SUSE Linux Enterprise 10, a Closer Look 273
Tripperfish writes "Mad Penguin's Adam Doxtater has published an in-depth review of SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10, Novell's alleged 'Vista Killer.' From the article: 'SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 is a very capable, industrial strength desktop which is ready to take on basic desktop chores in the corporate environment, and for the price you simply cannot go wrong. ' The review comes complete with screenshots and Flash movies of the install, new GNOME interface, and Beagle in action."
SLES/SLED (Score:5, Interesting)
I have a SLES Admin job, and if we weren't sticking with 9 for support reasons (Dell is staying with 9 for the forseeable future 1Y+) I'd be excited to support 10.
KDE is gone - practically erased from the experience. There is a QT4 interface control panel, and a few mentions of Kthis and Kthat, but you hardly ever see it. YaST (GUI) is GTK2/Mono, the Zen software manager is Mono, the Desktop is Gnome.
The usability is almost there.. I give it until version 11, and if HP and Dell get behind it like they say they are, you can validate the 'Vista-killer' remark, no matter how stupid it is.. There will finally be two real alternatives for Intel desk/laptops: Leopard and SLED.
Can We Just Grow Up Yet? (Score:5, Interesting)
OK. I read the article. The replacement for the start menu is interesting (even if it is, in many ways, like the start menu in XP). I'm glad to see they like Beagle (which I haven't read much about). The fact that single sign-on works with Active Directory is also interesting. But that's not what I take away from the article.
It was written by someone who has no hopes of ever being a journalist and should stop writing to try to convince people.
After reading that article I don't want to try the new SUSE version. I probably wouldn't have if it was written well. But instead, I get an article that is mostly good with a few VERY odd bits thrown in. Like I was reading along about something on the second page or so and came across something along the lines of "... and Mac users (dirty rotten hippies all of 'em". Do you have ANY IDEA how much that makes me respect the author?
That's stupid enough, but he then goes on later to talk about Spotlight and how everyone should try it and how great it is. Last I checked, there was only one way to use Spotlight: on a Mac.
There are other little bits too. Like on the last page when he says that you don't have to worry next year when "Windows ME 2.0 is released" because Linux already has all the features. First, it doesn't. Biggest omission: DirectX 10. Now I know that's not the fault of anyone involved in Linux, but the statement is wrong. More importantly, it is a cheap shot.
If the article was all fan-boy ravings, that would be one thing. If the article was all high-quality overview, that would be another. But the author can't seem to decide which of those he is. In fact, the author couldn't even decided to take a middle ground.
This kind of stuff only hurts the community. I see next to no honest reviews of Linux. I tons of "Windows is dead!" reviews that just don't take everyday use into account for the average user. Here's a great OS. It's perfect for your little sister. But only one of her 12 games will run, that will take work. And you can't buy games for it so you are basically giving up playing commercial games on your computer. Yes, you can dual boot Windows and play games that way. What's that you say? So why bother with Linux?
This kind of stuff is just juvenile. You can point out SUSE has features of Vista now without calling it "Windows ME 2.0". You can point out people use Macs without calling them all dirty hippies.
And you can guarantee I'll never read an article off that site again.
Gnome Desktop? (Score:5, Interesting)
I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop when Novell bought out Ximian, is this that shoe?
Wireless? (Score:4, Interesting)
Running it Now (Score:5, Interesting)
Some important points missed in the article (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Package management is very important. Can the package manager automatically handle conflicts and upgrade as many packages as possible without screwing up? Will I have to use some weird command line incantation like "yum --resolve-pkgs xyz-1.0 -f -v -qr ~/.yumrc" when things go wrong or something equally horrible?
2. Is it forward compatible? That is, does SUSE have an equivalent to "apt-get dist-upgrade"?
3. Where are the DROP SHADOWS?!? The screenshots show the Compiz WM presumably running on Xgl, so there should be drop shadows in there.
4. Since the WM used is Compiz it means you have lots of cute effects, like wobbly windows, transparency and shadows. It also means you don't have all the useful features that a mature WM like Metacity has; like proper workspaces (the desktop cube isn't fully developed yet last I looked at it), accessability options, lots of different themes to choose from, configurable keybindings etc.
5. Why Gnome 2.12? Gnome 2.12 wasn't a very good release for me, speed wise it was a noticable regression from 2.10. Thankfully most of those regressions have been fixed in 2.14 so I'm very surprised to hear about this SUSE shipping with 2.12. One would hope that the upgrade path to 2.14 would be smooth and painless, see point 2.
In short, SUSE 10 has some very exciting new features, Windows-like start menu, Beage integration, very good looking icon set and Xgl. But I doubt it is a Vista killer or even an Ubuntu killer because of the aforementioned points. I'll stick with Ubuntu, but I really hope that the Ubuntu devs will copy all the cool features from SUSE 10.
