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SuSE Businesses Linux Business Operating Systems Software

SUSE 9.1 Personal ISO Available For Free Download 187

twener writes "DistroWatch.com was the first to report that a complete, bootable, and installable ISO image of SUSE LINUX 9.1 Personal has appeared on SUSE's ftp server and its mirrors. No public announcement on SUSE's website is available yet. This is the first time ever that SUSE makes an ISO for i386 of one of its product flavors available. Don't forget that after installation you can install the packages of the SUSE 9.1 FTP version with GPL'ed YaST to gain an almost (commercial parts missing) SUSE 9.1 Professional installation."
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SUSE 9.1 Personal ISO Available For Free Download

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  • More SUSE (Score:4, Informative)

    by argonaut ( 37085 ) on Sunday June 20, 2004 @01:04PM (#9478463) Homepage Journal
    This should help the adoption rate of SUSE, much like it did for Red Hat.
    • Re:More SUSE (Score:1, Informative)

      by Sweetshark ( 696449 )
      This should help the adoption rate of SUSE, much like it did for Red Hat.
      This is not new: On SuSE's Ftp Server [suse.com], you will find these ftp-installs are available at least since SuSE 8.0. The ftp-install has always been available a few weeks after the disc release.
      • Re:More SUSE (Score:2, Insightful)

        by kwanbis ( 597419 )
        ftp installs are only posible for broadband users ... and even then, i would never try it ... a suse iso is a good thing
  • Kinda ;) (Score:5, Insightful)

    by CptChipJew ( 301983 ) * <michaelmiller@g[ ]l.com ['mai' in gap]> on Sunday June 20, 2004 @01:04PM (#9478465) Journal
    This is the first time ever that SUSE makes an ISO for i386 of one of its product flavors available

    Except of course for the LiveCDs.
    • Re:Kinda ;) (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I never had much luck with the SuSE liveCDs. The best one I tried was PCLinuxOS [pclinuxonline.com]. It detected and configured all my hardware automatically and it gave me a beautiful looking desktop.
    • Not true, until suse 6.1 you could download evaluation versions
      • So, first time except for verions before the 6.x series and the live evals that they've been producing all along. :)

        I installed 5.something off of downloaded ISOs years ago...
  • Heh... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Xpilot ( 117961 ) on Sunday June 20, 2004 @01:05PM (#9478467) Homepage
    I saw it just now and wondered what it was. It's only 1 CD though... is it the same as the boxed set of the SuSE Personal Edition, or did they leave stuff out?

    • I think it's the Personal Edition, the FTP gives you Professional, but with the proprietary stuff left out. I wonder though if you can use an ftp to get extra packages that aren't included in this.
      • Re:Heh... (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        I wonder though if you can use an ftp to get extra packages that aren't included in this.

        Read the frickin' story!

        Don't forget that after installation you can install the packages of the SUSE 9.1 FTP version with GPL'ed YaST to gain an almost (commercial parts missing) SUSE 9.1 Professional installation.
        • Read the frickin' story!

          Read the frickin' comment!

          I think he is talking about the commercial parts that are left out
          • I think he is talking about the commercial parts that are left out
            I am pretty sure the commercial parts are not and will not be made available through their FTP servers.

            Afterall, the reason for only including them in the professionell version (which does still retail at $89.95 btw) is that the additional content is mostly licensed, 3rd party software that SuSe themselves have to pay for.

            • Can anyone tell me what this "commercial licensed 3rd Party software" is??

              I've heard lots about it, and except for YaST2, I haven't figured out what it is!?

    • or did they leave stuff out?

