds, 1 & a half of which seem to be games, but you also get stuff like X 4.0, with a graphical config, Star office, ApplixWare, 30 days of VMware (very nice :) etc. :) for the same price as redhat's minimal newbie setup
    i started out with a turbo disk that i got at a LUG, and quickly found that the PATH was hosed beyond belief. rather than figure out exactly where they'd screwed it up, i just went out and bought suse, and have been reasonably happy with them. the down side is that they're a little bit too customized... you have to make sure you use their patches on the kernel, etc.
    i think the think i like best is the availability of the Reiser FS - my thinkpad is unstable under the best of circumstances, and the journaling FS saves my ass when it won't un-suspend it's self in the middle of an accounting test.
  • What are you smoking? The GPL specifically states that someone may charge however much they wish for a GPL'd proggie. Go learn to fucking read
  • Yes that's it. Slackware's versioning system is driven by "marketing weasels". You see, it's all very complex:

    Slackware is just an imaginary brand name created by a huge computer firm. It strives to capture the user base of disenfranchised cynical computer users.

    ---- But the "marketing weasels" at the big computer firm decided that their Linux 3.4 was too small a version number, so they changed it to 7. Why 7? Sun did the same thing with Solaris, so why don't we?

  • Well, at least the good ole' Penis Bird V1.0 hasn't sold out for the sake of making a dirty dollar.

    You can always count on the Penis Bird
  • I've looked around (briefly) on ftp.suse.com - do they put out an ISO? Even of the trial version? Also, I found 6.4 - where's 7.0?


    Fawking Trolls! [slashdot.org]
  • I have a BETTER idea - why don't you say that to her face.


    Fawking Trolls! [slashdot.org]

  • Who is SuSE aimed at? Everyone! (Score:5)

    by Jeff Mahoney ( 11112 ) on Monday July 31, 2000 @05:35PM (#890261)
    I'm an advanced user, so my opinion of what might be good for a beginner is probably very skewed.

    I've been running SuSE for a while now, since a co-worker of mine went to work for them. One of the major things that attracted me to it was that one of the install options is the ability to choose ReiserFS as your default (root) filesystem.

    I first installed 6.3. Recently, I installed a new box with 6.4-eval (they call their downloaded versions evals). I'm not at all afraid of non-graphical installs - I've been installing commercial UNIX boxes over a serial console for years. I found myself very much impressed with the graphical configuration/installation that SuSE has going. It found my hardware, presented appropriate technical options [module params] if you wanted them, etc.

    All in all, I think it's a perfect blend of easy-to-use, and the level of control that your typical UNIX geek wants. The configure scripts are well thought out, and centered around a core "/etc/rc.config" settings file - which you can edit yourself if you wish, or have YaST do it for you.
    ..and it comes with damn near everything, but doesn't install all the fluff unless you want it to.

    They offer add-on packages that aren't really part of the distro because they're not really mature yet, such as XFree86 4.0, on their FTP site [sourceforge.net].

    Furthermore, they're going from a release 6.4 to a 7.0. This isn't abnormal. Part of it may be version creep - but it really wouldn't surprise me if it does, in fact, merit a full version increment.

    I've tried most of the major Linux distributions - and SuSE is the one I've stuck with.

    -Jeff
  • NO no no no no. You TOTALLY missed my point. I've USED Slackware - since 1994 as a matter of fact - until just reciently switching to Mandrake 7.1. Patrick released version 7 because of RED HAT and IT'S marketing idiots... NOW every one in the world is following suit. The symptom has become the disease. X.0 releases now seem destined to be followed x.1, and then x+1.0. It's nuts!


    Fawking Trolls! [slashdot.org]

  • Where SuSE fits! (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Wonder just how much of the new stuff will make it in the 7.0 release - the timing seems a bit tight...

    As for where SuSE fits, well it's BIG in Europe, and for corporate users, it's nice to have support just a car drive away - Internet or not. It's the default distro I'll get at local shops.
    It's well known that they throw in a lot of stuff that you'd otherwise have to download. About 50% of the things I'd download actually are on the CD's.
    Less known is probably that they're very fast getting the latest versions, drivers and stuff integrated in their distro. I was pleased to find USB support in 6.4, ATA/66 running fine out of the box, and XFree 4.0 with a nice GFX config tool. (Check those unsorted directories on their CD's for the XFree!)

    SuSE is a hardworking gang that doesn't get all the PR they deserve - not everything needs to be RedHat :)

  • Mandrake 7.1 is a totally different product than RedHat 6.2 . i don't know what rock youv'e been sleeping under, but Mandrake has been much more than a rehashed RedHat for quite some time. Mandrake 7.1 has a totally different selection of packages, totally different installer, totally different configuration system, and many other differences.


  • Hey - cock smoker - She's a real human being with feeling, just like your own MOTHER, or sister or what ever. Trolling is fine, but leave my wife out of it, or I WILL endevor to find your ass and beat it into a small, bloody pulp.


