'Sneak Preview' of SUSE 9.1 190
Roblimo writes "SUSE 9.1 won't be out until May, but Joe Barr got access to a 'secret' beta download and tried it out. He liked some of what he saw, and found things he didn't like, too, but is willing to overlook some of the negatives because, he points out, 'This is a beta. Bugs are expected. Work will be done before it goes gold.' The review's at Linux.com." Linux.com and Slashdot are both part of OSDN.
Much Needed (Score:2, Interesting)
My $0.02.
Re:Much Needed (Score:1)
They are a for profit bussiness, what did you expect?
Re:Much Needed (Score:2, Interesting)
The article discussed some objectionable commercial stuff, but I have trouble fathoming your "based on the screenshots".
Re:Much Needed (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Much Needed (Score:2)
Just say no to OSNews (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah... (Score:5, Insightful)
I read a review once where Eugenia complained about the spacing between menus. Yes, believe it or not, those are things that graphics designers would care about because it has to do with subtle factors in user interaction.
But, go ahead and stick to the reviews that are techie-only if you wanna.
Re:Yeah... (Score:1, Funny)
Re (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Yeah... (Score:4, Informative)
The system, aside from the small fonts on install, ran very well.
I agree with you though, I'd like to see some usability reviews from the POV of a non-techie. Especially considering ESR's recent criticism [slashdot.org] of Linux usability.
Re:Yeah... (Score:2)
This is especially true with OSNews reviews. This is the place where you get reviews from Mandrake users saying "Fedora sucks because it isn't Mandrake. And where you get reviews from Fedora users saying "Mandrake sucks because it isn't Mandrake."
Re:Yeah... (Score:2, Insightful)
poor anti-aliasing and improper spacing are valid complaints. ripping a distro because their default is gnome or kde is pointless.
Re:Yeah... (Score:2)
These things are definitely important. My gripe with Eugenia's reviews is that they're generally just an excuse for her to spout her own (poorly researched, poorly informed) opinions on interface design as if they were God's Own Truth.
I've never complained about slashdot's story posting (hey, I don't have to read the articles), but it does bug me that she keeps getting cred by having her rants posted.
Just say no to random babelling (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Just say no to random babelling (Score:2)
I have run both Red Hat/Fedora and SuSE, and I must say that SuSE's GNOME tends to be more broken than Red Hat's KDE. The latter actually worked well (though without any third-party KDE apps installed) until you try to use, say, KPilot..
Re:Just say no to random babelling (Score:2)
If buying Ximian and buying SuSE was all part of a single coherent plan, you might expect them to do that. Probably that's the case, but it this crazy industry there are no guarantees. I wouldn't be horribly suprised if Novell told the Ximian people they had to rewrite everything to use Qt instead.
Given the facts you just
Re:Just say no to random babelling (Score:2)
Indeed. He had valid points but his article just sounded like a rant. Some previous posters commented that Barr's needs are better catered by SuSE Professional, but I rather doubt it, what he needs is a newbie GNOME distro.
For example, notice how he did not resort to opening a terminal window, su-ing and then running YaST when the link from the Gnome menu broke because gnomesu was not install
Re:Just say no to random babelling (Score:2)
Re:Just say no to random babelling (Score:2)
Demotivating your employees tend to have a side effect of making them less productive...
Re:Just say no to random babelling (Score:2)
Re:Just say no to OSNews (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Just say no to OSNews (Score:3, Insightful)
Can we have some too? (Score:2, Insightful)
I prefer GNOME, so I guess we'll have to wait until the release. I'll share the ISOs too, I'll just strap on my backpack [slashdot.org] and share the wealth!
Re:Can we have some too? (Score:4, Insightful)
Im currently running SUSE 9.0 with the suse 2.6.4 kernel, and Ximian Desktop Unstable (Gnome 2.6
Here's looking forward to 9.1
But you're not running SUSE 9, per se... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Can we have some too? (Score:2, Interesting)
"Dumbing" Down? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think a new user of a linux system would mind having some simple defaults to choose for. Since SUSE is aiming to please more than just hard core linux enthusiasts, I think that having a single choice is important.
Re:"Dumbing" Down? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:"Dumbing" Down? (Score:5, Insightful)
Considering that this edition is aimed at least partially at first-time users... how do you expect them to know?