      They probably did. There's some stuff in their boxed edition that cannot be downloaded from their ftp site, so I guess they simply made an install CD with the stuff you could get from a normal ftp install.
    • The Professional edition has some commercial stuff that the Personal hasn't. I guess that the commercial stuff that is included in SUSE Personal boxed set (Flash, Acroread, Realplayer, ...) is contained. Feel free to try and report!
    • They probably didn't put the one up with the source RPMs since that's available from the FTP site anyway. When they're distributing boxes it's easier to fulfill the GPL requirements by just adding in the CD rather than being stuck providing an offer to send the sources by mail.
    • Re:Heh... (Score:3, Informative)

      Having just bought the boxed Personl Edition 9.1 (dammit), I feel fairly safe saying that this 1 cd ISO is the same as the boxed CD. The Personal box contains 2 cds, a live cd and an install cd. A pretty full featured installation with only 1CD, as well.
  • So...? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by 0racle ( 667029 ) on Sunday June 20, 2004 @01:05PM (#9478470)
    Wow! I mean so what? It was never all that difficult to get SuSE before. Are they worried that everyones going to go for a free distro instead, like they have been all this time.
    • Re:So...? (Score:5, Informative)

      by The Analog Kid ( 565327 ) on Sunday June 20, 2004 @01:12PM (#9478501)
      It wasn't difficult but everytime I'd try an do an FTP install it was slow, very slow and I've tried different FTPs. It would take me about 2 hours to install when it would take 15 minutes tops to do a ISO install.
      • i agree, the ftp install was very slow. I actually never got a bootable, working version of SuSE thru the FTP install. I just got angry and paid $30 for the cds at compusa :) But now i use debian so things are cool.
    • Wow! I mean so what? It was never all that difficult to get SuSE before

      It wasn't difficult, but if you didn't have a fat pipe or a local mirror, it was a bother.

      Now, somebody who uses Suse at work can burn an ISO an install it at home, maybe pass it on to a friend and have him try it also, etc.

      Previously, the only other alternative was to buy the boxed set.
      • Previously, the only other alternative was to buy the boxed set.

        And god forbid that someone on Slashdot might actually pay for something!

        Max
  • Is an AMD64-architecture ISO available?
  • by anandpur ( 303114 ) on Sunday June 20, 2004 @01:10PM (#9478491)
    SuSE will be at higher grounds if thay fully support personal distribution and it will take away some many users of (RH) Fedora [redhat.com]
  • by Anonymous Coward
    Insomnia struck and I decided to try out Linux again. I got the Live CD first, then pulled down the personal ISO at 300 KB/sec from GA Tech.

    I guess I got lucky. If someone will setup a tracker, I'd be glad to seed for a while.
  • by slomr2 ( 663204 ) on Sunday June 20, 2004 @01:12PM (#9478498)
    Looks like just more of Novell moving SUSE in the direction of its own vision. Ximan Desktop, Exchange connector, GPL of Yast, etc. This isn't really that much of a shock. Though, it is another welcome change.
    • Not really. Hope Novell will not interfere in SuSe's development. SuSe is a KDE distro and afaik it is not shipped with Ximian desktop. In Germany it's the consumer that decides, not trash talks of analysts.

      i really don't understand why the Name Novell means so much to you. Who cares who is the owner of the shares?
  • Downloading SuSE Pro (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I just downloaded the whole i386/9.1 tree minus the src directory and burned it to a DVD using mkisofs and an iso burning program, and it worked fine for me. It was a professional edition.
  • by Jidus ( 733556 ) on Sunday June 20, 2004 @01:17PM (#9478526)
    This is plainly false. This is not the first time SuSE distributes their Linux Distro CD image. I remember back in 1997 or so, SuSE used to distribute their ISO's. That was even before their split their product versions in personal and professional. Last version I kind of remember they did that was 6.4.
    • 6.4? Hell, that's far too back to remember or me knowing it.
    • I found this old story here on slashdot:

      SuSE 6.4 ISO Now available [slashdot.org]

      Correcting myself a little, this was back in April 2000. It was labeled as an "Evaluation version", which would be roughly similar to their personal version these days.