    Fawking Trolls! [slashdot.org]
  • To each his own.... I run Mandrake 7.0 + XF86 4.0.... on my P2-300 w/ 128 megs, Win2k runs better.

  • Re:ISO image? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I picked up SuSE ISO's at tucows (Linuxberg). It's the trial version (which is fully functional and up to date) they put out.

    7.0 is scheduled for a late August release - no wonder it ain't there yet...

  • >They offer add-on packages that aren't really part of the distro because they're not really mature yet, such as XFree86 4.0, x 4 is on disk 3 (or 2, can't remember which) ofc, it's not 4.01, but it's there.
  • I think the SuSE distro, like Red Hat, is a primarily a response to the needs of their consulting customers. So it's not an newbie product, but it does have a lot of bells and whistles designed to simplify deployment. It seems to be set apart in the following ways:
    • SuSE drastically revamps all the customary Unix startup and daemon scripts, with the aim of reducing configuration to setting a few global parameters. Nice in theory, but it's often difficult to tweak the system without breaking the parameter setup. You can just bypass it and use old-fashioned Unix admin methods, but SuSE won't sell you a support contract if you do.
    • Just as Red Hat has a US bias, SuSE has a Euro bias. If you run a beta version, you'd better know a little German, and even in the retail versions the English translations are a little spotty. Also, a lot of the bundled software is European -- some of it with no English docs.
    • There are a lot of little design choices. Their desktop of choice is (of course) KDE, though GNOME and others are supported. GVim lacks the colormap bug common in other builds -- but also lacks color icons. Etc., etc.
  • Thank you for demonstrating that you lack even the emotional stability and maturity of a three year old monkey.


    Fawking Trolls! [slashdot.org]
  • well ive been using it since 6.2. you cant beat the amount of software you get bundled for the money

    Maxwell Zeuster

  • this is the end. Ive been using Suse for a while and the reason for my staying with them, was the low price per software ratio. I think this route will seriously destroy the thing they had going for them. Debian here I come.

    possibly the cheapest nerd on earth,
    Maxie Zeus

  • Re:Who is SuSE aimed at? Everyone! (Score:3)

    by CJ Hooknose ( 51258 ) on Monday July 31, 2000 @06:24PM (#890273) Homepage
    Well, I'm sure glad I didn't pick up that SuSE 6.4 boxed set for half price earlier today...

    Anyway, I'd have to agree with with a lot of Jeff's comments. SuSE is excellent if you don't have a fast Net drop. For that reason alone I've been reccommending it to any potential Linux users. Nothing's more frustrating for a newbie than to realize you need $FOO, and it's available for download, but A) the computer you bought has a LoseModem or B) it's 20M in size, and your Real Modem will be busy for 3 hours.

    That said, there's at least one improvement they could make: Either borrow, steal, or re-invent RedHat's "sndconfig" program. That thing can save a lot of time and aggravation, especially for a newbie.

    Allowing ReiserFS as an option is a good thing, but it might bite people in the arse since very few rescue systems can read ReiserFS. I hope they've addressed this by putting a rescue floppy image that groks ReiserFS somewhere on the CD.

    YaST doesn't seem as invasive as Linuxconf, and it's possible (even easy) to munge around manually with things in /sbin/init.d/ without your system getting all confused. Having all the config data in /etc/rc.config may be a bad idea for some things, but I think most people find the idea easier to understand than the royal mess that lies underneath RedHat's /etc/sysconfig/.

    Now to wait a few days for the /. effect to wear off so I can actually get a look at what they've done....

    (SuSE User since 5/5/1999! Go Geeko!)

  • Slackware used to be my favoriate, simply because it was secure and neat, but it used
    old libs and sorta died.
    Welcome back, too bad you haven't followed the Slackware releases more closely - the latest (7.1) contains the latest stable kernel (2.2.16) with the newest libraries and even an option for XFree86 version 4.
  • forcing you to test the install with the monitor you were going to use suse with rather than give you a choice to go ahead without testing?? This was really dumb as it forced me to haul my 21 inch in from the other room rather than trusting me that I new what brand of monitor I was going to use??? Also, it doesn't create boot partition automatically to help a newbie such as myself out. So the install hurls chunks when it comes to newbies. Also, in the box the say they have phone tech support every day, but when you call them you get a message that tech support by phone is only available tuesday/thursday mornings. Isn't that what they're really selling is support??

    Other newbie distro problems - if corels linux doesn't like a video/sound/scsi card you have in your system it freezes during install.

    Mandrake 7.0 - if it doesn't like your video card it freezes up at the end of an 1 hour install and doesn't install xfree86. My reason why they were quick to come out with 7.1.

    I couldn't never get turbo linux to install.

    Caldera is the only distro that installed hitch free with the hardware I was using - however star office install doesn't work as shipped with the disks - Tech support was available however and I was able to install with their help. However when I called to ask about printing out from the gimp they were totally clueless on how to do it - it does not ship with a method of doing so. I have since learned that they're GPL plugins that can accomplish this (in a limited way)

    I'm not technically illiterate, just coming from a windoze 'click thru' enviroment. For the newbie, linux has a loooong way to go, as most of us are not prepared for a visit to the command line that linux eventually forces you to. And if I have a hard time, what do you think that the vast majority of the population is going to think when they try to install???? I really hope eazel lives up to its billing for linux's sake.

