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SuSE Businesses

SuSE 7.0 Available For Download 82

Posted by timothy from the mirror-mirror-mirror dept.
solusthewizard writes: "SuSE, probably Europe's top Linux distro, is available for download as a 'live evaluation' iso image for version 7.0. Not quite sure what that means as opposed to the shrinkwrapped version as I haven't finished downloading it yet! Check out here for the iso (or better still, look for a local mirror). Can't be any worse than Red Hat 7.0, my laptop is still recovering." Read about the things that make 7.0 beam with pride here, if you'd like. I will make a sizeable contribution to The Human Fund in the name of everyone who establishes or points to a mirror :)
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SuSE 7.0 Available For Download More

SuSE 7.0 Available For Download

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  • Live vs. full (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    STW -- SuSE full includes multiple CDs / 1 DVD, with payware and other software that they may not be able to distribute under the same terms as the rest of the distro.

  • Well, I'm the guy who wrote the article on mandrakeforum, and in case it isn't clear:

    I don't care how good/bad is RH: I wouldn't work for Mandrakesoft if I wouldn't think we are doing a better job, but that particular story about counting bugs in bugzilla was below all standards and may have hurt the Linux as a whole, not only RedHat.

    As for LM 7.2, it is not "potentially better than SuSe", it is definitively going to be better than whatever SuSe can come up with. ;->

    (The rest is just my very private observation, and not in any way Mandrakesoft's official statement: I'm not very fond of SuSe, and newer was. Even some folk at Mandrakesoft may disagree with me, and I am sure many slashdot readers do as well..)

    There are two things which always bothered me about SuSe: Yast licence and non-standard way of setting-up the filesystem. Then I learned more about it (well, I lived in Austria...), and found out there were more things that bother me. For instance, it seems that they aren't very eager to let people download the newest version, so they simply don't put it on ftp-servers. Also, they do not seam to care about licances at all, so last time I looked free- and non-free software was all mixed-up.

  • Since at least 5.3, SuSE's default window manager/environment/whatever has been KDE. However, they've included every bloody WM under the sun (that i know of, anyway) in the distro...you don't have to use kde. you don't have to install kde to use X in SuSE.

    as for the admin tools looking like windows...i don't know what to tell you there. SuSE only has one admin tool, really...YAST. it's simple, works pretty well, and does what you tell it to do.

    no idea where they are at with their 3d acceleration, but it's been my experience that when SuSE says it supports some hardware, it usually works out of the box, or with a minimal amount of fiddling. best thing to do is check their hardware support database for specific hardware.

  • I'm sure that'll help the SuSE discussion immensely. I hear RedHat 7.1 will ship with 25% more Pure Evil than 7.0...
  • I don't bash Red Hat. I just don't like their distribution. Lots of bugs in point-zero releases. Lots of rough edges.

    Nothing wrong with that. Distribution competition is better for all of us. But I'd much rather hear about the cool stuff SuSE has than how the submitter's laptop is "still recovering from RedHat 7". That sort of remark doesn't enlighten anybody and doesn't show the good things that SuSE does.

  • I've been through something like 6 updates since I first starting using SuSE Linux at version 5.2. They've generally made the upgrade process very painless. Once the installer has updated the base system you tell the installer whether you want to reinstall all packages you have installed or only those packages that have updates. I only have the newer stuff installed so the upgrade doesn't take very long. It doesn't make sense to reinstall the same version of something I already have installed.
  • A non-Red Hat distribution announcement actually posted to Slashdot. Mabye it's the dawn of a new era.

    As well, the first distro. with a non-beta kde 2 (as far as I know).

  • What about Debian?! That's probably the most commonly used distro among the various Slashdot authors.

    (debian stuff) [slashdot.org]

    There's also a lot of stuff about Mandrake [slashdot.org]! Which is what Roblimo and I use most. Slackware, too. [slashdot.org]

    There are various opinions of what distro (and window manager etc) Slashdot is trying to "push" or "ignore" but the truth is there a bunch of people with different machines and preferences. BSD, various UNIXes, the odd dual-boot windows machine, Macs, and various weirdo ones.

    And the most important factor, anyhow, is the logo. SuSE has one of the coolest logos / mascots (I don't much like the new Mandrake logo, oh well -- the hat was much cooler and referenced Mandrake the magician), right up there with Tux. Does any distro or major piece of Linux software have a turtle, an albatross or a panda bear for its mascot? How about a polar bear?

    timothy

  • I use Mandrake 7.1 at my desktop machine. A friend of mine approached me about choosing a distro that is 'built to be a server' straight out of box. security / web / email ...etc all (atleast partially ) setup.

