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SuSE Businesses Linux Business

Novell Announces SUSE Linux 9.1 435

Posted by michael from the debian-still-rules dept.
ravydavygravy writes "Novell today released details of the next incarnation of its linux products, Suse 9.1, based on the 2.6 kernel. It will come in both 32 and 64-bit versions, and includes a LiveCD version, to help people convince their Windows-loving friends to make the switch. It'll ship with Gnome 2.4.2 and KDE 3.2.1, as well as demo versions of the text processing application Textmaker and the spreadsheet application Planmaker (from Softmaker - but do we really need another office suite?). Samba 3 will also feature in the default setup."
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Novell Announces SUSE Linux 9.1 More

Novell Announces SUSE Linux 9.1

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  • Will Novell get killed by the company's own vision (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bizcoach ( 640439 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @11:02AM (#8598473) Homepage
    Novell's vision of one Net -- a world without information boundaries

    I wonder whether corporations as big as Novell can survive in a "world without information boundaries". I'd expect that in such a world, networks of smaller (much more nible) companies will rule.

    • I wonder whether corporations as big as Novell can survive in a "world without information boundaries". I'd expect that in such a world, networks of smaller (much more nible) companies will rule.

      I'm not sure what that phrase means other than being marketing fluff. No information boundries would me no infomation security, right?
      • I'm not sure what that phrase means other than being marketing fluff.

        Hmmm... I'd define "world without information boundaries" as "a world in which no-one has an economic incentive to deny you access to any information that would be useful to you for some legitimate purpose".

        This doesn't rule out securing computer systems against crackers, and it doesn't rule out using cryptography for protecting the privacy of truly personal matters.

        However I'd say that business practices of selling a GNU/Linux distr

    • Sure they can survive in a world without information boundaries. Where they can't survive is in a world without buzzwords and marketing bs. "world without information boundaries" my ass.

      Pedro

      • Re:Will Novell get killed by the company's own vis (Score:5, Funny)

        by sammy baby ( 14909 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @11:32AM (#8598868) Journal
        Sure they can survive in a world without information boundaries. Where they can't survive is in a world without buzzwords and marketing bs. "world without information boundaries" my ass.

        Jeez, Pedro. Unless you disenfranchise your information boundries, how can you ever hope to leverage your knowledge resources in a dynamic way to effect optimal... uh...

        (shit. let me find my brochure. oh - here it is.) ...to effect optimal return on your brain-market capitalization?
        • Jeez, Pedro. Unless you disenfranchise your information boundries, how can you ever hope to leverage your knowledge resources in a dynamic way to effect optimal... uh... (shit. let me find my brochure. oh - here it is.) ...to effect optimal return on your brain-market capitalization?

          Whoa... that's a verbatim quote of what my boss said during my last performance appraisal... are you secretly my boss?

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @12:09PM (#8599299)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • The hardest part is figuring out what you want.

    You are given a choice of a dozen text editors, several office suites, and about 8 or so window managers. Takes a full day to figure out which of the 5000 odd software packages to install, an hour or less to actually do it.

    • Or you can just select the "default desktop" option and let them choose a single one for you. No one says you have to install everything.

    • Re:That is part of the joys of SuSE... (Score:5, Informative)

      by gmuslera ( 3436 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @11:39AM (#8598928) Homepage Journal
      If you have problem with that, better don't try to install debian where the package list should be several times bigger, and that just using the official sources.

      In the other hand, SuSE have some default selections or aggroupations of packages, where instead of selecting one by one you get in one category a lot of related programs (i.e. you can select KDE or gnome desktop, or development packages or things like that) selected in group but where you can deselect things from there. That helps dealing with such amount of programs.

      Another strategy you can use to install distributions with that order of available programs is install a "default" system (at least for the ones that provides you with that option) and install more programs when you need something you don't installed at the first time.

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @11:51AM (#8599056)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • The hardest part is figuring out what you want.

      Well, here's a definite winner:

      "...SSL connectivity for added security and inline spell checking."

      The things you learn by reading brochures...