  • OT (Score:2)

    by pipeb0mb ( 60758 )
    *2000-07-31 18:39:55 Steve Ballmer says Linux 'is communism' (articles,news) (rejected)

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/cont ent/1/12266.html [theregister.co.uk]

    It's time to storm the redmond campus with toilet paper and potatoes...

    "Don't try to confuse the issue with half truths and gorilla dust."
    Bill McNeal (Phil Hartman)
  • 1: The joke: Let's see how long it will take until they update the /. ad. They were featuring SuSE 6.3 long after I bought 6.4 .

    2: The question: Am I the only one who expects Kernel-2.4, Apache 2.0, TUX 1.0, GCC 3.0, KDE 2.0 in the next WhizBang Linux XX.00? What did _CHANGE_ between 6.4 and 7.0 to warrant a full version increase?

    3: The fact: _Su_SE _Su_pport _Su_cks: I've bought 6.4 because I wanted to became aquainted with other Linux distributions (I am using RedHat since 4.1...). I wanted something that automatically installs reiserfs, UDMA 66... After install,
    my first thought was to configure sendmail. Well... I copied the appropriate lines from my old sendmail.cf into the new one, edited the SuSE specific configuration file and ran yast to update the whole thing. Lather, rinse, repeat. Nothing. I mailed their support. They answered that they don't provide support for mail
    configuration. ON THE BOX THEY SAY 30 DAYS OF SUPPORT except for some advanced customization: I don't consider envelope masquerading for redirecting my and my wife's mail _advanced customization_. They recommended me to buy support from Linuxcare. Of course, I've copied my whole sendmail.* from my old RedHat /etc, disabled the SuSE config file and never run their updater again.On a plus side, they did a wonderfull job at making Oracle8i installation painless on their distribution. The instructions on Oracle web site were refering to RedHat and didn't work. SuSE packages all aditional downloads into one file and provided easy to follow instructions.

  • Let's not forget that 6.4 has 6 CD's which I bought for close to twenty-four bucks. Now, 7.0 comes out with just 3. It's really to bad that this is happening, I think that if Linux want's to stay strong they should keep the prices low. Today I was reading a magazine and it said a usual Linux (shrinkwrap) version normally costs less than 200 bucks. That's really bad press, for a "free" operating system. And the sad thing is that that was meant as a complement. For anyone intersted the magazine was Law Office Computing, and the cover title was Linux in the Law Office.
  • Yes! They definately need some type of sound configuration program. I was trying for months to get my Opti card working in SuSE, and even though it worked fine in RH, it just would not work. I ended up getting an SBLive, which worked like a charm. That opti sucked anyways, but I should have been able to get it working.

    Here's my [radiks.net] DeCSS mirror. Where's yours?

  • This is pretty silly.

    Both Red Hat and SuSE have been planning such a release for a long time now. That Red Hat's _beta_ was announced slightly before SuSE's product is a coincidence.

  • Re:suse (Score:1)

    by k8to ( 9046 )
    The answer to this is simple:

    Version numbers are useful when comparing within a product, not between products.

  • Well, there is also the update edition, which is cheap and includes all the cds, and only ships you the sections of the manual which have actually changed.

    Cheaper shipping, same information.

    What's to complain about?

  • WinME stable?

    Perhaps. It's chunks for me. 7200rpm Deskstar ATA66, 128MB, PII-450, TNT2. Wasn't any better or worse with a G200/32. Win2000 seems smoother. Heck, 98se was smoother!

    *nix, whether it's Caldera, Redhat, *BSD beat M$.

    But then, BeOS beats them all. Too bad TFC isn't ported to Be.

    -sid
  • There's a serious difference:
    • Force and Violence
      • Communism uses force and violence to take what it doesn't control
      • Linux and socialism affect change gradually
    • Totality of control
      • Communism requires control of everything
      • Linux and socialism control only what they need to
    • Legality and choice
      • Communism requires that everything is taken at once and without the peoples' choice or compensation
      • Linux and socialism take control by the peoples' choice and over time
  • You don't need a chart - you look at the kernel version. If the distro doesn't list a kernel version, don't buy it. If it does, compare that. You want the second number to be even, such as 2.2.16 or 2.4.1 or something like that. One can then assume that the rest of the software is current as of whenever the kernel was current.

    Since the kernel's usually about a month behind, the rest of the software will usually have updates similarly aged, with a good vendor providing patches when neccesary.