    Any one has any thoughts?

    thanks
    LinuxLover
  • I'm with you... I bought 6.3. I would like to get the 7.0 pro version. It's got all the stuff I want on it. But I'm kind of broke right now. Thought I'd do an install over the internet. Anxiously awaiting the FTP sites to carry the files. What gives SuSE? I'll buy the damn thing, but prove to us you are a real Linux distro and give it away.
  • Slackware 7.0 and 7.1 have this (at least if you buy the 4-CD set). You can also get zipslack and bigslack for installing over FAT filesystem or on removeable devices. Is is a fantastic thing.

    I use the Slack 7.0 CD to boot my machine all the time (when I bust LILO).

  • I've installed SuSE 7.0 on two production server one updated from 6.4 the other installed from scratch. Yast 1 performs quite well. But I would like to have more choice, I don't need X on any server, and I'm a bit sad that somehow, I'm missing egcs on 7.0. I thought the professional version would be better aimed for server use, but instead SuSE goes more and more the desktop way.

    The professional version only has longer support, but I get $$ support from them and I can only tell you that it sucks. You get better and faster support from the net, I was quite amazed/impressed when someone like Claus Assman replied to my questions on the sendmail newsgroup and gave me some short clues that really helped me getting sendmail & SASL running...:-)

    As someone else pointed out, it's not really news for me, since I got 7.0 month ago directly from SuSE.

    Yours

    Michael
  • The best feature of this Bootable CD is in recovery situations... Im a professional System Admin and I cant say how many times this CD has saved my arse. Just boot from it, then mount the troubled drive and fix away. Ive bought a copy for home use, even though I'm a debian user!
  • Try OpenBSD. Ive heard good things about its simplicity, ease of use, and security. Its about as secure as you can get in a default installation, and you can be sure to have the server components installed correctly (On the main OpenBSD.org website, they claim three years without a remote hole in the default install). Since you wont need X, or any other desktop "fluff", you probably will only need the default install, with a few minor tweaks to fit your needs.

    If you want to use a linux distribution, I would recommend debian, ive used it in both desktop and server configurations, and I can say that its a wonderful distribution for either scenario.
    If you havent heard already:

    • apt-get: allows you to install a package, upgrade a current one, or upgrade your whole system with a single command, handling dependencies and setup better than any other distribution.

    • Since ease of package management, its much easier to keep abreast of security issues (just apt-get distupgrade every night or so).

    Look around at the multiple slashdot discussions on OpenBSD and Debian to see for yourself.
  • First, I'd like to say that these type of live filesystem CDs were started back in Slackware 3.x and most distros canceled the live filesystem CD ever since. These are very useful for short term recovery and hardware evaluation.

    Second. I have been using SuSE since version 5.2. I am very disappointed about thier "Professional" vs. "normal user who don't even use development tools to compile programs" bullshit. This is an outragous price hike. In the past, I have always purchased the hard copy version of SuSE, even for the ones that I installed over the net. But frankly this "upgrade" "professional" "personal" bullshit is unacceptable.

    SuSE always tries to stop people from downloading thier distro over the net.

    Technically, SuSE has some long standing issues. The latest one (6.4) that i purchased started to have horrible lib problems. Things like Acrobat reader and realaudio NEVER works. I followed thier instruction in version 6.4 and on thier web site to install XFree4 and everything crashes and burns. I'm sick of it's lib problems.

    SuSE has lost me as a long term customer. They can shove that "professional upgrade" #$@@%^..

    When I do a re-install, I re-install the whole thing, I'm not "professional upgrading" it. period.

    I'm moving to another distro. either Debian, Slackware, FreeBSD, or maybe Mandrake. (However I'm not sure if I can stand terms like DiskDrake.)
  • I guess debian 3.x will have a 2.4 kernel so i guess woddy is probably going to be 3.0 - unless the kernel will still be pre-somthing in a year or so
    --Ulrich

  • Re:7.0 (Score:1)

    by treke ( 62626 )
    But Debian 2.2(potato) was a step up from the 2.0 kernel to 2.2. I think it was also the change from libc5 to glibc, but don't quote me on that one. Last I checked Woody is Debian 2.3. Either way, the version number seems less important on Debian than on other systems, apt-get just keeps the system up to date as I go.
    treke
  • This confusions eems to be the basis of the Mandrake distribution of Linux calling itself `Linux Mandrake' rather than `Mandrake Linux'. it makes a lot of sense - `Linux Mandrake 7.2' implies the 7.0 is attached to Mandrake. `Red Hat Linux 7.0' or `SuSE Linux 7.0' can be confusing.
  • In Austria, especially in the newsgroup at.linux many people come and ask "why doesn't work this and that with my _Linux_ 6.4 or 7.0?". SuSE tried to make Linux easy to install and configure, what they did is really a mess, in at.linux we often have to handle problems where SuSE's configuration utility YaST overwrote custom configuration without even asking or saving them. Sorry, but that's not userfriendly. Users can also be experts, and for them SuSE isn't a choice anymore. And that's why hardly any SuSE specific questions are answered in at.linux.