  • Aw, crap! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I just bought SuSE 9.0! Is there some way to upgrade without shelling out another eighty bucks for a box set?

    • Re:Aw, crap! (Score:4, Informative)

      by genkael ( 102983 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @11:14AM (#8598651)
      You can get the SUSE Upgrade version for $59.95 It only comes with the Admin Book, but it's a full blown release without the extra books. I've been using it for years.

    • Re:Aw, crap! (Score:2, Interesting)

      by molarmass192 ( 608071 )
      Not really, I always get the Professional Update DVD set that's ~$60. I moved beyond the point of needing a boxed distro a few years ago but having everything on a DVD is so damned convenient that I always purchase it. Otherwise, search around for a torrent of 9.1 after it's released. You probably won't find the DVD iso floating around due to it's size but the CD isos are pretty easy to find.

    • Re:Aw, crap! (Score:2, Informative)

      by sageman ( 726742 )
      With the GPL that most of the software on the SuSE disc(s) are under, SuSE legally has to offer a free downloadable version of there distrobution somewhere on their site. So, check around. It's there somewhere!

      • Re:Aw, crap! (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        No. Legally they only have to distribute the source code to the applications covered under the GPL.

        It does not have to be available via download, they could make it available via CD and snail mail, when you ask for it. And they can charge you for the cost of the CD and the cost of shipping.

    • Re:Aw, crap! (Score:3, Informative)

      by Cyph ( 240321 )
      The article states that you can get the updated edition of the Professional version for $59.95.
    • Ok, I have a question. How can SuSE or RedHat (not Fedora) require people to pay for all of this software written by the community at large? Don't they have to redistribute as per the GPL? Or does it all hinge on a proprietary closed-source installer or what?

      • Re:Aw, crap! (Score:4, Informative)

        by gordie ( 139287 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @11:50AM (#8599049) Homepage
        Your paying for the manuals, media and support (for installation for the first 30 days with SuSE IIRC) but not for the GPL'ed software. Also you don't have to buy, you can do a network based install if you have the bandwidth!

      • Re:Aw, crap! (Score:3, Interesting)

        by archen ( 447353 )
        While it's true that the software is written already, no one collects it and puts it together for you. And even once you collect it, it needs to integrate into the system - this is what a distro does. I used RedHat for years and was too often fustrated it. Once I got bitten by 7.3 support death, hated 8, and wasn't impressed by 9, so I was looking for a new distro. After a few tries with other distros, I gave SuSE a shot on a test machine at work. I liked it so much, that I dumped Win2k on my home machine

  • Released today, not available til May... (Score:5, Informative)

    by bc90021 ( 43730 ) * <`bc90021' `at' `bc90021.net'> on Thursday March 18, 2004 @11:04AM (#8598524) Homepage
    "SUSE LINUX 9.1 will be available at http://store.suse.com and from bookstores and software suppliers on May 6. The recommended retail price of SUSE LINUX 9.1 Personal (two CDs, installation guide, 30 days of installation support) is $29.95. SUSE LINUX 9.1 Professional (five CDs, two double-sided DVDs, user guide and administration guide, 90 days of installation support) is $89.95. The update edition of SUSE LINUX 9.1 Professional is $59.95."

  • SuSE Community News (Score:5, Informative)

    by riggwelter ( 84180 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @11:04AM (#8598528) Homepage Journal
    You can follow news leading up to the release, as well as blogs of members of the SuSE community as 9.1 approaches at Planet SuSE [rubberturnip.org.uk]

  • Mono (Score:4, Interesting)

    by AirLace ( 86148 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @11:04AM (#8598529)
    Considering that Novell also owns Ximian, it would be interesting to find out if the SuSE Mono packages are provided/installed.

    • Re:Mono (Score:4, Informative)

      by de_boer_man ( 459797 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @11:16AM (#8598684)
      Actually, no.

      Here [slashdot.org] is a previous slashdot article on the matter.

      • Re:Mono (Score:5, Insightful)

        by AirLace ( 86148 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @11:22AM (#8598748)
        Maybe you posted the wrong link?

        'We don't expect to make Ximian the default user interface, and for the medium term KDE will remain the default GUI on SuSE Linux'."