Computer: "Do you want to use Firefox or Galeon?"
User: WTF? This is weird... I just want to get the internet...
After all, its not as if they can't add other software in the future. Its like the classic Microsoft Help question, "This is the first time you've used help. What sort of database do you want me to build?" Meaningless and intrusive. You only get one chance to make a first impression, and giving unnecessary choices to the user is not the impression you want to make.
Remember, most people don't want to "use the computer." They just want to "get the TV listings," or "write a letter." Huge mindset difference.
Re:"Dumbing" Down? (Score:5, Insightful)
Computer: "Do you want to use Firefox or Galeon?"
User: WTF? This is weird... I just want to get the internet...
Computer: "Would you like to choose a different program to browse the web with, or will the default be ok?"
except more of a single question that when you answered yes would take you to something to chose. If you said no, it'd just go away and that'd be that. Given that type of choice, most newbies would just accept the defaults, but power users could go in and tinker to their heart's content.
Re:"Dumbing" Down? (Score:2, Insightful)
menu options (Score:2, Insightful)
Power users? That's funny! (Score:2)
These days they seem to need the computer to ask them questions.
I guess they don't make power users like they used to.
Re:"Dumbing" Down? (Score:2, Insightful)
Apple is just as bad with "Safari", although in most other areas they're better with "Mail", "iTunes", "iChat" etc.
Microsoft on the other hand has "Internet Explorer" which kind of makes sense for a web browser, but "Outlook Express" doesn't make much sense to me as an email program.
There's ple
Re:"Dumbing" Down? (Score:2)
There is nothing wrong with giving people a default setup. If they aren't the most technical people too many choices will just scare them off and anyone who's interested can change the options at any time. This is NOT Microsoft-like lock-in.
Furthermore, SuSE/Novell are shooting for a corporate market and corporate markets
Re:"Dumbing" Down? (Score:3, Insightful)
Furthermore, SuSE/Novell are shooting for a corporate market and corporate markets do not want choice, they want a standard. Most sysadmins will further reduce the available choices even more.
If you've been reading the posts about this, the general feeling is that Barr was actually reviewing a beta of the Personal edi
Re:"Dumbing" Down? (Score:2)
On the other hand, a quick look in the user's guide reveals a chapter each about Konqueror as webbrowser, Galeon as web browser and Mozilla as web browser. There is a chapter about kmail, one about korganizer, there is also one
Re:"Dumbing" Down? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:"Dumbing" Down? (Score:3, Interesting)
Personal should be for people who doesn't care or doesn't know enough to care; they just want to use the computer.
Re:"Dumbing" Down? (Score:5, Informative)
So, for example, if in the menu you have Internet->Chat group, and Chat group contains only Kopete entry under it, then when you click on K->Internet, the Chat entry will show up as an application item, rather than a sub-group, and clicking it will launch the only entry under it - Kopete. If you install more chat apps, or edit menu and add more entries under that group, then it will display as a sub-group.
What was to be expected anyway? KDE desktop with GNOME defaults? Did he expect GNOME to have KDE and QT app defaults? Did I mention the "review" was abysmal?
As far as I know, SUSE 9.1 is supposed to include the new KDEfied OpenOffice, better quickstarter, new KOffice. Is 2.6 kernel faster? How does OO.org look? Did the "reviewer" do anything other than try to click on the SUSE website links, documenting every banner ad and pop-up, and try to install xchat? What kind of a "review" is that?
Re:"Dumbing" Down? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:"Dumbing" Down? (Score:1)
Re:"Dumbing" Down? (Score:2)
Re:"Dumbing" Down? (Score:1)
A bit like windows have in that featured add/remove programs tab that appears after the instalation of a SP...
Re:"Dumbing" Down? (Score:2)
Re:"Dumbing" Down? (Score:3, Funny)
Joe: "Why is there only a single choice of application in every category?"
Bob: "Because we've always done it that way!"
Joe: "But why have we've always done it that way? There must be a reason."
Bob: "Because new users of Linux systems want simple defaults."
Joe: "New users? What new users? We've had in-utero Linux training for twenty years now! The average age of LCSEs is six!"
Bob: "They might want to thaw Ballmer out of cryo someday, a
Re:"Dumbing" Down? (Score:2)
Why should I care what a wanker says about anything other than wanking?