      BTW, YaST was the main reason this distro had been attacked by free software purists (because of it being propietary), and it was very unclear as to whether SuSE could be legally copied and distributed because of it. I hope that their new ISO distribution scheme helps t

      • "Evaluation version" meant that it was a LiveCD sort of thing. not an real release, more of a "hey look what you could do with our distro if you bought it" thing.

        SuSE has also been my distro of choice since ~6.4
      • Correcting myself a little, this was back in April 2000. It was labeled as an "Evaluation version", which would be roughly similar to their personal version these days.

        IIRC (and, like you, it's been a while) the "evaluation version" was just a LiveCD-style demo that you couldn't actually install from.

  • Or... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Punboy ( 737239 ) * on Sunday June 20, 2004 @01:22PM (#9478541) Homepage
    About a year and a half ago I wrote a script to parse the file list on the SuSE FTP server, find which files go on which CDs, download them, and create ISOs, then using the boot section off of their network install CD make the first one bootable. Full SuSE professional (commercial parts missing) for free! All on CDs!
    • Re:Or... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by GigsVT ( 208848 )
      That sounds a whole lot like jigdo for Debian. It's pretty cool to do it that way, you wind up downloading the same amount of data anyway, and you don't have to worry about security on a fresh install, all the security errata are the very latest on your ISO!

      Static ISOs are inferior in many ways to a dynamically built ISO.
  • by chrispl ( 189217 ) on Sunday June 20, 2004 @01:23PM (#9478544) Homepage
    9.1 has to be the biggest threat to windows yet. I dropped the DVD in and everything *everything* I needed was there and ready to use. Even things like my Wifi network worked without any configuration and it played every video/music file I tried to open. On the install it updated all the installed modules from a local FTP server with nothing more than a mouseclick. These are the things that if they don't work out of the box can throw off people who are not willing to search google for 45 minutes to find out how it set up.

    This is the first distro I have seen that I would consider the real "Windows Killer". The release of an ISO will put it into the hands of a LOT more people.

    The only concern I have is that some of the more useful features may have been yanked due to space limitations. I believe the DVD is over 2GB, versus a 600MB ISO...
    • Yeah it is! I am using this at work and have no problems. This will be the only linux distro I ever use.

      --Joey
    • I dropped the DVD in and everything *everything* I needed was there and ready to use. Even things like my Wifi network worked without any configuration and it played every video/music file I tried to open.

      You didn't try many them; SuSE can not play DVD, Divx, or Xvid files out of the box.

      It's a bitch to add, too, because SuSE has nothing like apt-get or urpmi. (Well, there is a weak kind of dependancy-checker in YaST and YoU, but there are no 3rd-party repositories to automatically download from. Apt

  • by nlinecomputers ( 602059 ) on Sunday June 20, 2004 @01:23PM (#9478546)
    YaST is now GPL but how does that apply to the rest of the software in Suse personal and professional? I downloaded a copy of the ISOs for SuSE pro 9.1 from a private FTP site that I found on LinuxISO.org. But I've never been sure how legal that was.

    A Linux Users Group that I am a member of was asked a couple of years ago to stop selling or even giving out copies of SuSE. They said they didn't mind if you copy for a friend but any organized duping they would take action against.

    Has this changed? And could someone point to an offical statement from SuSE?
    • Since all the software available on the website is available for free download, and its all GPL, yes it is. As well as people have previously asked SuSE and they've said yes as long as you don't distribute for profit.
      • As well as people have previously asked SuSE and they've said yes as long as you don't distribute for profit.

        Well if the software is all GPL they can't enforce that restriction. YaST was under it's own license and that was how they enforced that request. Now I'm not as sure but I suspect you are correct.
      • Since all the software available on the website is available for free download, and its all GPL, yes it is. As well as people have previously asked SuSE and they've said yes as long as you don't distribute for profit.