  • I just have checked the pricing on their website. It's DM 89 (ca. 45 US$) for the personal and DM 129 (ca. 65 US$) for the professional version. Compare this to DM 229 (ca. 115 US$) for Red Hat Deluxe. So they are still pretty reasonable priced. But I have switched to Redhat anyway. SuSE gave me the willies with their pretty proprietary directory structure. Always made problems when installing downloaded RPMs.
  • I agree with you completely! I switched 1.5 years ago (I think) from RedHat when they introduced their new pricing scheme and priced even entry level at like $90 Canadian. They introduced "standard" version after a few months but they already lost me. I buy 2-3 distributions per year and I don't want to give them more than about 45-50 Canadian. Hell, if I wanted to pay more I'd get Microsoft!! (Oh wait, I do spend few hundred per year on m$ software). I mean, it's free OS! If you're gonna charge $150 then don't upgrade it more than once in two years and release only service packs for free. I am willing - and I **DO** pay like $150 CDN per year for linux, but don't push it man.

    Yeah, sure, you can say they have cheap software only version, or it's free for download - but that's just not it. Besides it's not really all that black and white, suse comes out on ftp almost a month after it's released and is about 20% of the full distro size (just one CD usually)), so I always buy it. I do have a cable modem and CD burner and I even have time to do all that but I find it too time consuming and besides I have better things to do.

    I want one version and one price. Sure, go ahead and publish "e-commerce edition" with commercial stuff for $$$ but if you're gonna introduce a "professional" version costing more than $50 CDN and force me to buy a "regular" (read: "weenie, beginner, looser") one, then forget it! Especially since DM is quite low compared to CDN right now (and NO, Canada is not US, you can't just convert US price to Canadian, we don't earn gazillions here).

    As you may tell, this pisses me off. Bloody marketing types destroying my corner of the world.
  • ON THE BOX THEY SAY 30 DAYS OF SUPPORT except for some advanced customization: I don't consider envelope masquerading for redirecting my and my wife's mail _advanced customization_.

    I hate to break this to you, but envelope masquerading, or anything else the requires hacking at sendmail's configuration files, is "advanced customization". If you want to get a sense of the kinds of questions SuSE probably gets all the time, look at comp.os.linux.misc on Usenet sometime.

    Their rule is probably "If it can't be done with YaST, we won't touch it".

    - Sam

  • Steve Ballmer says Linux 'is communism'
    I guess we should start standing in line for out of date tuna.
  • ...can be found here [www.suse.de]
  • Just boot from CD 2 and you get Yast1 and you don't have to use Yast2....

    Don't know about 7.0 but it's the way to go in
    6.3 and 6.4.

    It's all about choice..:-)

    SuSE user since 4.2.

    Yours

    Michael

    P.S. Please don't troll about my post, you know there are some people on /. that use computers longer than you're alive and could be your parents!
  • Did anyone notice the authors name? DickBreath

  • SuSE 7.0 is more like 6.4.1 (Score:3)

    by rednic ( 8954 ) on Monday July 31, 2000 @09:32PM (#890294) Homepage
    The latest SuSE release doesn't have any new features that would justify the version number 7. There are a few things that are quite new, like the fact, that you can now get a professional and a personal edition, the personal edition costing as much as the "normal" edition used to cost, whereas the professional version will cost DM 129 (compared to DM 89). The other new thing is "a much improved" yast2, which in my opinion is completely useless. I like yast a lot and use it on a daily basis, but I see no need for a badly designed graphical version of it. Have you ever tried selecting a bunch of packages with a doubleclick for each item? that's fun... my wrist starts hurting whenever I think about that... the graphical installer sucks compared to Caldera's, which is really smooth, has awesome hardware detection and let's me configure things while the installation is running... yast2 in comparison has a GUI that is non-intuitiv, the hardware-detection misses stuff Caldera detects and the installation process takes longer.

    what else is new? hmm, a KDE2beta snapshot, a patched XFree 4.0, other than that nothing that I could remember...

    Personally, I couldn't care less whether they have a personal and a professional version out, since I always just install the stuff via NFS from fpt.gwdg.de, which is the local mirror and is always up-to-date when it comes to SuSE. I understand that SuSE tries to package a distribution that is geared towards the enduser or beginner and one package for developers or "powerusers", but I think a lot of customers will be confused by the new packaging... oh yeah, speacking about packaging, I wish they would finally get a real marketing team and then get rid of this crappy logo, the weird mathematical figures and the ugly colors.

  • I think I will now be buying only even releases of SuSE because of their price. I am using some packages of the "pro" version (like IBM JDK...) so I can't go with the personal one.

    It's sad that their price got a 100% increase for really few added functionality...
  • If anything surely Linux is anarchist?
  • This took my mind back to reading the reason for Slackware's jump from 4 to 7. Is there really that much improvement in either Suse's or Red Hat's latest offerings? At this rate, how long will it take before we have SuSE 24.1? Dammit! Just pay attention to the product, not the version number. Anyway, where can I download Linux 7?
  • hmmmm, are you sure your not confusing Communism and fascism,
    lets take a different analogy.

    if you live in the U.S. which is apparently a democracy eg. laws take into account the minority as well as the majority and everyone agrees with them(kind of a pipe dream if you ask me).
    why is it run by a demi-god and controlled by a few elite.(slash dot, and nbc)

    a socialist Linux would distribute from a free country so it could have all that lovely crypto stuff.