    DON'T SEE ME AS A FLAMEBAIT, but the experience with SuSE is really disturbing.

  • The SuSE patches include USB patches from the 2.4 development tree, as well as other oatches such as support for the HighPoint HPT366 UDMA66 chipset (Very useful if, like me, you have one)

    It also contains stuff like ip_masq_quake.

    --
  • Does anyone know what they mean by support for parallel port scanning? Will I finally be able to use my cheap parallel port umax 610 with Linux? Or are they just spouting off and trying to suck ppl in. If they really did develop support for ALL parallel port scanners, then that sure would be something nice to give back to the COMMUNITY....

  • 2.2.17? (Score:1)

    by molo ( 94384 )
    With Linux 7.0, SuSE has made a series of improvements to the Linux kernel that could (unofficially) be called 2.2.17, thanks to a variety of extensions.

    Um. Hello? Anyone awake in Germany?

    Why not use the real 2.2.17 kernel?
  • First, it's got a kernel that works on my new Gateway, which earlier ones failed on. Plus, they have XFree86 4.x support for the ATI Rage 128 Pro graphics card.

    And their new X installer, sax2, is amazing. I was expecting the usual questions about monitor syncs, video card brand, mouse protocol, maybe RAMDAC (yuck). But I typed 'sax2' at the command-line, watched it print a few dots... and suddendly, X came up at something like 1800x1600 with a small dialog box asking if it looked okay. That was it!

  • I have been interested in SuSE Since 6.1, I have 7.0 Personal Editon right now. I bought 7.0 few weeks ago, but it is still not on their FTP. I think they are trying to hold out, so that people but it first, damn it!

    6.4 has been on their FTP right away after it was in the stores. I'm thinking that they are starting to get greedy. I'm not saying that SuSE is the best, but I like it better than Redhat, Mandrake, Caldera, TurboLinux, Slackware, because it comes with a TON of software.

    I guess, from now on, I will HAVE TO buy SuSE to use it, and I don't like it. I mean I have bought 6.1, 6.3, 6.4 in the past, but I did not HAVE TO. Now that they are MAKING me buy it, it is time to switch to DEBIAN or something. I think Stampede is another non-profit Linux distro. Does anyone know of any other non-profit distors other than Debian or Stampede? e-mail me @ wojciech.banas@digitalgreen.com

  • "I will make a sizeable contribution to The Human Fund in the name of everyone who establishes or points to a mirror :)"

    Hey look, there's a mirror over there! /me points [suse.com]
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Does it mean I can only use it for some time and then it will expire?
  • I don't think this is an installable version of SuSE 7.0. Loot here [ftp.suse.de] to see what they have in the German site(read the READMEs). I think this might be what's on the American site.
  • I've had the Sparc version of SuSE 7.0 running on a Sparcstation20 and an Ultra5 for aboot a week now. So far its a pretty good setup, hasnt crashed at all, less clutterd than RH6.2/Sparc, and obviosuly better than the RH7.0/Sparc (which doesnt exist yet).

    Hope the x86 version is as good, I always did like Geeko, and I definatly want to have as similar distro on all my machines as possible.
    Paul
  • I prefer to use the slackware boot disk, bare.i or ata66.i .
  • Thanks. :-) I'm probably going to download the ISO sometime, but in the meantime I was hoping to upgrade using FTP... I'll look for info about it.
    --
    Marcelo Vanzin
  • I'm new to SuSE (used to use Debian until Slink wouldn't install on my machine), but how easy is it to upgrade? Is it safe to just use the YaST updater on different distribution versions (I use 6.4)? Or is there something liker RedHats "different major numbers mean uncompatible changes"?
    --
    Marcelo Vanzin
  • Woooah... pretty high typo count on my last message. :-) I hate this keyboard (and the layout being configured in the wrong way doesn't help either.)
    --
    Marcelo Vanzin
  • That is REALLY odd.

    I've used SuSE 6.2 and 6.4, and since switching to 6.4, I've been running ReiserFS(Sometimes nuking your box can be a good thing.) under the following kernels:

    2.2.14-SuSE, 2.2.16-SuSE, 2.3.51-SuSE, 2.4.0-test6 through test8.

