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SuSE Businesses Software Linux

More SUSE Linux 9.1 Reviews 202

Posted by CowboyNeal from the first-and-second-looks dept.
JoshuaTreeCA writes "Adam Doxtater of Mad Penguin has published another excellent review... this time on the newest SUSE Linux 9.1 beta-release. This release comes complete with the latest GNOME and KDE enviroments as well as being the first distro to present a retail package built on kernel 2.6.4 Check out the review, with screenshots." rokzy also wrote in with another review from NeoLink Computers.
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More SUSE Linux 9.1 Reviews More

More SUSE Linux 9.1 Reviews

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  • Google Cache (Score:5, Informative)

    by Whafro ( 193881 ) on Saturday April 10, 2004 @09:44AM (#8824514) Homepage
    Here ya go [216.239.41.104]
    • But without those famous screenshots. Every time we get a link to MadPenguin, their system simply collapses under the Slashdotting. The editors really should keep a list of sites that do that and not accept stories on them.

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday April 10, 2004 @09:44AM (#8824515)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:wow... (Score:4, Funny)

      by bfg9000 ( 726447 ) on Saturday April 10, 2004 @10:58AM (#8824843) Homepage Journal
      Don't be too hard on them, it looks like we've nearly Slashdotted the Google Cache as well. Now THAT'S scary. Give Slashdot a hundred thousand more users and the Dept of Homeland Security will have to shut us down for reasons of .. uh .. homeland ... security.

      • Re:wow... (Score:3, Informative)

        by hendridm ( 302246 )
        Don't be too hard on them, it looks like we've nearly Slashdotted the Google Cache as well. Now THAT'S scary.

        Actually, I think Google mostly caches the content of the page. It still refers to the original source for a lot of images and other externally linked files. That could be why it feels like it's loading slowly.

    • Re:wow... (Score:3, Informative)

      by arkhan_jg ( 618674 )
      Except mad penguin are only reviewing SuSE, not running their webserver on it :)

  • SuSE 9 seems to dislike USB mice (Score:5, Informative)

    by mfearby ( 1653 ) on Saturday April 10, 2004 @09:49AM (#8824536) Homepage
    I just installed SuSE 9 and I must say I was very impressed... right up until the point that the mouse (which worked fine during install) didn't work on the second boot, then wouldn't work when KDE started. Had to start YaST to reconfigure it but had to reboot before it would work. THEN the mouse just stopped working after I clicked the apply button after choosing the icq2 icon scheme in gnomeicu.

    I'm guessing USB mouse support still hasn't made it's way into Linux in a robust form yet?

    This is pretty bad - so bad, in fact, that I'm now back in Windows XP because it, at least, knows how to understand what is now an old thing like USB mice!

    • Re:SuSE 9 seems to dislike USB mice (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 10, 2004 @09:51AM (#8824550)
      I just installed SuSE 9 and I must say I was very impressed... right up until the point that the mouse (which worked fine during install) didn't work on the second boot, then wouldn't work when KDE started.

      This is a known bug in KDE. Try calling it a Kmouse instead of a mouse; that should fix your problem.

    • Re:SuSE 9 seems to dislike USB mice (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Plutor ( 2994 ) on Saturday April 10, 2004 @09:53AM (#8824557) Homepage
      > I'm guessing USB mouse support still hasn't made it's way into Linux in a robust form yet?

      I've been using my USB mouse totally flawlessly on my laptop for the better part of the year. I've grown out of distributions like SuSE and Redhat exactly because of your reaction. Selecting "USB mouse" doesn't work, must be Linux's crappy support!

      I recognize that's what most people are looking for, I'm just saying, I hate the feeling of not knowing how something works on my computer, and worse yet is not knowing how something is broken on my computer.

    • Re:SuSE 9 seems to dislike USB mice (Score:5, Informative)

      by cdc179 ( 561916 ) on Saturday April 10, 2004 @09:55AM (#8824563)
      USB mouse support has worked great in GNU/Linux for a while now. This is just something on SuSe's side.

      Make sure that your kernel has HID support.