    Linux provides a backbone from which people/applications can develope, but develop too far and no one will talk to you.

  • Re:Who is SuSE aimed at? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Are you sure about that ? I lived in England for two years and I can assure you that the only time a british person considers England part of Europe is when it is of significant advantage to them :-)
  • ho come when i removed my sound card did the hardware detector have 'Red Hat' splashed accross the top? that's not a totally different configuration system, it's just an extrapolated config system.
  • Am I the only person that noticed the mathematical symbol on the SuSE 7.0 Personal looks like an iMac?

    -psxndc

    PS I love SuSE, but 6.3 will do me fine until kernel 2.4 (full USB mainly) has arrived, X4.0 is all ironed out, and somehow I can use my TNT2 Ultra for Q3 and UT.

  • The cheaper update versions are only available in Germany (perhaps other countries served from Germany as well ?). They are not available for US customers.
  • Ill make things clear, I LIKE SUSE,

    but

    The 90 days tech support does seem to last until the next version comes out.

    I suppose , to put it in plain english I want free updates inside major releases. I dont want to have to pay 100 GBP on a OS every year

  • Cutting through the PR speak, is this a significant development from version 6.4? or merely an incremental? I have been using linux for about a year so still getting used to the core functionality of it all. Will I notice a difference or is the upgrade only of value to all you gurus n wizards out there who are doing developmental work?

    I am on a home telephone line so ftp'ing down anything over a few Mbs is out of the question (good old UK British Telecom pay per minute phone bills). Is it worth me going out and buying the new version on disc?

    Can somebody succinctly list the major developments that this new version offers?

    cheers

  • 2: The question: Am I the only one who expects Kernel-2.4, Apache 2.0, TUX 1.0, GCC 3.0, KDE 2.0 in the next WhizBang Linux XX.00? What did _CHANGE_ between 6.4 and 7.0 to warrant a full version increase?

    No you're not. I'm not going to fork out for a new distribution until I get them. Until then, I'm going to continue patching RedHat 6.1. I've been evaluating several of the major distrubutions recently and SuSE 6.4 is almost extremely good. I'd probably rate it above RedHat, Corel and Mandrake. Haven't tried Caldera yet. First distro to offer 2.4, KDE 2.0, XFree86 4.x and CONFORMANCE TO THE FILESYSTEM HIERARCHY STANDARD gets my money.

    HH
  • Because kudzu was created by RedHat, as was sndconfig. Mandrake is still RedHat-based in terms of file structure, but is no longer merely RedHat++ like it used to be.
  • My one experience with SuSE support was very positive: granted that it was more of an installation issue than what you're talking about (getting my new laptop to suspend cleanly with X running), but they came back with good answers and lots of ideas. Problem solved.

    Now, if only Dell hadn't changed the sound chip to one that isn't supported by ALSA yet...
    --

  • SuSE never release the full distribution on ftp after it has been out for some weeks...
  • I just have checked the pricing on their website. It's DM 89 (ca. 45 US$) for the personal and DM 129 (ca. 65 US$) for the professional version. Compare this to DM 229 (ca. 115 US$) for Red Hat Deluxe. So they are still pretty reasonable priced.
    Except if you look at Suse's pages, one of the differences between the personal and professional versions is that the professional version includes "development tools". I looked at this closer, and the personal version does not include the header files necessary for building stuff with GTK, Gnome, QT or KDE. The SbLive driver is missing from the personal version. No PGP/GPG. No Enlightenment. The "personal" edition is pretty *badly* crippled, folks.
  • Thank you Slashdot for another beautifully misleading story! SUSE 7 is NOT OUT. SUSE 7 has been announced for the end of the month (though that probably means boxes, with the iso's waiting a while longer). We are providing SUSE with some of the early FUD publicity that MS is so famous for. If the story was "SUSE announces SUSE 7 using 2.4, X4, KDE2, mozilla, apache 2" and every other major release coming then it would be a story. All they have done is announce that they want to extract some more money from the market by doing an Intel/MS/AMD by selling a cut-down version for lusers that will truly cost as much to produce as the main version.
  • It's just an announcement that they will make two versions, a "Personal" and a "Professional" version.
    I don't consider it as _released_.
    According to the press release [www.suse.de]: Both versions will be available at the end of August.

    Don't panic ;-)
  • Installation Hotline five days a week

    Substantially extended the installation support contained in the purchase price. Now the SuSE Service Hotline is operating five - instead of the previous two - afternoons per week. Professional Edition customers have 90 days of support from the SuSE professionals, one month longer than previously. Users of the Personal or Update Version have 60 days installation support.

    YaST2 & KDE 2.0 - and the Desktop lives!

    The upgraded YaST2 offers more comfort. In addition now the Nachinstallieren and Deinstallieren are single packages, just like a NIS Client module or the configuration of the T-DSL-Access. YaST2 also includes a new graphic inetd.conf editor, with which server services also install separately from the Clients. KDE enthusiasts will be pleased to know about the more than 200 Tools of PRE-KDE 2.0, the all-newest stat of "Next Generation" Desktops.