        What you have to remember is that Novell has traditionally been a server-oriented business. Novell is interested in Mono primarily as a server offering -- the Ximian desktop connection is purely incidental. It would make perfect sense for them to bundle Mono to provide ASP.NET support in Apache 2, even if they've decided not ship a single Ximian Gnome library.
  • When will distros include support for installing to the increasingly-popular SATA RAID controllers? The stable driver just needs to be built into the install kernel. Yes, I could install to standard IDE, then rebuild the kernel, then move the data, but when can I just type 'boot cdrom' and be done with it?
    • most folks haven't moved over to SATA yet, and there's lots of folks who aren't using raid. that said, most distros build all drivers they can as modules. most distros will include non-vanilla drivers too. do the latest releases of SUSE/Mandrake not provide these drivers?
    • I am ready for support, too. My Asus motherboard has Intel RAID. Right now, I run in legacy mode without RAID.

      For what it is worth, the RAID is not pure hardware RAID.

  • And the CDs... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Doesn't_Comment_Code ( 692510 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @11:05AM (#8598535)
    Are they allowing you to download the ISOs yet? That's what it'll take for me to use it. I've wanted to try it for a long time, but could never get it.

    • Re:And the CDs... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Xpilot ( 117961 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @11:08AM (#8598571) Homepage
      Probably not, but you can always do a free FTP install.

    • Re:And the CDs... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Roofus ( 15591 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @11:11AM (#8598619) Homepage
      Dude, the personal version is going to be priced at $29.95 (at least according to an earlier post). That's a more than reasonable price for a fully featured OS suite. Just buy it from CompUSA or order it online.

    • No they won't. (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Part of the SuSE experiance that it is a "complete linux distribution in the box". Unlike just ISO distributed distros, such as Debian, it comes with so much more. The wonderful box artwork, the thick printed manuals, the fun stickers, the support, the propreitery software and drivers (full flash and java support out off the box) and more.

      SuSE demands only the best, and thats why they don't offer ISOs. If you don't understand this, then you proably won't like SuSE.

    • Re:And the CDs... (Score:5, Informative)

      by akedia ( 665196 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @11:27AM (#8598798)
      I don't remember where I found this script, I think it posted on the SuSE mailing list a few years ago. Anyway, it's a bash program that allows you to create your own SuSE DVD iso from an FTP.

      I could never get it to work properly, and I'm not the original author, but I'll post it here anyway.

      SuSE deserves our money for the work they do, so please only use this for testing purposes, and plan on paying for the box set, as I did.

      (I had to encode it base64 to get past the lameness filter. Released under GPL, YMMV, don't yell at me if it breaks your box, etc.)


      begin-base64 644 mksuse.sh
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  • I love SuSE (Score:5, Informative)

    by stateofmind ( 756903 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @11:05AM (#8598538)
    The other day I installed SuSE on my machine I'm building for my four year old. I bought the professional version of it for $80 at Best Buy, and was blown away. It was the easiet install of any OS period.

    The two manuals are beautiful. It comes with six cd's and a DVD with everything the six dics have. Talk about going out of your way for the customer.

    Josh

    • Re:I love SuSE (Score:3, Interesting)

      by C10H14N2 ( 640033 )
      The last SuSE install I purchased (I'm on number three because they deserve the cash) automatically detected and correctly configured a three-panel display using two different types of video cards (one AGP ATi, two PCI NVidias), to say nothing of getting the network config right etc. etc.

      It's funny, a couple years back I'd mention I was favoring SuSE and people would respond aghast, "but you don't use RedHat?!? BSD? Debian? What crap is this 'SuSE' you speak of?"

      Pfffft.

  • bug spray usually required (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 18, 2004 @11:08AM (#8598574)
    If you knew SUSE, like I knew SUSE....
    Then you'd run Debian ;-P

  • Yay! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 18, 2004 @11:08AM (#8598586)
    I'm so glad Linux has gotten to the point where we can say "Do we really need another office suite?" :-)

    • Re:Yay! (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Brandybuck ( 704397 )
      Except that if all you want is a word processor, TextMaker is a fraction of the size of OpenOffice, and loads in less than a second rather than in less than a minute.