      • Re:SuSE 9 seems to dislike USB mice (Score:5, Interesting)

        by cozziewozzie ( 344246 ) on Saturday April 10, 2004 @02:45PM (#8826134)
        The annoying thing about SuSE is that, although they always put out an amazing distribution, there is always some sort of showstopping glitch that gets through and annoys the hell out of its users.

        In 7.3, for example, the SuSE firewall started before eth0, so it didn't work unless you edited the startup scripts by hand. They fixed it in the next version. Now the USB mouse doesn't work, although it worked in all the previous versions. I think that every SuSE version I've tried had some glitch like this (8.2 has some issues with the automounter). Which is annoying because in all other respects, SuSE is a top distribution, and this makes them look like amateurs.
    • Guess you're talking about SuSE 9.0 ..

      no problem with usb mice here whatsover My USB mouse works like a charm on 9.0

      However My SuSE 9.0 is an upgrade from 8.2 - so there might be differences on a fresh install of 9.0 - my personal exprience is thar 8.2 was _A_LOT_ more stable and better tested than 9.0

    • Re:SuSE 9 seems to dislike USB mice (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I had the same problem with a Serial mouse. YaST updated my system and changed the mouse port in the X86config file. I'm glad it keeps a backup of it and I had others when installing the NVidia driver, so I manually edited the file, rebooted, and everybody was happy.

      Check that file to make sure it's pointing to your correct mouse port.
    • I'm using my Logitech Optical USB mouse for years on various SuSE versions (8.x-9.0) without ANY problems. Go figure.
    • I can second this. For the people saying "This is a beta", he's talking about SuSE 9, not 9.1. I had exactly the same problem. I ended up hand-editing XF86Config...which then broke again when YaST ran. I love SuSE, and use it every day, but this is definately a bug. If it's a bug with KDE, SuSE could recognize that and work around it.

    • Re:SuSE 9 seems to dislike USB mice (Score:4, Informative)

      by pantherace ( 165052 ) on Saturday April 10, 2004 @10:06AM (#8824611)
      USB mouse support in linux has been as robust or more robust than Windows for quite a while. What usually is the problem is the distribution's config tools.

      So have you bothered to file a bug report about it with SuSE? Or just decide to cluelessly bash Linux on /.?

      Check /etc/X11/XF86Config for which device the mouse is using, and you have two options:
      /dev/input/mice - ALL mice (USB, PS/2, busmouse) connected to the system. This is what most people will want. (With some kernels there is a delay before Xfree starts to get the input.)
      /dev/input/mouseX (where X is a number starting at 0) - a specific mouse. Which may be what SuSE set up, and if so and it disconnected for any reason, the number would go up. (This is useful say when a trackpoint goes out on a laptop, to specify only the trackpad/external mouse, also the AllowMouseOpenFail option is a good option when using this)

      With Windows, USB mouse support seems flaky. I haven't extensively used XP (seems not to support Compaq Presario 1700s well at all: blue screen city.), but 2000 certainly doesn't detect all mice when you plug them in. But then I suppose Windows USB mouse support is a WORKSFORYOU resolution if it were in bugzilla. :)

      • Oh, I'm so sorry, it's all my fault. I should have known better than to give Linux a chance again. Apparently I'm supposed to know all that crap you ramble on about just to move my mouse?

        And you say Windows' USB mouse support is flaky? Are you on drugs, perhaps? Just because XP doesn't support a Compaq Presario 1700 series mouse, you say it's flaky? My mouse is a Logitech Optical USB - which is a little more popular than the pucilanimous compaq mouse you've dug up to support your flaky argument.

        I am a Win
        • I beg to differ, I've installed Mandrake 9.2 for a friend, and everything worked out of the box, usb printer etc included, so I think that this is just a Suse problem like other posters have already stated.

          Also, the 'have to muck around with settings all over the place that aren't in GUIs' isn't a Linux only problem, try getting XP to go through a nated ADSL connection, with out changing the mtu in the registry, and tell me about how yahoo mail refuses to load. Every OS has it's corner cases, so don't bash

            • As far as usb mice are concerned ... I don't own such a beast ...