Re:Wireless? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:What's the difference between the regular one? (Score:4, Interesting)
As for Ubuntu, I use it. But I would recommend you try both Ubuntu and Suse (the free version, for starters), since they're free. See which is better for you.
Gnome 2.14 and xorg 7.x?? (Score:3, Interesting)
wrong one. (Score:3, Interesting)
Nobody will upgrade via actual choice, just having it on their new computers, as forced by their hardware vendor. And that doesn't actually get MS any more money for developing Vista over XP (unless they raise prices).
Vista killer? (Score:5, Interesting)
Wake me up when this happens, I'll buy everyone a drink.
Please, cut the "killer" nonsense (Score:4, Interesting)
SLED still has a long way to go... (Score:4, Interesting)
My primary boxes run SuSE 10 OSS and SLED and at least 5 production boxes have been switched to SLES.
Fact is, SLED while certainly an improvement on what has come before it still isn't smooth enough for us. The Novell client is flaky, the various SuSE network config scrips don't play well with secondary DNS suffixes and simple things like the various pack-in apps don't work properly out of the box. Also, while not a SuSE issue specifically, WordPerfect support in OpenOffice is horrible. You might think "So what?" but the schools systems and government offices that run Novell are quite often running the WordPerfect Suite as well.
(Up until this year the WPO cost in volume licensing was insignifigant relative to that of MSO. WP is enjoying a false sense of security right now since MSO 07 was delayed.)
Now, if SLED isn't good enough to convince existing customers who are already fairly pro-Novell and pro-Linux what hope is there is convert the rest of the world?
The feature set is fine as it is. Novell/SuSE need stop adding new crap and increasing the major version number. Instead they should be polishing what they have and refining those everyday apps that the "users" actually care about.
Re:Looks nice (Score:3, Interesting)
What I hear... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Killer Mania! (Score:2, Interesting)
Why not? That 'trusted computing' in vista is like a cursed boots of slowness -35
Except that Vista doesn't include Trusted Computing. It has some DRM features, but not a heck of a lot more that you can get with Windows XP and the latest MS Media software. Oh, and if you don't use any DRM files, absolutely nothing DRM related runs.
not to mention the cheezy 3-d desktop that lets you scroll 'side to side' to see stacked windows easier,
Oh, yes, MS is certainly the first OS manufacturer to realize that everyone and their grandmother has a 3D accelerator in their PC, and start using it do to something in the OS. I mean, it's not like Apple ever did anything like that.
all while doubling the power drain on a laptop.
My laptop ran Vista for about two weeks, and since the heat increase I noticed continues now that I'm off Vista and back to XP, I'm pretty sure that's summer and not the unoptimized beta code that is Vista. I even ran in on battery for more than a few days, and while I lost a few minutes of battery in the time it took "sleep mode" to become "hibernate", battery life certainly wasn't halved.
when you've got a fat bloated pig like vista, even suse 10 could easily be a vista killer.
Y'know, folk said the same thing about XP when it came out. And now virtually every major Linux distribution has just as much crap on by default.
Re:Looks nice (Score:5, Interesting)
I've just downloaded and installed it on a Centrino laptop, and I think any enterprise which does not consider it will be missing a major opportunity.
It is a lot simpler to configure and use than XP, and the default install includes an intelligent selection of the best of open source and proprietary Linux software, from project planners to video editors. The install was as easy and quick as Doxtater suggests, and connection to our network was simple and seamless with both the wireless and wired LANs. I've only used the install for a couple of hours, but if anything, the reviewer has understated the usefulness of Beagle. When I selected text in Firefox to copy and paste here, the pop-up menu has a "Beagle" option which offers to find references to the text or the link
In fact, the version I've downloaded (RC3) looks like it's a bit more recent than the version reviewed. On the desktop is a link to a "Quick Start Tour", which is a training package in html/flash that takes you through step-by-step instructions for all of the major components of the OS and applications. There's more than sixty courses there.
The feel is much more polished than any other Linux distro I've used, and the interface is clear and consistent in use. OSX is prettier, but SLED 10 has a clean businesslike style which works well and is not intrusive. It definitely makes XP look old and clunky.
Make no mistake, this is a landmark distro. For the first time, I'd feel confident about sitting an average computer user in front of a Linux distro and telling them to get started. The clean interface and built-in training mean that most would have less difficulty making the transition to SLED than they would from Win 2000 to XP.
Real Vista Killer! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Gnome Desktop? (Score:2, Interesting)
It will not make Microsoft even blink, let alone quake, because:
1) mono is currently a partial
2) Microsoft execs are making very supportive noises about mono. And why wouldn't they? Here are a bunch of people doing all the work of implementing something on Linux that helps fulfill the entire raison d'etre of
So what looks to you like MS execs quaking is actually them trying to suppress laughter and the urge to do little jigs of glee, because they can't believe how quickly and easily the open source community fell for such an obvious ploy.
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)