      Softmaker is the Opera of office suites. Commercial but full functionality in a tiny footprint.

  • significant? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by drjimmy42 ( 744688 )
    "...providing the only significant retail Linux products on the market. " Really? I thought I saw others floating around my local CompUSA...
    • I'm in the sticks, so we don't have a CompUSA (here, it's wal-mart, or bust). That said, the last time I was in one (aught-two, I think), they didn't have any SuSE offerings; just mandrake, redhat and FreeBSD

      • Re:significant? (Score:3, Informative)

        by molarmass192 ( 608071 )
        Well RedHat's out of the retail box business, that's old news -but- I think it's pretty cool that CompUSA has a boxed FreeBSD set! I'll admit I didn't believe you at first but then I looked it up online just to be certain and they have the PowerPak 5.1 set. Anyhow, to get back on subject, CompUSA does sell SuSE as well [compusa.com].
      • My first copy of Linux was Mandrake 6.1, and I got it at Wal-Mart I think. Too bad they don't carry linux in thier stores any more.

  • Friendly NTFS partitioning? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ItWasThem ( 458689 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @11:13AM (#8598645)
    I love the live CDs and I love the fact that they're starting now to have an option to automatically install on a partition for you.

    However my primary day-use machine is a work provided Dell laptop. I would love to use Linux on it. I have Linux on all of my other desktop workstations. But the laptop came set up with an NTFS partition that consumes 100% of the drive. I can't just blow it away because I need the usual office apps, VS and Outlook.

    Later versions (> 6 which is what I have) of Partition magic seem to be the only thing on the planet that can non-destructively resize this for me. Does anyone else know of another way?

    For me the uncertainty when resizing a drive or partition is a major holdup.

    • Re:Friendly NTFS partitioning? (Score:5, Informative)

      by weekendgeek ( 711624 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @11:19AM (#8598711)
      SuSE 9.0 has a really nice NTFS resize utility during install. Works quite well.
      • SuSE 9.0 has a really nice NTFS resize utility during install. Works quite well.

        However, AFAIK, it cannot move data. So you should first try your windows defragmentation program to see how much space it leaves at the end of the partition. In case there is enough space left for your Linux partitions, you can go ahead and just run SuSE's installation pograms.

        In my case, there wasn't. But it's still possible by downloading a statically linked beta version of ntfsresize (google for it), which has relocati

    • Mandrake's install disk can certainly do that. I think Fedora's can too, but I may be wrong there. The one reason I keep my Mandrake 9 disks around is for the partition editor in the installer.
    • Suse and Mandrake's installers can do this? I know they can resize but I always thought they destroyed any prior data in the process. Does CrossOver office let me run Outlook and Internet Explorer?

      Don't get me wrong, I hate IE with a passion and in fact use Firefox most of the day, but we develop Windows based (thus IE supported) web applications so testing on IE is a must.
    • Oh one other thing while everyone is being so helpful ;) does anybody know if the Centrino drivers Intel released have made their way into any distro yet? I could add them to any distro I suppose but it's always easier if they just come with.

    • Re:Friendly NTFS partitioning? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You can friendly resize NTFS partitions using tools such as QTParted on knoppix or Partition Magic or SuSE/Mandrakes installers. This does not damage the data on the drive, simply resizes it. The only problem, is that it can not MOVE data on the drive, so you need to be sure it is defragmented. Also, I doubt you would have much luck if your dell laptop is like mine, because they made the NTFS file table at the physical END of the drive, and since that is immovable even within windows, you can only reduce th

  • PPC (Score:3, Interesting)

    by BibelBiber ( 557179 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @11:16AM (#8598681)
    I hope they'll also release a PPC Version again. I always preferred SuSE to any other Distro unter x86. PPC Distros are rather rare and not as good as PC ones. Maybe Gentoo is quite good but it takes way too long to compile on my iBook.

  • Official Release Date (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The press release says that it will be available May 6. amazon [amazon.com] is claiming an April 15 availability date.