            Me neither. I don't understand what is so special about a USB mouse when PS2 mice have been solidly functioning for ages. PS2 was a step up from the DIN connector because it is easier to plug in when you're reaching around a box blind, but the change from PS2 to USB seems like a useless one to me.
        • Personally, in the last couple of years I've wasted much more time trying to make Logitech's mouse software work on Windows than trying to make mice work in Linux.

          In neither case did I up and change operating systems at the first sign of trouble. I don't exactly enjoy spending time figuring this sort of thing out, but it's clearly a solvable problem, not something to freak out about.

    • Re:SuSE 9 seems to dislike USB mice (Score:5, Informative)

      by mm0mm ( 687212 ) on Saturday April 10, 2004 @10:24AM (#8824687)
      I've been using SuSE for a while (currently 8.2), and I've had similar problem with the last couple of edition of SuSE when I was installing it on laptops. By default YaST doesn't configure 2 mice (touch pad + usb) set up, and only SaX does. But the problem is when I configure mice using SaX, YaST will overwrite the mice config file after reboot. If you ever need to reconfigure mice setup, NEVER use sax.

      I believe it did support dual mice during installation, but after the installation was finished, USB mouse was not working properly for some reasons.

      anyway, I usually end up making changes in the config file(XF86Config) by text editor/vi so the mice will work properly. You just need to add one more input device in it. I love suse, but I have to admit configuring mice on SuSE can be a pain.

      • Sax (Score:2)

        by fm6 ( 162816 )

        I've been using SuSE for a while (currently 8.2), and I've had similar problem with the last couple of edition of SuSE when I was installing it on laptops. By default YaST doesn't configure 2 mice (touch pad + usb) set up, and only SaX does. But the problem is when I configure mice using SaX, YaST will overwrite the mice config file after reboot. If you ever need to reconfigure mice setup, NEVER use sax.

        I've been burned every time I used Sax, on any distribution. I'd be particularly hesitant to use it on

    • Possibly another reason... (Score:4, Informative)

      by IANAAC ( 692242 ) on Saturday April 10, 2004 @10:55AM (#8824825)
      A lot of different answers here. What you might want to take a look into is how your BIOS is set up. Mine has an option to disable/enable legacy USB support. Another thing to check is during your install, SUSE gives you a couple of different options regarding ACPI which are confusing. You probably don't want to completely disable ACPI, but there should be an option to disable ACPI/USB interaction during the boot process.

      Also, once you've rebooted and are in your Window manager (either Gnome or KDE), do't use YaST2 to set up your mouse - use SaX2. From there you can choose all your input devices.

      If you purchased your copy of SUSE you should have also received two really good manuals, one for administration, the other for users. All of this information is covered in them.

  • Debian to suse (Score:4, Interesting)

    by qwertyatwork ( 668720 ) on Saturday April 10, 2004 @09:54AM (#8824558)
    A few days ago I installed suse on a blank hard drive to find an alternative to debian for my desktop. I was impressed by the hardware detection, but yast was slow! It took forever to pull up. I tried mandrake to, I wasnt impressed at all. Is yast slow for everybody, or just me?
    • It's fine for me... I'm using a 1.6GHz laptop.

    • Re:Debian to suse (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Cyph ( 240321 ) <yoonix.speakeasy@net> on Saturday April 10, 2004 @10:27AM (#8824696)
      It felt pretty sluggish to me too, but I don't consider that to be a major problem because it's not like I spend most of my time adjusting system settings. Neither will you, I assume.

      Anyway, I also switched from Debian to SuSE within a few months after the Novell buyout. Always been a big fan of Novell, and I really wouldn't have even considered SuSE if it wasn't for the buyout. SuSE does a kick-ass job at being a desktop replacement.
      • I second Yast... that! Yast is kind of slow (even on beasties like bi-Opterons). Hopefully you don't have to use it too much. The only option that I actually use quite often is the 'Install New Package' option. Since I've installed the distro by FTP, I don't have to search for the DVD so I usually end up waiting for Yast to boot up and look through the package database.
        • Being a Debian convert, I installed apt-get on SuSE to do that. There's a lot more apt sources available for suse than there are YOU media sources, so a wider variety of packages is out there. That in combination with the apt-get GUI synaptic serves as a very robust replacement for "Install New Package". Try it out sometime if you have time.
    • If you want fast, try Slackware.