    Support of Braille lines with the installation

    So far, SuSE Linux is the only operating system with a complete installation for blind users. The Braille lines are detected automatically at the start of the installation.

    Hardware
    [This part may be a little off, I'm not much of an hardware expert ;)]

    Version 7.0 again again a true cornucopia of new features. Now, with XFree86 4.0 graphics power, the graphics chips benefit from ATI, NVidia and Matrox. Brand-new -- and found only in SuSE -- is support for the Diamond Fire GL1.

    Even if it is not yet an official release, SuSE already now brings a Linux Kernel, which (owing to numerous extensions), we call confidently call 2.2.17-pre. The extended USB support supplies experimental support for ISDN, Floppy and Iomega Zip 250. For the first time, scanners on parallel ports can be addressed under Linux. The support for the Adaptec RAID Controller is also new. And for the SCSI adapters on NCR-Basis are drivers for the super-fast Symbios log IC chips SYM53C895A and SYM53C1010. Also, the advancement of the ATA standard on 100 MHz is supported with the new SuSE Linux 7.0. This pushes EIDE into the performance regions from SCSI before Big Brother, including videoconferencing in accordance with H.323-Standard. An extended bttv driver finally provides for a full support of TV cards. Also IBM and Sun's Java2 can be found in the Professional Edition. The Knaller from the ALSA labs: SuSE Linux 7.0 brings a hardware-supporting Plug and Play driver as the first distribution for all Yamaha-compatible Soundcards with YMF72x and YMF74x-Chips.

    Linux Goes Enterprise

    SuSE Linux 7.0 Professional distinguishes itself with improved Raw Device support, LFS (Large file support), and 4GB-[something] addressing [something], now as a server system for very large and complex applications of data bases. The optimized support for fully automatic installations and the new SuSE Tool ALICE (AUTOMATIC Linux Installation and Configuration Environment) are a logical configuration tool for enterprise networks.

  • Actually I like a lot the mathematical figures. I thrive witn the expectation of what is going to be the next image on the package. I'ts much better than company-logo + marketing kind of package.

    The lizard is kind of cool. (well it's not a lizard but i cannot spell the name of the beast correctly).

    Also, green is ok. I mean blue would be better, but defenitly not yellow, brown or cyan.

    J

    PS: Gostos nao se discutem
  • I has been quietly released on June 20, 2000. I have it up and running on two computers. SuSE 7.0 is rock stable and runs much faster than SuSE 6.4. It contains quite stable KDE2 and many current packages such as PostgreSQL 7.0.2, IBM Java2, etc.
  • SuSE 7.0 was quietly released on July 20, 2000, not June. Sorry for the error in my previous post.
  • If you look at Suse's homepage it says "August 21" right there ("ab 21. August erhältlich"). http://www.suse.de/
  • http://www.suse.de/de/produkte/susesoft/linux/Pake te_prof/pak_diff.html
    This makes me think.
    The list of packages included in the Professional Version but not the Personal.
    So why does the homeuser of the Personal SuSE not get Abiword?
    The list speaks for itself...there are plenty packages I would want to have as a Homeuser.

    Whatever, I stick to Debian anyway...
  • Ah yes... but for the people who use Microsoft as their computer and Netscape as their ISP, these issues become very important. Of course the higher numbers must be better, right? Not that I know why this should apply to linux dists, but to lots of microsoftian sheep it means alot.
  • Why SuSe 7? It clearly doesn't deserve a full release number.
    Answer: RedHat 7. There ares still people out there who think all version numbers are on an absolute scale, and JoeBlox Linux version 8 will be newer/more up-to-date than Suse 6.5. Better to go for a number that sounds like its 'keeping up' with RedHat.

  • Forgive my ignorance, but do you have a link? Either for somewhere that can supply a box or somewhere I can download an iso (or the directories). There is no sign of it on suse.com (ftp or http). It looks like you may be able to order from the suse german site, is this the only location, and does anyone have enough German to tell if they are actaully shipping?
  • I'll admit that the software in box is great, but I have found that if you find a buddy or LUG with broadband access or someone connected to a local university that can drag a cd-burner into a lab. Download the required software, burn it, bring it home, burn coppies for your buddies, and spread the penguin love across the globe, a cd-r is dirt cheap these days, much less expensive than the box version and you pick the software.
  • just a quick correction, you only have to use their patches for their customized kernel. (some optimizations mostly for europeans users, if i remember correctly, been awhile since i looked.)
    you can always install the average, everyday, run of the mill kernel, and it's on the cd's too...
  • or if you had read the documentation, you would know to type "manual" at the LILO: prompt to get the choice of YaST 1 or 2 :)

    or alternatively, as another poster suggests, to use the second CD to boot from.

    the reason it comes with that huge manual is to tell you all these things before you start and finish and go "DOH!" :)

  • Red Hat's versioning is based on binary compatibility (well, at least it has been for some time - 3.0.3 could just as well have been 2.2) - with a new toolchain (glibc, compilers etc) the version number goes up.