    Not only have I not had a problem with hdparm, I've managed to hard-off my box - thank the cats playing with power cords - at LEAST once per kernel variant with no loss of data or problems. ReiserFS wasn't a volatile inclusion on SuSE's part; they're a primary sponsor of it as well as sponsoring XFree86 development.

    To be honest, the only thing I can think of is that it was a once-off, because I haven't seen any problems with Reiser, and it's saved me a lot of heartache.

    Wolfstar
  • Well then. I guess we know where you stand.

    Personally though, I don't find it all that difficult. Why? Because I go to SuSE's ftp site, poke around, and lo and behold, I find a directory with the INSTALL DISKS FROM THE CD DISTRO.

    Sheesh. Can you really blame them for wanting you to buy instead of download? Do you think they make their money on the free support that comes with a purchased distro? No, they make it on the damned fine manuals and - in the case of SuSE 6.4 - the mini-FAQ and basic install instructions printed on the sleeve.

    Simple fact is, they're a BUSINESS. They don't need to make it EASY for you, but they DO make it available. And if you've really got issues where you can't download and dd a floppy image to a disk after spending some time poking around a directory tree, then please don't complain that they're not giving away their lifeblood.

    After all, RMS charged an arm and a leg for a hardcopy of Emacs. I fail to see where a full distro should do any differently. I'm not big on the Personal/Proffessional distinction, but RedHat does the same thing. Nothing new here.

    Wolfstar - waiting for the ftp site to un-Slashdot itself before upgrading.
  • If you've got a bunch of workstations to install, Alice is definitely the way to go. It took me a day to figure out how it works (the docu on alice is still quite bad) but once it's up and running you don't want to go back any more. Including all custiomization it takes less than 20 minutes to set up a box.

    And SuSe 7.0 has been rock solid so far and quite bugfree (the only quirk I found so far was the fact that if you install PDFLaTeX later, it doesn't regenerate the hash table for fonts - which is easy to fix by running texhash). And configs are really easy - all the relevant info is in rc.config (and not all over the place as in rht).

    Anyway, the professional version is worth the money - you're getting 4 handbooks with it. You'd probably spend the same money on linux book otherwise (without getting a new distro).

  • Yea, but when does the evaluation "expire" Usually, I don't reply to trollbait, but this one deserved to be neg2'd. IT NEVER EXPIRES. It is a fully-functional Linux distro. Most of it is GNU, and the rest is freebeer licensed. You can use the Eval Distro until hell freeezes over and the devil gives free sleigh rides.
  • Ok, "unattanable" was probably a typo. But I think 100 MHZ (as opposed to MB/s) was just dumb.

    How many data lines does IDE have? If it's only 8, as I suspect, then 100MHz has a theoretical maximum of 100MBytes/sec. So perhaps it's not a typo.

  • You can, for example use this program [nbci.com] a friend of mine wrote.

    PS: If you're paranoid, I think it's open source, so you can make sure it doesn't contain any trojans.

  • Some corrections:

    The file is as of now in the process of being mirrored; it is not there yet (about 60% done).
    The link misses the unix directory. The correct link is
    ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/unix/Linux/distributions/su se/suse/i386/live-eval-7.0/

  • The file is in the process of being mirrored by several of the sites mentioned on the official mirrors list. Most of these sites have not finished the downloading yet, but here is one working mirror. I'm downloading at about 90k/s via T-DSL, Germany.

    ftp://ftp.esat.net/mirrors/ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i 386/live-eval-7.0/live-evaluation-i386-7 0.iso

  • How did the space make it into the URL? Slashcode inserted it... Here is the correct link to the directory: ftp://ftp.e sat .net/... [esat.net]
  • Well this may be just me being stupid (and I definately wouldn't rule that out) but I used to think that Yast2 wouldn't work on my machine. In fact it just sits there *really* long and while it does initialization/hardware detection etc and doesn't even re-act on the mouse anymore.

    Well just thought I mention it, just in case you have a similar problem.
  • Graphic Acceleration worked on my second Computer with a Riva TNT out of the box! There was a nifty "enable 3d acceleration"-Button, and it worked (X v4.0). On my primary Computer (Voodoo Banshee), there were more problems, because the (included) DRI-drivers didn't work until now :(
    But the Install is very, very simple, fast and since all the programs are on 1 DVD, no more need to be a DJ. But after all it is very configureable, too. You can use some base selections, but enable-disable evry single packet (from the 1800).

    I had a great experience with it!
  • I've been using SuSE (as well as linux in general) for a bit over a year: I have had problems with configs not being where I expected them (or where the HOWTOs say they should be), but I've never had them overwritten. Of course, that could be because once I get them working, I stop using YaST to modify them...

