On 24/07/2004, at 8:19 PM, jaytee(a)clear.net.nz wrote:
I had a look at the review on this distro, From what I read, it seems ideal for a newbie.
I would agree with that sentiment. It comes, by default, with KDE desktop and OpenOffice. As someone else indicated, compilers and other programming tools are not installed by default., but then, why should they be when it is aimed at windowing desktop users? It comes with an extensive set of RPMs, and a well organised installation program (as part of YAST) that can be used to install other package sets. You just select development tools group, and hey-presto, you get all the compilers, etc., installed.
The only negative comments I found was that dvd movie play can be a real hassle to set up..
I don't know much about that but someone else indicated on this list that Suse was less than adequate in this regard.
Boot time is a little longer than some other distros but that is not really so important is it?
Personally, I think it is completely irrelevant, as is installation time. Who gives a damn how long it takes to install? It is a one off action. Why is boot up time so relevant? The machine is switched on and never switched off again. What is important is how fast applications run, how responsive the windowing system is, how the system copes with multiple tasks running or with CD/disc read/writes running, and so on. The differences between linices are small compared to the differences in hardware, amount of memory, etc.
If anyone has got this distro installed I would like to see some opinion/critique, also if you are a new user or a seasoned Linuxer.
I ran Suse on my office computer for three or so years. I have now dumped it and moved to Mac OS X. To be frankly honest, I have almost no regrets in abandoning Linux for my office computer. We continue to run Suse on our servers (as well as HP/Compaq Tru64 Unix on our alpha workstations) and one staff member I am responsible for is using it on our deparment laptop - mainly to get good access to LaTeX and a decent text editor (emacs). Suse has its strengths and weaknesses. It is certainly a good installation for someone with little Unix experience. It has an extensive set of precompiled packages ready on its installation discs. It is one of the best for multilingual support (not surprising when it comes from Europe). And for some people, that it is not American will figure highly! But, as I have intimated before, and see someone else in the last couple of days making similar comments on this list, its extra layer of configuration scripts linking into YAST (the administration frontend), which makes it so great for newbies, is a right royal pain in the arse for serious server work. We are always having to work through the Suse administration scripts to work out what they do so that we can make changes to the basic administration level without nasty interactions with Suse's guff. Michael.