      It's fine as a desktop on my ancient K6-2 450mhz 192 megs RAM, with KDE 3.2.1 et Kernel 2.6.5.

  • For those who don't RTFAs (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 10, 2004 @09:57AM (#8824572)
    Here is the basic jist of things:

    GUI looks good.
    Some things work, some don't.
    Pretty desktops.
    Looks faster then the previous version.
    Screenshoots of the desktop provided.
    I did not like this bit or that.
    But at the end of the day it worked for me.
    If you're shit with computers, stick with..oh never mind.
    More pretty desktops.
    Wait for the next version.
    Some bugs, but overall germ free.
    I give it a rating of **** out of *

    Now who do I talk to about my pay cheque for doing this.

  • what I really want is... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by rokzy ( 687636 ) on Saturday April 10, 2004 @09:59AM (#8824582)
    driver integration for ATI like with nVidia. ATI has had linux drivers for a while now and I think not providing proper card support is one of the major show-stoppers for people trying linux.

    since the drivers are proprietary there are "issues", but with nvidia SUSE YOU provides a automatic download link. I want one for ATI!

  • KDE? GNOME? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 10, 2004 @09:59AM (#8824583)
    This article's been up for over quarter of an hour now and... where's the KDE v Gnome flamewar? Did everyone suddenly grow up or something? You guys are no fun any more :(

    • Re:KDE? GNOME? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Asdex ( 554247 )
      > This article's been up for over quarter of an hour now and...
      > where's the KDE v Gnome flamewar?

      The flamewar is included in the article, no need for a flamewar at slash dot.

      The reviewer should have called his article^W^Wflamewar not "First Look at SUSE LINUX Professional 9.1" but "My First Look at SUSE LINUX from a Gnome's point of view".

      Let's start the flamewar with Yast (there is a QT-based (->evil) GUI for it)

      My only concern (and this has been a standing concern for some time now) is
  • A cursory search of the SUSE site and mirrors reveals only 9.0. Surely the 9.1 beta must be available for download someplace. Can somebody provide a URL?

    thanks

  • Kernel responsiveness to user input (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 10, 2004 @10:18AM (#8824656)
    One thing I REALLy want from a computer is for it to be extremely responsive in whatever it is I'm doing. In other words, the "top" applcation that I'm working in (or switching to) should always get top priority; I don't want to wait for the machine.

    The other day, a friend directly connected his G3 iBook to my 1.4Ghz P-M laptop over 100mbit ethernet. As he copied large files from me, my computer bogged down and was unusable. Just switching windows to something already open was painful to watch. His iBook, though, just hummed along - he could switch to other apps and use them just fine. Very frustrating.

    So....would the Linux kernel 2.6.x be extremely responsivle to user input, no matter what else is going on?

    • Re:Kernel responsiveness to user input (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Some Bitch ( 645438 ) on Saturday April 10, 2004 @10:52AM (#8824801)
      So....would the Linux kernel 2.6.x be extremely responsivle to user input, no matter what else is going on?

      I can only speak from personal experience but I find KDE 3.2.1 + Kernel 2.6.5 pretty hard to slow down. Even with a large emerge going on in the background (processor at 100%) and XMMS doing it's thing (along with the usual 20 zillion apps open) I still find my desktop as responsive as when the processor is idling. Things slow a little if it starts paging to disk but with 512MB RAM that doesn't happen often.

      • I'll say. The other day, I was playing Unreal Tournament 2004, and an badly timed "emerge sync" went off from my crontab. Now, its not to say I didn't notice it, but Ut2004 was still playable the whole way through the slow painful python process. It was kernel-2.6.5.
      • If you really want a source-based distro to rock, get SMP. Building software in the background has never been a problem performance-wise.