    And, under 6.4, if you modify the sendmail.cf, it notices, and refuses to overwrite - instead it leaves it as is, and puts it's own version named something like sendmail.cf.SuSEversion. I dunno...I don't use YaST for anything but user modifications and adding packages, so I havn't had any problem.
  • I've upgraded from 6.1 thru 6.4. All of the upgrades have been (mostly) painless. Or said another way, what pain there was, was pretty darned small.

    I originally used Red Hat and switched to SuSE. I've never looked back. SuSE is well polished, where Red Hat has lots of rough edges.
  • Maybe what you consider bashing is not what I consider bashing.

    I don't bash Red Hat. I just don't like their distribution. Lots of bugs in point-zero releases. Lots of rough edges.

    A friend convinced me to try SuSE, and I was way happier with it.

    No bashing. Just my opinion. I like SuSE's distribution better, and I think, for good reasons (more than I've given here).

    Dis-disclaimer: My only relationship with SuSE is as a past and present customer.
  • I've seen this question on Usenet alt.os.linux.suse before.

    Someone from SuSE answered it. The gist of the answer IIRC was, the evals are not supported. If they upgrade into full-blown future updates, great. But there is no effort to make this happen. If you happen to be able to pake packages from the real distribution and load them with YaST into the eval, then good for you. But if not, don't complain.
  • SuSE 7.0 was first available in August in Germany. See this [slashdot.org] article.
  • YaST overwrote custom configuration without even asking or saving them

    I don't know under what condition Yast could overwrite custom config, but I have seen many times the opposite. For example, I have modified manually my configuration for Postfix. The next time I have used Yast, it said me that it hadn't modified the postfix config file because it seems changed manually and that it had write a possible config file in some other file.

    Moreover, in many config file like /etc/csh.cshrcn, it is clearly explained that you must not change this file manually but that you need to change another file.

    SuSE is full of these checks. I think it is very well done. You just must pay attention to comments. If some file is marked do not change, there is another file to modify and if not, you can.

    I am progressively installing manually (not using RPM) apps on my SuSE box. Yast has never changed files that I have manually modified.

  • It's the first distro which ships with the 2.2.16 kernel without the weird stuff (see also: RedHat 7.0). USB support sounds promising (only problem is to get the hardware folks to make DRIVERS!), and the SCSI scanning functionality is a nice touch, too. The extended video support sounds great (maybe it's a good idea to run a GeForce on this after all). My only bone to pick with it is the banner ads; I wish they would use more of those 3-d flowers on the box covers, and less of those obviously German "hackers." It's time for a mature Linux, not another box of L337-H4X0R-fodder.
  • "Speaking of USB scanners, what the hell was that on the SuSE website about XFree86 4.0 supporting scanners on parallel ports???"

    I honestly don't know; this seems to defy logic. I would assume that this works out for a DB-25 connector, but aren't the pinouts for the SCSI DB-25 and the Parallel DB-25 totally different? Maybe not, because Iomega's Zip Plus actually autodetected whether the connection was parallel or SCSI. But an LPT controller used as a SCSI device? This is making my head spin!

  • Still some FUD! "Can't be any worse than Red Hat 7.0,"

    About that, there is an interesting article that tries to explain the truth about the so called "numerous" bugs in RH 7.0. The funny point is that it's apparently been written by the Mandrakesoft folks! Read: http://www.mandrakeforum.com/article.php3?sid=2000 1005082533 [mandrakeforum.com]

    [by the way, Mandrake 7.2 is coming along - start flame: potentially better than SuSE 7.0 ??? :-)))]

  • YAY! Finally a nice distro is updated!
  • SuSE does have some nice features to use as a server out of the box. Firewalling and Masquerading are both fairly easy to install & don't require you to write lengthy scripts. I also approve of the default configuration of /etc/inetd.conf that disables several (risky) services that are enabled by default in other distributions. I've installed 7.0 twice so far and was amazed at the speed and ease. However, I recommend choosing Yast1 to install instead of Yast2 that tries to "do everything for you" and ends up depriving you of additional configuration options. Another adavantage of SuSE is the extensive & very up-to-data online-database at www.suse.com [suse.com].
  • I was only posting the truth about Red Hat 7.0! I've installed Red Hat 7.0 on both my laptop and my desktop and it wouldn't boot on either. Lilo failed both times, what's the score? I'm sticking with Red Hat 6.2 and Gnome 1.21 on my desktop for now. This does most of what I want. SuSE 6.4 was good on my laptop, will be sticking 7.0 on that tonight.
  • I guess everbody is up to 7 now. Not that it matters.
  • Is the live eval only good for a very limited set of hardware? There are lots of detection issues with installing regular distros, much less one where you can't tweak the settings because it's all in ROM. They'd better have done a good job, or else lots of newbies will come away with a bad taste in their mouths.
  • Here where I live (Germany) Suse Linux is used my most Germans. The actual Suse company is located in Nurnberg just about an hour away. When I was at Media Markt yesterday, the shelves were lined with Suse Linux 7.0, but other distributions were pretty much unavaible (I think I saw like 3 copies of Red Hat 6.2 and a million copies of Suse 7.0) bamberg29
  • I upgraded from Red Hat to SuSE 7 last night, and my IBM ThinkPad 770Z's X-windows configuration stopped working entirely - it gives me a totally blank screen and I have to restart - the usual ctrl-backspace won't work. I found the FN-key combination for changing from external to internal monitor garbled the display, and then I could ctrl-backspace - but that's still a long way away from getting an X-Windows system running.