Interesting screenshot (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Interesting screenshot (Score:1)
Re:Interesting screenshot (Score:3, Insightful)
SUSE 9.1 Professional (Score:5, Informative)
Fact is, it sounds like he reviewed SUSE Personal which is geared to novice users and with the "one task, one app" philosophy. No wonder it has only KDE and various spit-and-polish suitable for novices. By cutting out the cruft SUSE because all the more usable for this demographic.
Fact is, Joe Barr isn't a novice user so he's going around looking for stuff that isn't there. SUSE 9.1 Personal provices a swiss-army knife selection of choices including GNOME. So he should use Professional instead of Personal if that's what he's looking for.
Re:SUSE 9.1 Professional (Score:2)
Basically, pick your poison. It sounds like Joe Barr made the wrong choice and is unjustly ranting about it.
JDS? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:JDS? (Score:2)
Pretty funny that Sun quite simply takes GNOME, rewamp it, and call it the Java Desktop. Except, most of the desktop is not run in Java.
Re:JDS? (Score:2)
likes? (Score:4, Interesting)
I've never used SuSE before but, beta or no, this hardly encourages me to give it a try. Not that that's so bad.. there's a distro for everyone after all.. still I would have liked to hear more about the integration of Ximian and SuSE under Novell's stewardship.
Remember it's beta (Score:2)
But yep, apart from a few interesting features, I couldn't see what was so great about it. I'll probably upgrade when it comes out, though. Assuming all the bugs have been fixed and the quality of the distro is as professional and smooth as usual.
The pop-up ads and banners mentioned was decidedly annoying though. Very, very bad pol
Re:likes? (Score:2, Insightful)
FYI, SuSE [suse.com] produces Knoppix [knopper.net]-like bootable CD [google.com] called "SUSE LINUX for i386 Live-Eval" [suse.com]. I revieved a copy via a magazine [linuxformat.co.uk]. It is kinda slow and not the best for using from the CD-ROM, but it provides a good intro and demo of SuSE Linux without having to install it to your hard drive.
Notes: I recommend that you try it if you have enough memory - 256MB isn't enough,but 512MB or 768MB should work well (since it has to be loaded into RAM with no HDD install). I perfer Fedora [fedora.us] Core 1 [redhat.com], but my advice should give you
Unable to resist... (Score:5, Funny)
OS X for creative types under the sky
Solaris for server farms in halls of stone
Windows for mortal men doomed to die
Linux for Big Blue on his deep blue throne
In the land of East Fishkill where the big fabs lie.
Suse to package it, Reiser to file it
Novell to service it, Gnu to compile it
In the land of East Fishkill where the big fabs lie
Re:Dumkopf! (Score:2)
Oh, and if we're being that pernickety, it's spelled "dummkopf".
Turing and Stephenson. (Score:2)
light on details (Score:5, Interesting)
Closely followed by how is the driver scene and hardware compatibility list is, what X version is being used, and so on.
The hard thing will be having to wait for this release.
Re:light on details (Score:1)
The only things mentioned are default programs and desktop managers.
The screenshot is very nice, though. I wonder if I can get that theme for my version of KDE.
Re:light on details (Score:2)
Nah, the SUSE website has more and better screenshots [www.suse.de].
PowerPC (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:PowerPC (Score:1)
Re:PowerPC (Score:2)
Yawn... (Score:2, Funny)
Personally, I prefer KDE, but that's like saying I prefer dental surgery with a hammer and chisel vs. brain surgery with the same implements.
Installing Gnome on SuSe (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Installing Gnome on SuSe (Score:1)
This review.. (Score:3, Insightful)
He never says.
Re:This review.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This review.. (Score:2)
FreeBSD is a nice alternative, and KDE/Gnome has the original look :-) My workstation and laptop runs OpenBSD using KDE and XFCE4, respectively. I've bought the three latest SuSE Pro (yes, I actually paid for them), but OpenBSD suited me better.
Re:This review.. (Score:2)
Of course, the review was just a report of missing dependencies that could happen in a beta, and how the user disliked some of the choices taken by the distribution. Most of the "good" things of the distribution (yast, how gnome apps integrates in kde or special packages that it could include, manuals or packaging, installation process describing anything that wasn't the time it took) is missing from the article.