    Of course, it would have been nice if the 2.4 kernel had made it as well...

    As for Slackware, they just increased their number to match the competitors

    Mandrake used to be Red Hat+0.1, but went to 7 when they wrote their own installer instead of just copying the Red Hat one.

  • You have to keep in mind that people who read Law Office Computing, and other non-Linux trade magazines generally look for shrinkwrap software with printed manuals with sufficient handholding during installation. That along with printing mass CD's is going to cost. These are also people who tend to be suspicious about anything just given away "free" and are downright leery of anything that requires mailing list help to support.

    It's for these people that the shrinkwrap sets, Corel Linux, Caldera et. al, were made and it's been this slow creep into the non gearhead world which has brought Linux into the mainstream.

    In short, in many cases whether press is "bad" or "good" can depend very much on the target audience.
  • while not an answer to your question, strictly speaking, don't bother with the '.0' release unless there's something you must have. 7.1, if my guess is correct, should be out in december here in the states (if things go as they usually do...the american version comes out about a month after the euro,) and will (hopefully) fix some of the problems that are bound to be there in 7.0.

    plus, with any luck, it'll have the 2.4 kernel in it...

  • yeah, that is really sad....one of the initial things that led me to buy SuSe to begin with was the balance of Price / Distro / and configurability...by jacking the price up this much it severely screws that balance. In all, I've been happy with it, but I certainly would have thought twice or three times if it was at that price.....maybe they noticed what kind of money red-hat was making and jumped on the wagon.
  • You must use there patches to use Reiser FS ... there are also other usefull things in there pathces like PCMCIA support, ect.

  • The rc.config scheme is abyssmal. It's the NT registry in ASCII format. One change in one section causes every configuration file to be recreated. Equivalently, don't try editing config files directly, they'll probably get overwritten next time you change your default window manager, or your IP address or your NIS domain, or anything.
    I paid good money for SuSE. I should have spent it on beer instead.

    Back on the original topic:
    SuSE are playing version number wars. They're not interested in the product, they're interested in the marketing.
    To me that spells d-o-n-t---t-o-u-c-h.

    FatPhil
    (User of Slackware, then RedHat, then SuSE, and now Debian)


  • I've been a SuSE user for 2 years. I love it, I like the fact that they are packaged with a large array of programs. This is good for me since I use it mainly as a learning tool. Now my question is will the professional version be a a $100+ package and the personal be a toned down gui hell child. I've used caldera and redhat and though ease of use is great I want something that will allow a fair amount of learning through exposer. is SuSE moving away from this ??


  • This is the reason I chose SuSE over red hat. about 2 years ago I had a Matrox G200 card, and RedHat 5.1. After researching and downloading the latest XFree stuff I was still stuck. the only option I had was the cig drivers $100+ then I found out that SuSE made the XFcom driver which worked with the card and was including it in there relase. viola problem solved. like the distru ever since.
  • According to their website the full professional version is DM 129 (approx. $65) but you can get an "update version" (same CDs, but less documentation mainly as far as i understand) for DM 79 (~40$)...

    Looking at prices of the old version it might be a bit more for the US market, only fair if you ask me seeing for everything else European prices are far higher than US prices...

  • right on the box, in big letters.

    and we wonder why people get confused.

    there should be some kind of campaign to get all these distros to design their packaging and promotions to call their distros "Suse 7.0 (Linux)" or "Redhat 7 (Linux)" not "(suse) LINUX 7"

    That's just misleading to the large number of people who haven't used linux before, and are looking to try it.

    ________

  • It seems that With SuSE taking the same path as Red Hat in their distro structure and PRICE$$$ structure they will be charging the same if not more than M$ does for thier so-called OS. At this rate we as Linux zelots will have one less thing to use as a strong point to buy and use Linux. I sold my boss on using Linux because of it's price factor.

    1) Free - if we download it.

    2) SuSE 6.4 was $29.00 at Chump USA for all 6 CD's and the manual.

    My boss wanted to use Win2K. But if SuSE goes this route I don't think I will be able to keep the price argument valid. Especially since my boss is a M$ zelot anyway.

    Hey SuSE and Red Hat - your making it HARD for us trying to get Linux in the Business world with your drastic price jumps! You should not have gone Public and sold your souls to bean counting stockholders!

  • No, he didn't do it because of RH's marketing idiots. He claims to have done it because people kept comparing version numbers of Slack to other distributions, so he went and bumped its version number above RH's (and SuSE's, for that matter). A little childish, if you ask me, but then again that's just the mindset of the 'leet slacker.

    Redhat doesn't artificially inflate their version numbers, as has been explained by bero-rh [slashdot.org], they do it when some change in the new version prevents clean compilation of a package form a previous version.

    For the record, I too started with Slack in '94, but switched to RH in '96. Why would you switch to Mandrake (which is after all, a RH derivative) and not to RH? Mindless spite for the company?
    --

  • It was my first impression too.
    But it's justified. SuSE supports PowerPC, as opposed to other distributions in the "seventh generation" that despite their solid version numbers don't support PowerPC at all.