    Anyone know what might be wrong? I have a message in to SuSE technical support, but every little bit helps :-)

    Many thanks for any thoughts.

    D

    ----
  • I have had trouble finding a free, usable distribution of SuSE. All the CDs they hand out freely seem to be "evaluation" versions (install in a single file on a Windows partition--not very useful), and their web/ftp sites don't seem to have ISO images for the full distribution either. They do provide a large directory tree of packages on their site, but it isn't immediately obvious how to make your own distribution from that. And whether the CDs they distribution commercially are copyable is not clear to me either.

    Compare that with RedHat, who is making ISO images of their distribution widely available and often hands them out at trade shows and other places. Of course, Debian is even more open, with "free live updating".

    SuSE may technically be a reasonable distribution. But they seem to make getting free versions of their software more cumbersome than necessary. I don't think that kind of approach is good for Linux in the long run. I can't even figure out what they are trying to accomplish with their strategy, and that concerns me. I think I'll stick with RedHat and Debian for now.

  • When last I used suse (5.x or so), it seemed strongly kde based. That is, like corel, all the admin stuff reminded me of WinDOS. Is this still true?

    Indeed, SuSE is strongly KDE based. But you can install other desktop environments or window managers too. The latest release (7.0) has a very nice graphical installation with Yast2, which will let you go from nothing (PC without OS) to a fully working KDE environment in only a few mouse clicks. It is easy to use, it detects and configures a wide range of hardware automatically, and it is even rather robust. It also works for updates/upgrades too.

    However, if you do not want to run KDE and you do not want to install it at all, then SuSE gets in your way. It is possible to install SuSE 7.0 without KDE (if you are short on disk space, or for political/philosophical reasons), but it is not trivial. The easiest way to do this is to use the older (text-based but still menu-driven) Yast1 installation tool, pick one of the standard configurations that is suitable for you, then manually unselect the KDE packages. It will complain that some packages are missing from the base system (y2base and yast2) and it will report an unsatisified dependency (lxuser, the basic user setup for X, requires kbase from KDE) but everything will work fine anyway so these dependencies on KDE are not really necessary. It is a bit annoying that you can never let Yast select packages automatically (otherwise it will select the ones mentionened above, find that they depend on more KDE pieces, and in the end install most of KDE) but it is doable.

    By the way, if you do not install KDE because you prefer GNOME, then you have to be careful: even if you select the "GNOME system" instead of the "KDE system" during installation, it will still install parts of KDE and it will not start the GNOME environment automatically when you boot. I found that it is usually much easier to select an installation without any desktop environment, and to install Helix Gnome from Helix Code [helixcode.com], which has better packages than the old ones included with SuSE.

    That being said, if you do install KDE, you will find that the admin tools are decent. They do not allow you to do everything, but the basic configuration options are there. Also, the graphical configuration tools do not prevent you from using command-line tools if you like them, or editing the configuration files by hand if you know what you are doing. The files that are automatically generated or modified by some tools contain some comments explaining that you should modify /etc/rc.config instead. This works quite well.

  • I bought the 7.0 Professional package yesterday and updated my laptop from 6.4. Seems to be working very well so far. USB support seems quite a bit better, but I can't say for sure yet until I get to play with the printer this weekend - but the mouse support seems decent.

    There are some wacky things that SuSE does - so if you are a RH person, they may throw you. They sure did me. Config files are moved all over the place, for instance, and I still have not become 100% used to where they are now, but for the most part I like what SuSE did to them.


    Vote Nader [votenader.org]
  • Hmm... I like Slackware (I'm still a die-hard veteran since version 2.3 in August '95), but I'm finding that it's being sidelined.

    Hardware Vendors and Commercial Software Vendors are really only supporting distributions such as RedHat. SuSe appears to be the second most popular distribution at the moment and there is more support for it than there is for Slackware. Getting some stuff to work on Slackware is like fitting a square peg into a round hole...