        This makes no sense to me. If all the software SUSE distributes on this ISO is licensed under the GNU GPL (or if it is all licensed under any set of free software licenses [gnu.org]), anyone should be able to distribute copies for profit. One of the criteria for a license to qualify as a free sof

        • This 'not for-profit distribution' restriction came AFAIK from the Yast license. The Yast license allowed free (and only free) distribution, selling Yast for profit (or even small fees) was not allowed. Now Yast is GPL that should be sorted out. I don't know about the restrictions imposed by commercial software on the ISOs.
  • BitTorrent Anybody? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by afriguru ( 784434 )
    In my opinion, the mirror system is so outdated. Who is going to take the first step to make these ISO available via BitTorrent? I only have a 50gb monthly bandwidth allowance on my host; I am not sure that this would be enough to run a tracker for such a (presumably - because I use Fedora) popular download.

    Quote: "Download from here: SUSE-9.1-personal-x86.iso (700MB) or try one of the official SUSE mirrors"
  • GPL YaST (Score:4, Interesting)

    by EdMcMan ( 70171 ) <moo.slashdot2.z.edmcman@xoxy.net> on Sunday June 20, 2004 @01:29PM (#9478564) Homepage Journal
    I have not heard anything that YaST was actually GPL'd yet. Where can I download it?
    • Don't forget that after installation you can install the packages of the SUSE 9.1 FTP version with GPL'ed YaST to gain an almost (commercial parts missing) SUSE 9.1 Professional installation.

      How is that offtopic?
    • Re:GPL YaST (Score:2, Interesting)

      by PCM2 ( 4486 )
      Why is this marked offtopic? I think it's pretty germane to the topic, myself. The whole point of these "you can get this free," "this has been open sourced" announcements from Novell is to generate buzz around the company by making them seem friendly to open source. I've heard a lot about them open sourcing YaST, though, and I can't find it anywhere. There's no obvious download on Novell's site. It's not on forge.novell.com [novell.com], their open source site. It's not on Sourceforge. And the top Google search for YaS
      • Well, even if YAST is GPLed, the company is not obliged to offer it to you for download. All that they're required to do is to offer the source code to anyone who they give the binary to. Perhaps the source is included on the CDs? Of course under the GPL, anyone who has obtained YAST from Novell/SUSE is allowed to distribute it to others. But it's not up to Novell to do this. Why should they?
      • Re:GPL YaST (Score:2, Informative)

        by Heraklit ( 29346 )
        Come on, there is one more obvious place for it: in the source directory of the distribution (which is by the way offered for download). So:

        ftp.suse.com/suse/i386/9.1/suse/src/yast2*

        Here you are. So please stop trolling.
      • I've heard a lot about them open sourcing YaST, though, and I can't find it anywhere. There's no obvious download on Novell's site. It's not on forge.novell.com, their open source site. It's not on Sourceforge.

        Ummm... I found your comment interesting so I went through the trouble to double check Google, the SuSe website, as well as Novell's site. And, you're right - there were indeed no hits on the first three Google pages and the search functions on the respective vendor pages didn't return anything of

      • I've heard a lot about them open sourcing YaST, though, and I can't find it anywhere. There's no obvious download on Novell's site.

        When it was announced it was said that Yast with the new license is expected to arrive with SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 this summer.
        Nevertheless, you can (and always could for at least the last 8 years) download the Yast sources from SuSE FTP servers. It's just not yet the GPL version, so you are not allowed to sell it (only redistribute it free of charge).
  • Speed.... (Score:1, Informative)

    by mboverload ( 657893 )
    Main FTP now running at 10.6 kb/s steady for US West Coast.

    It is holding up well for being slashdoted.

    I found another mirror doing 160 kb/s but it wont last for long =(
  • Wha??? (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    > This is the first time ever that SUSE makes an ISO for i386 of one of its product flavors available.

    And what did I get on PC-Plus October '98 edition?

    BTW, it rocked and it sucked, because...