        Plus, when you're building the initial software, you can really speed things up with parallel builds. I don't know if you can do this in Gentoo or not (I'm sure it's possible), but you have to be careful, because some packages like bash can't be built that way.

    • The 2.6 kernel is more responsive to user tasks than 2.4, the scheduler is pretty nifty.

      That said, the 2.4 kernel, especially the 2.4.2x series ones was pretty good too.

      Chances are, if your system grinds to a halt when doing heavy disk access, is that you don't have DMA turned on.

      run hdparm /dev/hda (for example) and look for using_dma. If it's not set to 1, then you need to fix that. Depends on the distro as to the best method, but adding hdparm -d1 /dev/hda to one of the boot-time scripts is pretty foo

    • Pre-emption and first to market comments (Score:4, Informative)

      by EvilAlien ( 133134 ) on Saturday April 10, 2004 @01:22PM (#8825700) Journal
      I think 2.6 with pre-emption compiled into the kernel will be the solution for that you are looking for. You could also strategically re-nice processes as needed...

      As a note, SuSE, despite their marketing claims, is not the first distribution to go to market with a commercial 2.6 kernel. This Beta is for a product that will offer the 2.6 kernel, however Gentoo is already selling Gentoo 2004.0 [gentoo.org], and Mandrake is selling copies of Mandrake 10 Community [mandrakestore.com] on DVD.

      I don't know how SuSE defines "commercial" or "first", but if other distros are selling copies before SuSE even has released 9.1, then I'd have to say their marketing campaign needs to be revised ;)

      • I am not sure when Debian got the 2.6 kernel, but its been installed on my Debian computer for a while now. It works great!

    • The other day, a friend directly connected his G3 iBook to my 1.4Ghz P-M laptop over 100mbit ethernet. As he copied large files from me, my computer bogged down and was unusable. Just switching windows to something already open was painful to watch. His iBook, though, just hummed along - he could switch to other apps and use them just fine. Very frustrating. So....would the Linux kernel 2.6.x be extremely responsivle to user input, no matter what else is going on?

      100Mbps shouldn't have bogged down an

  • Serial-ATA (Score:5, Interesting)

    by moonbender ( 547943 ) <moonbender AT gmail DOT com> on Saturday April 10, 2004 @10:23AM (#8824681)
    At work we're considering buying a new (low end) Dell server which uses S-ATA hard drives. It's supposed to house a SuSE Linux system in the future. However, I'm not sure how well Linux in general, and SuSE in particular works with Serial-ATA drives, especially when there's nothing but Serial-ATA available - ie. the installer would need to work with it, as well.

    The best resource I found was this page [linuxmafia.com], but it doesn't help me a lot, either. The server would be a Dell Poweredge 750 running the Intel 7210 [intel.com] chipset, which supports S-ATA.

    The system which the new server should replace is currently running SuSE Pro 8.1, which I am fairly certain does not support S-ATA - but does SuSE 9.x?

    • Re:Serial-ATA (Score:4, Informative)

      by richie2000 ( 159732 ) <rickard.olsson@gmail.com> on Saturday April 10, 2004 @11:17AM (#8824917) Homepage Journal
      The nearest I could find in the generic kernel (2.6.4) is intel ICH5 support, and it appears [intel.com] the 6300ESB I/O bus [intel.com] in the E7210 has the same (or at least similar) chip.

      If not, this should keep you happy:

      The Intel® 6300ESB ICH contains a set of registers that shadow the contents of the legacy IDE registers. The behavior of the Command and Control Block registers, PIO and DMA data transfers, resets, and interrupts are all emulated.
      • Thanks for the reply. I had read about the ICH5/6 support, but I wasn't sure it'd translate to support for the E7210. Of course, if the mainboard can just act as if the S-ATA hard drives are regular P-ATA ones, at least for the scope of the installation process, all is well.

    • I helped a friend put SuSE 9.0 pro on a computer he assembled from some old parts and a new Asus motherboard w/ SATA controller. He had one IDE drive in there and he bought a new SATA drive.