    By the way, you can upgrade kernel manually. I never run any distro with its native kernel more that one week. Also please note that if you start with a newer distro, you have chances to spare some problems while upgrading the software you really care about (kernel and X in your case) to the latest and greatest version.
  • My personal feeling is that the major version number should only change when the second digit of the linux kernel changes (e.g., 2.2.x -> 2.4.x). Of course, if they feel that they've done something else that may cause their product to be unstable ...

    Is there a site that collects reviews of the various releases?
  • Hooooold on a minute - honour where honour is due. SuSE didn't jump on the Linux bandwagon like the others, they've been around a long, long time. If there are a godzillion Linux distributions out there then it's hardly their fault. Do you know what, what's great about unixlike systems is that quality still counts for something and marketing doesn't count for shit. Red Hack spend millions on marketing, SuSE spend millions on improving their distribution and making **real** innovations (not acquisitions: real home-bred innovations) ... and I'm betting that SuSE get a lot further than Red Hack in this game. Why?

    Because SuSE just oozes quality.
  • i'm a suse user for years but i don't like this numbers game! currently i'm using a suse 6.3 system (updated to 2.4pre and xfree4).

    7.0 won't be a major release at all. there isn't a kernel 2.4 (2.2.16) or kde2 (kde1.2 and kde2beta).

    the 7.0-thing is only for marketing to closeup to mandrake and red hats version numbers.

    i can't understand why those distributors can't use the kernel-id as version number.

    7.0 will come with reiserfs and xfree4.1 as standard - this may be the only reason to update. ok- the easier installing (in 6.4 yast2 was still buggy, but who needs it?? ;-] )

    the next bad thing about this version is the price- ok there is a cheaper personal version and a not so cheap professional version. but the price for the personal version is nearly the same of a normal 6.4 - but it only comes with 3cds... the professional is more expensive and comes with nearly the same range of apps ~1500 like a normal 6.4. the only difference is 7.0pro will come with some books (i think they will be only folders :-] )

    so i will wait till a distro with 2.4 and kde2.
  • Actually the price may be worthwhile as I could
    free a few gigs by removing Winblows 98 for good.
    I only have 3G over 24G for winblows but it seems
    like such a waste.

    The only thing that keeps Winblows on my PC is
    the fact that my parallel port scanner isn't
    supported under Linux.

    Once that bug is fixed I fail to see what I
    use I could possibly find for Winblows aside
    from wasting hard disk space and acting as virus
    much too often.

  • Actually the US price of version has been around
    $30 at chumbo and compUSA which is pretty much
    the same price as RedHat. Whatever SuSE seems
    to be doing is just adding a professional
    version like RedHat and Mandrake are doing for
    relatively the same price.

    If the bug in sane (lack of parallel port support) is indeed fixed this is a major fix and will be worth the expense. It is annoying though considering that I just bought version 6.4.

    Hopefully the locales will work this time, correctly that is. For some mysterious reasons
    KDE thinks that I have an english install when
    it's actually French. Now for some mysterious
    reason the accents don't appear in a dir
    listing. They do on another almost identical
    installation. Messages are still in French, sort of. They need to steal from Mandrake, not the
    core dump features of RedHat though.

    A decent French language keyboard doesn't exist
    under the SuSE installation as they only have the
    swiss, belgium and french keyboards Whoever
    invented that moronic azerty keyboard should be
    shot!

    Apparently SuSE doesn't know that there are
    a lot of French speaking Linux users in Canada
    and the US. Installing SuSE is a real pain in the
    ass due to this ridiculous keyboard bug.
  • The rc.config scheme is abyssmal. It's the NT registry in ASCII format. One change in one section causes every configuration file to be recreated. Equivalently, don't try editing config files directly, they'll probably get overwritten next time you change your default window manager, or your IP address or your NIS domain, or anything.

    As far I remember (at least I saw that in older versions) if yast detects you touched manually a config file, it generates an alternative version (i.e. resolv.conf.SuSEconfig or something like that) so it not overwrite your changes, and you also have what it would generate if your changes were not made.

    Of course, it could NOT detect that you touched it, but if you want to force something is enough probably to add a comment to the file, so it doesn't look like generated by yast.

  • Per this c|net story [cnet.com], pretty much all of the major distro's are gearing up for beta releases of new versions so they will be ready when the 2.4 kernel goes final.

    Caldera will even be selling their beta as a $20 'Linux 2.4 Technology Developer Release Preview'. If find this humorous, in that not only would you be paying to run beta software, you'd be paying to run beta open source software. But they will rebate the purchase price back to you, so your really just paying shipping. (or you can just download it [calderasystems.com]).


    Help [206.253.208.199]
  • I have been using SUSE for years now. (My first was a Suse 5.1 Box, replaced my Ydgrassil distro) and I have found that it has the most complete selection of packages of any distro. And considering I run a LUG and get the software free (most times) that becomes very important. After using Suse so long I wonder how the other Distro's get by with 1 or 2 cd's....

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