    Now that I know Linux, I see that Slackware-based distros are "the best". They even are simpler, from a technical standpoint. OTOH, they're bad for newbies (compared, e.g., to Knoppix), which is what I was then.
  • I think that when version 8 came out, they started having an ftp install. The iso was a live-cd.

    They had some special program for education at one point, and I filled out the info to get the distro mailed to me. It was the live-cd too. Woof...

    I'm glad to see this, because I think it increases mindshare. If the user base is larger, people go to the trouble of writing howtos and building specific rpms.
  • by guerby ( 49204 ) on Sunday June 20, 2004 @01:36PM (#9478598) Homepage
    ...is Ximian/NOVELL GNOME Desktop for SuSE 9.1. Laurent
  • Suse 9.1 (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I downloaded the whole 7G of 9.1 because I wanted to go 2.6 kernel and I have never had so many problems with any distro. I've had 9.0 running for ages just fine.

    I first tried a clean install but at the point where the installer runs up off the network (smb install) it said I had no keyboard. So I then did a clean 9.0 which went fine, follwed by a system update off the network. Right at the end it gave me an error message saying it couldn't install LILO - wtf was it trying to because I had GRUB!!

    I re-did
  • Just A Question... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Steinfiend ( 700505 ) on Sunday June 20, 2004 @01:37PM (#9478609)
    I've always wondered what the advantage of paying for SUSE is? I mean from the user stand point, I understand the desire to support the "community", but when I can get all the same software from other distros for the cost of download time and a couple of blank CDs.

    Mandrake is easy to install and configure, Fedora is extremely powerful, Gentoo is geeky beyond belief and Debian is solid as a rock. It seems that all niches have been filled already.
    • For me it has been to get a distro that looked as good and was as easy to use (for me atleast) as Windows. The fact that the Pro version includes the only usable DV Editor software for Linux IMHO is also a nice bonus. Basically I'm just a USA consumer voting with my $$$. That being the only vote that seems to count anymore.
      • by iantri ( 687643 )
        The fact that the Pro version includes the only usable DV Editor software for Linux IMHO is also a nice bonus.

        It's only the demo version (it watermarks the video). And it doesn't capture.

        Rekall is a demo version too.

    • by Heraklit ( 29346 )
      If you look at the amount of printed documentation in the boxed set, you will find that this is easily worth the money...
    • by Jidus ( 733556 )

      Trying to put some distinction between one distro and another is hard. I guess SuSE's strongest points are/were their administration and configuration tools. YaST is pretty amazing. There are certain downsides to it, but in overall it is very useful and intuitive.

      I remember while I started liking SuSE in the first place. It was because other distro's tools were not at the same level by far (it has been a long time since I've stopped trying every distro I could get my hands on). Back when I started using i

    • by gmuslera ( 3436 ) on Sunday June 20, 2004 @02:26PM (#9478821) Homepage Journal
      Nice printed manuals, mastered CDs/DVDs instead of burned ones, sometimes nice merchandising included too (stickers, mousepads, etc), some not so free programs included, and the feeling that you are helping them to continue doing its good job.

      Indirectly, too, you are helping other OSS projects too, SuSE/Novell is actively developing and helping i.e. reiserfs, kde, Openswan [slashdot.org], etc.

      So the advantages a bit depends on you. You don't need help and the manuals are ok for looking them online? ok. You have enough bandwidth to install it from the net? ok. You want it to keep coming? then think on doing something for them in return.

      Of course, you can do something too for Mandrake, Fedora, Gentoo and Debian, if you happy with any of them any help you can give them probably will end in you getting a better distribution in part because your contribution.

    • by Jadrano ( 641713 ) on Sunday June 20, 2004 @03:17PM (#9479057)
      I've always wondered what the advantage of paying for SUSE is? I mean from the user stand point, I understand the desire to support the "community", but when I can get all the same software from other distros for the cost of download time and a couple of blank CDs.

      If you downloaded everything that is on a SuSE Professional DVD, that would certainly be quite a lengthy download. For many people, that's probably already enough for preferring to buy it. Then, you get printed books that are quite good.