      Both during installation and use, the computer would periodically go into molasses mode. The hourglass icon would turn in ultra slow motion. Open office sometimes took more than a minute to start up (AMD 2500+ system). When transfering files from the IDE to the SATA, transfers would periodically slow down to a cr

      • Re:Serial-ATA (Score:3, Informative)

        by arkhan_jg ( 618674 )
        I don't use SuSE any more, but I assume that it was using a 2.4 series kernel on 9.0.

        From the problems you describe, it sounds like it may be an ICH5 sata chipset (should say on bootup), and it's using the piix driver, which is the native intel IDE driver, and its close enough to the ICH5 to support that too.

        There are fairly nasty reports about the piix driver when it's supporting SATA, i.e. lockups and timeouts, and you'd have more joy using a 2.6 kernel (which has libata, and lib_piix specifically, whic
        • A three inch wide cable vs. a 1 centimeter wide cable was enough improvement for me. I can now RAID 4 drives in the system and not have to fight a barrier of ribbon cables.

          Although trying to get Promise SATA RAID working under linux is a pain.

          Unless you have a lot of time on your hands, and you're planning on using RAID5 with 4 drives, don't get the Promise S150 SX4 card!

      • However, I'm not sure how well Linux in general, and SuSE in particular works with Serial-ATA drives, especially when there's nothing but Serial-ATA available
      ,/i>
      I should mention, my speed issues aside, SuSE correctly found and identified the SATA drive without a hiccup.

    • Re:Serial-ATA (Score:5, Interesting)

      by arkhan_jg ( 618674 ) on Saturday April 10, 2004 @11:59AM (#8825142)
      linux in general works fine with SATA drives if you're using the 2.6 kernel (they're under device drivers/scsi device support/low level drivers) and as the page you link says, there's the same libata patch for the 2.4 kernel series.

      Having done a quick google, it appears the suse 9.0 cd has the support for sata controllers if you type 'apic' at the boot screen. (presumably that's the kernel with the drivers compiled in)

      So the one remaining question is if the 7210 chipset is one of the supported ones.

      This thread [lkml.org] is a patch for the 2.4.26-rc1 kernel piix driver (the one which treats the drive like hda, rather the scsi emulation libata lib_piix which treats it as sda, and is what the 2.6 kernel uses)

      Basically, it looks like it's a minor varient of the ICH5 chipset (which is well supported), so if the 7210 isn't supported yet by Jeff Garziks' libata, it soon will be.

      At worst, you'll have to install with the sata controller in legacy mode (pretending to be a normal ide master/slave controller), setup a new or patched kernel, and change the bios back to enhanced mode afterwards.

      Don't forget, Dell sell their poweredge servers with redhat enterprise - and if redhat supports that chipset, suse likely will too. The simplest route is probably just to email Dell's corporate tech support, and ask if the sata on that model is supported in linux yet. (jeff garzik may work for redhat, he's certainly got a redhat email address, though I hesitate to recommend emailing him directly)

      You could also email SuSE, either tech support or one of the mailing lists (suse-linux-e@suse.com iirc, the full list is at lists.suse.com, it's been a while since I used SuSE)

      As a quick addendum, avoid the nasty onboard RAID 0/1 on these mainboards. It's like a winmodem, most of the work is done in the closed driver, and the linux support is pretty weak at best.

      You're by far and away better off using the sata drives 'standalone' then using the linux native md RAID support to RAID individual partitions. The only time you'd need the closed drivers would be if you were dual booting with windows using the onboard RAID.

    • However, I'm not sure how well Linux in general, and SuSE in particular works with Serial-ATA drives, especially when there's nothing but Serial-ATA available - ie. the installer would need to work with it, as well.

      I just installed SuSE 9.0 on a PC with a serial ATA HD. At first I tried it with the BIOS set to legacy mode, but that didn't work. However, giving the "apic" option to the kernel in the installer did work.