    Being in the UK also makes me feel that SuSe would be better suited for me.

    I don't object to paying for Linux distributions, I paid £20-25 per version of Slackware since 2.3, but now that home use Internet bandwidth is becoming available where it is actually possible to download ISO images in a reasonable amount of time, we're finding that some distributions are pulling the plug on online downloads. Even if they provide value-added commercial software.

    I can't find accurate information, but does anyone know whether the tree at ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/7.0/ is the full version?
  • Hmmm... the Eval version only runs from the CD, so you can't actually "install" it.
    The "Personal" and "Professional" versions appear to cost $40 & $70.

    Is this to say that SuSe isn't free? I always thought they were free. (as in beer or not)

    If someone buys a copy can they supply me with the CDs or are the "SuSe parts" considered non-free?

    I'm not evangelising here, I'm not about to boycott SuSe, but I would like some clairifcation as to where they stand.
  • SuSE add various 'features' to a kernel; ReiserFS is one example, usb support also made it there before it got to the main branch. 2.2.17 came out just before SuSE 7.0 was released so they did not have time to add their extensions.

    My personal experience is these SuSE kernels are slightly less reliable than normal ones, I had a nasty problem on my laptop with SuSE 6.4 that was fixed by upgrading to a 'normal' kernel the next time one came out.

  • SuSE often issue semi-official releases in between their normal ones. I have run into horrible difficulties in the past upgrading to them - make sure you save everything important first.

    I have the evaluation copy as a CD in a German magazine and will be trying it later this evening (reckless fool!)

  • no.

    Their desktop version comes on 3 CDs

    Their server version comes on 6 CDs or 1 DVD.

    This one fits on 1 CD - maybe one or two things are missing :-)

  • SuSE has one central config file which they use for virtually everything - /etc/rc.config. When you update your system, the previous version is saved as /etc/rc.config.rpmsave. The upgrade process sends root a mail saying this.

    It is quite possible that some of the config files generated from rc.config are not saved. Config files that are outside this system - smb.conf for example - are either renamed smb.conf.rpmsave or the new one is created as smb.conf.rpmnew. The upgrade process sends root a mail in each case saying this.

    If I update my system, it makes sense to backup configuration files first. Saying that the 'austrian community finds SuSE ******' because some newbies not only forgot to save their config files but could not find the updated ones afterwards, could reasonably be called flamebait.

    Maybe I should look at the at.linux newsgroups some time, I can't imagine that they are as bad as you think.

  • If more distro's supplied these "live eval" type CD's, it would certainly do nothing but help Linux in the long run. How many people have you heard of who say they'd like to try "that Linux thing" but are afraid of messing up their computers, or have heard too many installation horror stories?

  • SuSe ships their distribution in Germany before anywhere else. It may have been out before 2.2.17. I know sometimes it's a pretty decent lag time.

  • Re:7.0 (Score:2)

    by treke ( 62626 )
    Not everyone... Debian's still calling their releases 2.x. Not really sure what they're numbering strategy is though. Seems like they should have made potato 3.0 to me, but whatever.
    treke
  • I installed the reiserfs stuff for 2.2.17

    I enabled hdparm -S 240 to put it to sleep after 20 mins of no activity, and was running Samba exporting 2 shares on the reiserfs partition.

    The next day I rebooted with shutdown -r now.

    When it came up I noticed my ftpd was freaking out about respawning too fast. The ReiserFS partition was not mounted, and gave bad superblock errors when I went to manually mount it. So I decided to reiserfsck it, since it wasn't mounted anyway. No reiserfs found.

    So I fired up fdisk to see whats up. No partition found on that hard disk.

    ReiserFS ate my partition.

    I cannot beleive that SuSe would include something so volatile in an official release.

    Not a flame, just my experience. I'm sure ReiserFS will rock once it gets Alan and Linus' approval.
  • >"Speaking of USB scanners, what the hell was that
    >on the SuSE website about XFree86 4.0 supporting
    >scanners on parallel ports???"

    This is an easy one. Scanners with parallel port interfaces. Before USB became prevelant in 98-99, the two major interface types for scanners were either SCSI or parallel.

    >I honestly don't know; this seems to defy logic.
    >I would assume that this works out for a DB-25
    >connector, but aren't the pinouts for the SCSI
    >DB-25 and the Parallel DB-25 totally different?

    Yes, they are. In fact, they're different signalling types, so they can't even be compared on a pin for pin basis.

    >Maybe not, because Iomega's Zip Plus actually
    >autodetected whether the connection was parallel
    >or SCSI. But an LPT controller used as a SCSI
    >device? This is making my head spin!