  • Another office suite? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Coryoth ( 254751 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @11:22AM (#8598741) Homepage Journal
    Of course we need another office suite - as long as it supports compatible formats, who cares how many we have? Choice is good, and, more importantly a bit of competition is good. Right now everything is largely locked into the MS Office paradigm of how to do things, but there are other ways of doing these sorts of applications. The GoBe Productive suite, for instance, while not a direct MS Office offers a different and very nice style of doing some of these things. The more innovative and new thinking we can bring to the party the better we will be.

    I really do fail to believe that the basic MS Office style word processor and spreadsheet are the pinnacle of design for such applications.

    Jedidiah.

  • I want a cyborg cameleon. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Qbertino ( 265505 ) <moiraNO@SPAMmodparlor.com> on Thursday March 18, 2004 @11:22AM (#8598749)
    Ok, folks. Now that MS is going to drop out of the 1st league in a measurable amount of time (estimate: ~2 years) I think it's time to declare SuSE enemy and honor it with the title 'prime slashdot target numero uno', moving MS to position two.
    I for my part want a borg cameleon and an automatic +3 insightfull for every rant about SuSE lock-in behaviour plus an extra 'SuSE sucks, Debian rulez' subject on /. And lengthy rant.. err... reviews of even the slightes bug in YaST that the /. editors can come up with.

    I'll make a start on the comenting side:

    SuSE sucks because they use RPM and only look at the money that comes from sleek boxing of products. Debian apt-get is much more superior. How long will customers put up with this SuSE crap?

    (The joke been made, I'd like to add that SuSE migrated me and that they're my fist recomendation for every Linux n00b)

  • ..but do we really need another office suite? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by nadamsieee ( 708934 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @11:25AM (#8598773)
    Yes, we need as many competing office suites as the market and programming talent pool will support. But in order for it to work, the file formats need to be completely open. Competition is goooooood.

  • More is better (Score:5, Interesting)

    by X-Nc ( 34250 ) <nilrin@gmail.COMMAcom minus punct> on Thursday March 18, 2004 @11:25AM (#8598779) Homepage Journal
    SoftMaker's products are quite exelent and TextMaker was worth buying, for me. There are a number of times when OO just doesn't render a document right while TM does. Ideaily I like to have at least OO, TM & Abiword installed on any desktop I use. I used to include Applix (the best office suite there was) in this but since the company killed it it's not worth running anymore.

    • Re:More is better (Score:3, Interesting)

      by ALecs ( 118703 )
      Here - here!

      I, too, am a proud owner of both FreeBSD and Windows versions of Testmaker and a previous user of Applix.

      I find that, while it's a great package - don't get me wrong - I like having a small, fast, lightweight word processor to use when I just wanna edit/view a word doc or type something real quick. On my somewhat older machines, I really have to need some specific feature before I'm ready to devote the full 3 minutes to loading OO.

      I used to keep AbiWord around for the same reason, but lately
  • The blurb describes Textmaker as a text processing application, when it would be more correct to call it a word processor. A text processor or editor would be something like vi or emacs (no wait, emacs is an OS that has a text editor in it).

  • It's almost enough to make me like the french.

    This also represents our friends at Novell (with the help of IBM) taking the fight to SCO on a new front
  • SuSE Pro was typically $79, now its $89. SuSE Pro Update (the best deal, Pro without manuals) was $49, now its $59. SuSE Personal was $39, now its $29. As for SATA drives, I've installed SuSE 9.0, Slack 9.1 and Mandrake 10.0 on my SATA drive without issue or any special voodoo. I'm on an Abit IT7-Max2 v.2 Intel/P4 motherboard with an onboard Highpoint 374 Raid Controller that the SATA drive is attached to.
  • Would be worse if it was "Microsoft announces SuSe linux".
  • Kernel 2.6 and KDE 3.2.1, from what I hear is a good step forward in GUI responsiveness and performance which, is one of the big drawbacks for linux on the desktop.

    The next issues to address are easier app installations for joe blows (sorry but for rh/suse/mdk , i can never get stupid rpm front-ends to work properly out of the box) and better hardware support and easier configuration/installation of hardware drivers.