      Can anyone explain to me what the "apic" option is doing? Is my disk performance redu
      • I have no clue as to what exactly the option does to the kernel, however, APIC is short for Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller, and as far as I know is only benefitial - if it works, as it ought to on modern systems. The most obvious advantage is an increased number of interrupts available to the hardware.
      • APIC is a way to address CPU's in a multi-CPU system. (it's Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller), so is usually only seen on servers, i.e. SMP or multiprocessor boards.

        I/O-APIC is a newer way of handling device interrupts (IRQ's) than boards using PIC's. I'm not particularly versed in this area, but I think you still only see it on newer boards. It seems to be around in the same sort of places as you find ACPI usage (a newer way of handling power management than APM)

        I would guess that passing that
    • I did a bit more digging, and according to this [dell.com], (scroll down to the sata support recap) the poweredge 750 SATA is supported natively by RHEL3 using libata (Jeff Garzik's library), and looks like it uses the ICH5 driver, thus it should work on any 2.6 kernel (with the sata drivers compiled), so i'd be very surprised if there isn't one of the SuSE 9.1 2.6 kernels that supports this SATA off the boot CD.

  • Correction regarding Gnome. (Score:5, Informative)

    by FreeLinux ( 555387 ) on Saturday April 10, 2004 @10:24AM (#8824686)
    SuSE 9.1 beta does not come with the latest Gnome (2.6) it comes with Gnome 2.4 because 2.6 was released too late to make it into SuSE 9.1 beta. However, Gnome 2.6 will likely be available from SuSE as a separate download.

    Don't you remember Joe Barr's pathetic whining about Gnome and SuSE 9.1 beta in his Quick Look [linux.com] article. Possibly the worst review ever written.
    • SuSE 9.1 beta does not come with the latest Gnome (2.6) it comes with Gnome 2.4 because 2.6 was released too late to make it into SuSE 9.1 beta. However, Gnome 2.6 will likely be available from SuSE as a separate download.

      It will certainly be available with the Ximian Red Carpet installer. It might also be available as a set of rpms somewhere on their ftp site, I suspect they'll move away from that though, now that Ximian is part of the family.

  • So much for the review... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pair-a-noyd ( 594371 ) on Saturday April 10, 2004 @10:58AM (#8824841)
    65 comments and the site folds..
    Well, nevertheless..

    I for one will be buying 9.1 professional.
    I use 9.0 pro now and am very happy with it.
    I tried bringing it up with the 2.6 kernel and KDE 3.2 but wasn't happy with that. Things didn't integrate well so I backed it down to a stock 9.0 package and all is well.

    Having them integrate all the goodies ensures that everything will work as expected and I'm more than happy to wait (what else can you do?) for 9.1

    I'll be traveling over to Fry's to pick up my package of 9.1 Pro when it hits the shelf.
    I want the DVD and CD's and books and support. And I don't mind at all paying for it because in my 27 years of working with/on computers, Suse is the BEST operating system package I have used. Everything else is just second rate and inferior.
  • Just wondering if SuSE has anything like apt or urpmi built into it; does YOU do this?
    • YAST is sort of the equivalent of urpmi, (i.e. an RPM dependency management tool/graphical installer)

      It's been a year or so since I used SuSE, but yast was avaiable either as a curses interface, or GTK.

      YAST is the entire management tool tho, so it's more like the whole *drake tools than urpmi alone.

      IIRC, YAST is used for installing/uninstalling packages, modifying settings, configs etc, YOU (YAST online update, iirc) is security patches for existing installed RPMS, similar to windows update or redhat's u
      • So can you ask YAST to say, install grip and have it automagically download it and its dependancies off the internet like urpmi or apt-get?
        • Normally, you'd pull it off the SuSE DVD or cds - SuSE Pro comes with an insane amount of software rpms, it's one of it's main advantages, I don't think I found a single app I wanted that wasn't supplied on the DVD when I used to run it, so you don't need a broadband connection like you do with some distros. But yes, YAST would install grip and it's dependencies for you. There's even meta packages, like gnome, which grabs the lot.

          SuSE personal is also fairly well supplied, but lacks all the server rpms lik

  • SUSE logo changed? (Score:4, Informative)

    by joeseph schmo ( 222243 ) on Saturday April 10, 2004 @12:58PM (#8825552)
    Maybe slashdot should update the SUSE topic icon.