Review? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Review? (Score:1, Informative)
could NOT install with Gnome due to dependency
issues.
I hope the SPCA doesn't find out... (Score:1)
SuSE is commerical - and that's good. (Score:4, Insightful)
SHARE is mostly a mainframe conference but since z/OS (and s/390) now supports omvs (Unix System Services) it makes sense to start pushing more Linux.
I can recommend SuSE to some of my less technical friends and they will see that it's easy, and has good commerical support.
My two cents... (Score:2)
I guess it's really that it's like the phone. The design is so simple and elegant that it's hard to radically change
What a Rant (Score:5, Insightful)
One way to get around the small font in the install he complained about was to change the resolution. Before you hit enter at the install bootloader, hit F3 (i think) and it will give you a list of resolutions to use. The menu is located at the bottom of the bootloader. He also complained that it didnt come with the stuff he wanted. Well cry me a river because you are a little more advanced than their target audience and are too lazy to install and configure the apps to your liking.
Also, in YAST there is an autocheck dependencies which should automatically resolve all dependencies when installing things, so he shouldn't have had to figure out what was not making his GNOME install. Maybe it is disabled for some reason in the beta, or maybe he didn't see the checkbox down there?
Maybe he should complain less and use the system more.
I've said it before ... (Score:3, Interesting)
And if they need to think about it again they can remote administer it through YAST or SuSE's desktop sharing.
Re:I've said it before ... (Score:3, Insightful)
What?! (Score:3, Funny)
This is slashdot, guys! What are you trying to do, make me read the article??
Lame Lame Lame (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a really really lame review. The whole thing can be summed up in about three lines:
"I installed SuSE Linux. The install went great, but I don't like KDE and none of my Gnome apps were installed off the bat, and I couldn't install them properly because I don't know how to work YaST, so it sucks. Hopefully this will be corrected when it goes gold".
Basically, he installs it, and is upset to find out that all the default apps are KDE apps. Well hello, SuSE has *always* been a KDE distro. And guess what, that is the exact same way *I* feel eevry time I am forced to install RedHat, and I have to use all Gnome apps.
If you want a Gnome-centric distro, why are you using SuSE at all?Another waste of everyone's time by Mr. Barr.
Good choices (Score:2, Insightful)
Ya know, much as I'm a big gnomefanboy and all, I think this is a good choice. My girlfriend (big guineapig on all ease-of-use issues) gets freaked out when she sees two different [x] available.
Is it free software? (Score:2)
Re:SuSE? (Score:2, Insightful)
I run it without flaws. And I must say the most impressive distro ever. At least from Gnome user view point.
I can hardly wait FC2. SELinux, Gnome2.6, Kernel2.6....
Even beta2 runs almost perfectly without SELinux, with SELinux there are unfinished policy settings and unwanted restrictions which might cause some problems, so it's not yet for production
Re:SuSE? (Score:2)
Re:SuSE? (Score:2)
Under ports there is selection box: with or without
but if you already have it installed there is a howto on fedoraforums. howto disable selinux
Re:SuSE? (Score:2)
Re:SuSE? (Score:2)
But if you care you can still set some selinux policy without problem, there is a lot of info on that topic on Fedora site. Personally I just can't wait for them to release. selinux was one thing I always needed
Re:SuSE? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:SuSE? (Score:1)
Re:The Problem With Linux (Score:2, Funny)
Actually, that is the exception. All the fellow geeks I know, including myself, make more than your paultry (he he, tee hee) $90K. I scoff at your pay, it is WE who have the power. I pity you. Oh, and that pay doesn't include the extra money I make by whoring myself out for side jobs.
Re:The Problem With Linux (Score:1, Insightful)
Whoring? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Really Dumb Question (Score:5, Informative)
Soo-SEH.
Re:Really Dumb Question (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, it's closer to
SOO-zuh
(emphasis on SOO)
Re:Really Dumb Question (Score:2)
Go to a pub and begin to enjoy some bears. After each pint you enjoy, try to pronounce SuSE. I'm sure you'll get the hang of it before morning.
Re:I have a question about SuSE (Score:2)
Since you are a Gentoo user, the *BSD familiy of ports should appeal to you. Most of the ports are available pre-compiled packages as well, in case you don't have time for a "sudo nice make install" of KDE....
Most likely, the Java support is better on SuSE than on G