      Mandrake is easy to install and configure, Fedora is extremely powerful, Gentoo is geeky beyond belief and Debian is solid as a rock. It seems that all niches have been filled already.

      Yes, I don't think SuSE tries to occupy one of these niches, according to these criteria, it in between as to most criteria you mentioned. But I think a distribution does not really have to fit into a niche. There are big geographical differences. As far as I know, SuSE is the most widespread Linux distribution in Germany (where it's based) and some other European countries. Then, people choose a different distribution if there is a particular reason, but if they just want a kind of "general-purpose" Linux, SuSE is probably the first choice. I suppose that they want to be one of the "mainstream" distributions rather than filling a particular niche.

      One area where SuSE Professional really stands out is, in my view, the amount of software that is included. I find that a great advantage - when I read about a program I want to install, chances are good that it's already on the SuSE DVD, and then I don't have to download it and YaST takes care of all the dependencies etc.. It's much easier and quicker to install a working application and everything it needs with a few clicks in YaST than having to care about everything yourself. I find that very important. I haven't compared all recent distributions, but when I occasionally had to do with other distributions, I had the impression that they include much less software than SuSE Professional.
  • The FTP install disc was pretty good, imo.. small iso download size, and once you got the install going it isn't that much of a PITA to install...all fairly standard GUI stuff AFAI recall. My only real complaint abou t it was that you had to konw the FTP server that you were going to install from., which is maybe not something that a newb would konw how to search for all that easily...a form of querying the server and getting a list of available FTP sites would probably be a boon for users; since they've
  • It is nice! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ErixTr ( 601648 )
    Although a ftp intall was possible, it is nice to have an iso.

    Suse made the right thing. I didn't bother with the ftp install but this will make me try Suse.

  • tried to install Suse 9.1 FTP the other day. when i went to the list of network card modules, there were NONE for Linksys. wtf?
  • by Fiz Ocelot ( 642698 ) <baelzharon@NOSPaM.gmail.com> on Sunday June 20, 2004 @02:08PM (#9478726)
    You can just wget the whole 9.1 directory and use that to install using NFS or FTP over your own network. It's fast and no need to swap out CD drives to systems that don't normally use them.
  • I was running SuSE 9.1 Pro (Base with Develop install) and I could not play a DVD without XINE complaining about dropping too many frames, probably because of a lack of processor power. Machine is 500MHz PII with 256 MB RAM and 2x80 MB HD's, ATI Radeon 7500 LE video and SB16 audio (may be a dinosaur but it still rocks!). Reinstalled Slack 9.1 (full install) and after fixing permissions for the drives, I can run a full compile and watch a DVD in full screen with no hiccup or complaint from XINE as where with
  • by bcrowell ( 177657 ) on Sunday June 20, 2004 @02:45PM (#9478903) Homepage
    Mandrake and Suse both seem to be aimed at relatively unsophisticated desktop users, and both seem to have done a lot of work to make good installers. Good for them!

    I recently bought the Suse personal 9.1 box, and although it was impressive how easy it was to get a working KDE desktop system, I really felt hemmed in afterward. The Suse repository only has a very limited set of applications. When I asked around about how you install other apps, people told me either "Oh, generic RPMs usually work," or "Here are a couple of sites where people will point you to individuals' web pages where they host RPMs." I guess I've just been spoiled by FreeBSD's ports system, which has thousands of apps, including virtually every app I ever need to run. I'm really not that excited about downloading binary RPMs from people I don't know -- that's a little too much like unsafe sex. If generic RPMs usually work, that's cool, but then what's the advantage of Suse?

    My impression is that Mandrake has a much bigger set of apps available -- is this correct? Even if you have to join Mandrake Club to get them from Mandrake, at least joining the club is an option, and if you don't join, you're just in the same situation as with Suse: werbsurf for someone's personal site where they've packaged the app.