    It looks like the lizard has been put on a diet (suse.com).

    Oh, and two of his legs have been chopped off...
  • I'm new to SuSE. I just purchased SuSE 9.0 Pro and I'm very happy with it. It looks like the upgrade to 9.1 costs $60 - is that right? I was happy to pay for 9.0 Pro, but I don't want to spend another $60 just a couple of months later. Will there be ISOs I can download? Or will there be an ftp mirror I can use for a net install?

    • Re:Upgrade path? (Score:2, Informative)

      by maja33 ( 703220 )
      You can buy SuSE Update for $49.95. It the same as Suse Pro but without the manuals.
    • SuSE dont do ISOs (apart from the bootable live-cd)

      IIRC, the package updates should show up in YOU (eventually, they seem to prefer backporting patches to the versions on the DVD for a while), or you can configure YAST to connect to an ftp mirror, which is usually available about a month after the packaged cds hit the shelves.

      You could either pull down the updates individually through yast, or do it all in one go, and do a net-install upgrade via ftp.

      Alternatively, you can get a cheaper upgrade version,
  • Do we really need screenshots to see that KDE and gnome on SUSE? I have never understood the purpose of putting screenshots in distro reviews. If it was screenshots of YaST It wouldn't be such a big deal.

    I guess there are more important things to be concerned about then reviews of distros putting screenshots though...

  • Mainstream? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by SphericalCrusher ( 739397 ) on Sunday April 11, 2004 @12:57AM (#8829036) Journal
    I think that if Novell bought out some small PC manufacturer, threw this version of SUSE on it, and sold it, Linux would evolve a lot faster than anyone would think.

    The only thing Linux really needs now is ATI drivers, easy-configurable WineX-style software, and smart users. I guess we maybe can get 2/3 of those in the future though...

    All in all though, I'm looking forward to getting this as soon as it comes out -- I'm actually going to buy the commercial version! I just wish it had more support for GNOME... but at least it HAS it!

  • From a beta tester (Score:3, Informative)

    by crusher-1 ( 302790 ) on Sunday April 11, 2004 @03:07AM (#8829344)
    I just finish testing 9.1. I was accepted as a beta tester starting with 8.0. Overall I was personally very pleased with SuSE's (excuse me - SUSE) latest efforts.

    What surpised me the most was the stability of Beta 1. Try as I might I, and others, didn't bump into to anything kludgey to file a bug report. Others did, but the amount of bug reps filed were far less than I and others expected. In Beta 4 I did find but one in KDE and OO.o dealing with Styles and Windows Decorations. I filed my bug rep with the backtrace. Well about 2 days later the dev asked me to confirm what he suspected was the problem and sure enough it was patched/fixed - move along nothing to see here.

    My test system is really mundane. A simple celery 800 on an older MSI board, on-board sound, and 133MHz memory. By most standards... Well old. What also delighted me to no end was the speed and robustness of the system. To put it plainly it was snappy and quick. 2.6 should be (what am I saying? IS) a great boost to Linux overall.

    YaST has gotten a face lift, more over nice eye candy. KDE 3.2 is very nice, Gnome is working much better than it ever has on a SuSE distro. I guess having Ximian and Novell for support pays off. Installation was very nice as should be expected. I know I probably sound like a "fanboy", and to a point I am. But in all honesty SuSE has continued to make my desktop system very comfortable and a joy to use and learn.

    The real nice thing is that it is by all accounts fairly enterprise ready by and large. I look forward to 9.2. It just keeps getting better. And Novell to date hasn't had any negative impact on it's development AFAICT. If anything I suspect that SuSE will get more support.

    As far as X is concerned it uses the latest pre-release before XFree86 implemented its ever popular "advertising" clause. Discussions related to X.org implementation is that it's being seriously investigated as a replacement, providing that the XFree86 keeps it's present license - X.org's version 6.7.0 or later appears to be the likely candidate for 9.2, as other Linux distro's are likely to adopt this as well IMHO.

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