Hi all,
Well I thought I'd give a quick over view after playing with SuSE 7.3
Professional. $79.99.
First I want to preface this with saying that I've worked on Linux
professionally since mid 70's. Ha, just kidding! Since mid -80's.
Ah, you say, too early!! Yes, it WAS mid 90's. But it seems so long ago...
So, I got into Linux from a book that contained this CD from Slackware.
Actually I still have it. It's called Using Linux from QUE. It blew me away,
yes, yes I'll get to the point...
Since then I've followed and installed every version of RH. I've also tried
most of the big distros. When Mandrake 7.0 hit I tried it and started to use
it on my own machines. Through 7.2.
Then I stumbled on SuSE (pronounced susa) 7.0. I decided to look at it as I
had heard that Linus himself used it. I figured it worth my time if he likes
it, right?
This was, at least for me, a step up. A bit more technically together than
Mandrake. And great for the desktop. A few releases later and it shines even
more!
Kernel 2.4.10-4GB, KDE 2.2.1, and XFree86 4.10. This really makes for a good
stable desktop. Supports TV tuner cards, touch screens. Drag and drop CD
burning.
I thought I'd try the upgrade by going from 7.2, and it was beautiful! (Yes,
I'm now biased!) I chose upgrade and it quickly detected the packages I had.
I had DVD support through Ogle and it works even smoother (thanks to XFree
4.10)
Using DVD to install is nice. No CD swapping... Oh, yes. SuSE comes on seven
CD's and one DVD. Over 2300 packages (and 6GB) in all.
SuSE has done upgrading very friendly. You can easily point and click your
way into a CD, harddisk or online upgrade. Comes with four manuals, a 60 page
install guide and a CD foldout. You can have it done automatically or
manually.
Files systems additionally allows ext3, Reiser and JFS.
Partitioning allows for a Logical Volume Manger, a system to manage volumes
logically. I.e. the volume could be anywhere. If you run out of space you can
add more from a different drive/partition even on a remote computer. Live!
Very neat indeed.
It does software Raid too now. Crypto partitioning is another one that is
handy if you want to keep data from prying eyes. Typically used on a laptop.
As usual it has a personal firewall and DoS protection. AMaViS (a mail virus
scanner). VMware to run virtual computers (and things like Windows), Arkeia
for very fast backup.
GNOME 1.4.1Beta 2 incl Nautilus. StarOffice and KOffice (final 1.1), of
course.
For developers you have niceties like glibc 2.2.4 and Kylix from Borland.
Audio and Video editing. Mixers and synthesizers. Oh yes, the kitchen sink IS
included! A number of SuSE logos let's me annoy people.
Everything is very easily configured through the different YaST's (yet
another system tool).
I have to go back to the new KDE 2.2, it's a very nice cleanup. Several
little annoying things throughout has been "cleaned up" and made very right.
There are a few things that was very annoying like every time you highlit a
web address this screen would pop up asking what you want to do with it. Not
anymore! KMail too has some neat new features and cleanups.
I could go on and on, which I better not, about this very comprehensive, well
built and assembled distro. It is beautiful and runs well on Athlon 1.3 with
nVidia Geforce2 at 1280x1024 32bit color. Try it, and may your computer never
be the same!
Steve
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