    Please don't take this as a troll or a "my distro is better than yours" post -- I'm really curious to know what people think about Mandrake versus Suse. Although I'm now using FreeBSD myself, I'm curious what would be a good distro to recommend to a newbie, and AFAICT Suse isn't it.

    • The lack of apps you noticed was likely due to the difference between Personal and Professional. Personal is trimmed way way down compared to Professional. There are very few apps I need that aren't on the professional cds/dvd. Those that are, are the kind that aren't on any distro's media, so a quick trip to CPAN or freshmeat.net is usually in order. Note though, that a lot of the most commonly used CPAN modules are in the Professional box. 9.0 Professional had 3270 RPMs on the cds, compare that to your Pe
    • OT, but having liked what I saw in a little dabble with FreeBSD some while back... can you point me at a good newbie resource for the ports system? Wasn't aware it existed.

    • I've just been spoiled by FreeBSD's ports system
      Then you would probably love Gentoo [gentoo.org]. I don't personally use it anymore, however they have an improved ports like system that is very nice, thousands of apps to install with just a simple command (and then wait on the compile).
  • While they may have offered FTP install, many of us prefer something we can actually download and install OFF-LINE, for various reasons.

  • by miyako ( 632510 ) <miyako AT gmail DOT com> on Sunday June 20, 2004 @02:50PM (#9478915) Homepage Journal
    I'm a Suse user, I'm typing this on my Suse 9.1 box right now. I love Suse, but I have to say that from what I've seen, the personal releases are crap.
    I remember not too long ago, a friend of mine was wanting to try out a new Linux distrobution. He'd used Mandrake a bit, but still hadn't learned a lot about linux. I suggested that he go buy a copy of Suse 9.1 because the manuals are really nice, and the ftp version wasn't available yet.
    He took my advice, but got the personal version to save money (who can blame him). I didn't think there would be too much difference, I've only used pro, but from reading comments here on /. it seemed like only the proprietary software and some advanced server stuff would be missing.
    Nope
    Suse 9.1 personal is more like a Windows install than a Linux install. It comes with practically nothing you would assume would be in a linux installation. No server software at all, no development tools, it was a very anorexic distrobution in my opinion.
    It seems to me it would be much nicer if Suse would have released ISOs of what can be had from the ftp version so people could torrent it.
    • If you know the difference between Pro and Personal going into it, it still seems powerful. I'm actually glad to hear of a user-oriented distro that I can install on a friend's or family member's machine, that can be updated reasonably easily for problems, but leaves out the power tools (server apps, development tools) they won't need.

      Simply put, if you need these things then this distro would be wrong for you.
  • SuSE ISO torrents (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 20, 2004 @03:09PM (#9479016)
    Someone at OSNews.com posted that tux.org has SuSE ISOs, and I found torrents here.

    http://www.tux.org/pub/distributions/SuSE/i386/i so /
  • by cybe ( 92183 ) on Sunday June 20, 2004 @03:38PM (#9479138)
  • If I want to sell disks, is that OK. I'd like to start selling linux boxen locally but as things stand now, there's no way I could compete paying more than a few bucks for the OS. You just couldn't compete with Dell/Gateway/etc's hardware buying power and then tag on $50 bucks for an OS after that. The margines are already too slim and people are too happy to take Dell's "free" tech support (never mind how worthless it is).

    Sure there's Mandrake/Fedora/Debain, but they've all given me _tons_ of problems
  • Alternatively... (Score:2, Informative)

    by XeRXeS-TCN ( 788834 )
    There's also a tutorial on the forums on Linuxiso.org Here [linuxiso.org] which details how to download a copy of the FTP mirror, and create a full bootable DVD from the mirror, which contains everything the professional DVD has, barring the proprietary stuff.
  • Holy cow, 7.4K/sec if I'm lucky. And that's from a very lightly used T1. 14 hours left.. ugh.

    Anybody have a US mirror of this ISO yet?

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