    The Zip Plus actually had a built in parallel to SCSI converter built in. If you pluged into a real SCSI bus, it would connect directly to the ZIP drive, otherwise it would use the converter.

    (Basically worked by having a driver that encapsulates SCSI commands over parallel.)
  • If you bought Quake3Arena for Linux, you may have noticed the SuSE 6.3 "evaluation copy" on a CD. This was great to convert those Windows people who liked the tin better than the lame-o box. At Comdex's Linux Business Expo in Chicago, they gave away 6.4 disks, which I used to initially upgrade my laptop. The 7.0 Live Evaluation is a great idea. It makes Linux more painless and gives people a definition of 'free software' that costs nothing (extra ;) to learn.
  • If you're going to troll, do it with the right information in hand.

    SaX is SuSE's XFree86 configuration utility (Sax2 for 4.x series). YaST is the installation utility.

    And, as long as I'm posting, ALICE is SuSE's new answer to Red Hat's kickstart. You set 'er up, and use a bootdisk on your workstations and walk away while it installs. I'm just starting to experiment with that on our business machines, and it looks extremely promising. SuSE rocks for business.

  • Re:austrian Linux community finds SuSE ****** (Score:3)

    by geocajun ( 11733 ) on Friday October 06, 2000 @09:06AM (#726236)
    hmmm

    vi /etc/rc.config change the first line to ENABLE_SUSECONFIG=no

    now you can be sure YaST wont over-write any changes you make... this took about one half second to figure out, maybe if you had spent as much time fixing SuSE boxes and you say you have, you would already know this. . .

  • Look Again. (Score:3)

    by NetJunkie ( 56134 ) <`jason.nash' `at' `gmail.com'> on Friday October 06, 2000 @07:40AM (#726237)
    Their product is named SuSe Linux 7.0. They don't mean "Linux 7.0", they mean "SuSe Linux 7.0". It says that everywhere else in the article but that one spot.
  • I have a 166 Mhz Hitachi 4360 laptop.

    When I first got linux, I used Redhat since they were local to our area, and felt a certain loyalty bond. Well, perhaps I may go back one day - I won't rule it out.

    After spending countless man-hours trying to figure out why I couldn't get XFree86 to install on my laptop (this was early 1998 - I forgot which version or why) I gave up and went back to windows. Later, I thought I'd give SuSE a try. The install went considerably more smoothly, and I got X up at the desired resolution. Now mind you, RH might have had a better install by early 1999 as well, but I wanted to try something new.

    SuSE has been a dream for me since then, although I have had to tell it to not overwrite my hand-altered config files. With a modem hookup, it is far easier to buy a SuSE distro and have all my software updated at once than to download..download...download. Although I favor a do-it yourself approach, it was nice to at least have a GUI right off the bat - I'd explore later.

    My main complaint with SuSE was that Yast2 will not run on my machine, even though it has 48M of memory, and I suspect if this trend continues it will become progressively harder to make full use of new features until I upgrade.

    I realize that a more sophisticated reader can find fault with many of the things I have said here today, but that is my experience and opinion. I like SuSE - it is manageable and IMO fun to use. I plan to buy 7.0.
    ---

  • questions (Score:3)

    by small_dick ( 127697 ) on Friday October 06, 2000 @09:25AM (#726239)
    When last I used suse (5.x or so), it seemed strongly kde based. That is, like corel, all the admin stuff reminded me of WinDOS. Is this still true? Can someone point me to some screenshots of a kde environment using themes? Or is Suse doing something completely different from this? What's the skinny on the admin tools? The ones with Corel drove me nuts; they seemed very rigid.

    I see in the press announcement it supports OpenGL accelerated boards. What does this mean? The word "Supports" has a variety of meanings under Linux; from:

    "The underlying *support* is there, so it might work in 2-3 years"

    ...to...

    "Download 50 Meg of code from three sites, do two cvs updates, apply several dozen patches, rebuild everything three times, go to the zoo and feed the penguins, and it might be working when you get back"

    ...to...

    "It just works when you boot"

    So, of the common cards supporting 3d Acceleration, what "percentage" are they supported, with "100%" being "It just works when you boot"?

    So long, and thanks for all the fish.

  • Comment removed (Score:4)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday October 06, 2000 @09:27AM (#726240)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Live Eval (Score:5)

    by NetJunkie ( 56134 ) <`jason.nash' `at' `gmail.com'> on Friday October 06, 2000 @07:23AM (#726241)
    The SuSe Live Eval lets you run a Linux system off of a CD so you can check it out without doing a full install. Pretty cool.

    And as usual, I'm sure you can download the SuSe install disc as well.

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