    Once that is done its a matter of time before the window breaks

  • Install from live CD + YOU = Full-blown SuSE? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by salimma ( 115327 ) * on Thursday March 18, 2004 @12:03PM (#8599215) Homepage Journal
    A question for those who have used SuSE recently / are using it now:

    Is it possible to boot a live CD, install it to your hard drive, and then use Yast Online Update to pull packages not provided on the CD?

    The same way one could download Knoppix and use it as a Debian installer.

    Would be a cool halfway solution between buying a full-set distro and having to bootstrap a netinstall from floppies.

  • My own experience with SuSE.. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by iantri ( 687643 ) <iantri&gmx,net> on Thursday March 18, 2004 @12:27PM (#8599499) Homepage
    Disclaimer: This is only my experiencew with SuSE. Yours may differ.

    I bought SuSE 9.0 and tried it a few months ago, and must say I didn't particularly care for it.

    While they are definately producing one of the most polished distro's available, it deviates from most linux distributions somewhat dramatically; I still don't know how exactly the init system works. (It's not exactly SysV, it's not exactly BSD).

    When I used it I had a problem in which it repeatedly would launch the X configurator if I had dual-head enabled. I don't know if that was just me or not.

    Everything is tightly integrated in SuSE -- the KDE desktop is pretty amazing, but GNOME support is almost non-existant. Unfortunately, I found the KDE desktop to be pretty slow on my machine (P3 800mhz machine. Slackware with KDE3.1 runs great on it).

    I also found that you HAD to do things SuSE's way -- if there wasn't a button for it in YaST, the SuSE configurator (and generally, there was.. YaST is probably the most comprehensive config tool for Linux), or YaST didn't give you all the options you needed, you couldn't do it yourself because YaST would stomp all over your changes.

    SuSE is also the most proprietary of Linuxes, and there's not alot of support for it online (again, you can't just update say, package X from a source tarball because SuSE will throw a fit).

    It's probably not bad for novice and intermediate computer users; I'd reccomend that experienced users who want a pretty desktop with little hassle use Mandrake.

    • SuSE is also the most proprietary of Linuxes, and there's not alot of support for it online ...

      I agree with the first part of the sentence, but the second isn't entirely correct:

      1. the SuSE support database [portal.suse.de] is a really comprehensive knowledge base about all SuSE versions. In about 90 per cent of all questions I've had about configuring my system, I found the answer there.
      2. rpmseek.com [rpmseek.com] is your friend :)

    • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @12:44PM (#8599731)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re:My own experience with SuSE.. (Score:4, Informative)

        by xeper ( 29981 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @01:04PM (#8599992)
        YAST does make configuration a doddle in most cases but since every configuration change is made to the central YAST config file and then read from there, SuSE is not easy to move around when you're used to working at the command line - I find it disconcerting in SuSE when I go to edit a config file I'm used to editing and the first line in it says "# Please use YAST to make all config changes, do not edit this file directly" or words to that effect.


        Actually, there is no central YAST config file in recent SuSE editions. YAST reads from the /etc/sysconfig hierarchy, which is AFAIK LSB compliant. And it's been quite a while since YAST last changed manually edited .rc files on my system. Usually it just says something like 'Modified foo.rc found - skipping'.

        --

    • Re:My own experience with SuSE.. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by justins ( 80659 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @12:57PM (#8599895) Homepage Journal
      Everything is tightly integrated in SuSE -- the KDE desktop is pretty amazing, but GNOME support is almost non-existant.

      The nice thing regarding GNOME is that, now that SuSE and Ximian are part of Novell, Ximian actually works very well on SuSE. It hasn't always, in the past. That's probably the route you'll want to go if you want GNOME on SuSE.

      It's probably not bad for novice and intermediate computer users; I'd reccomend that experienced users who want a pretty desktop with little hassle use Mandrake.

      These are my two favorite RPM-based distros and I've found SuSE releases to be of a much higher quality than Mandrake over the years. On the other hand it took a long time for SuSE to get their setup and admin tools usable to the point where the comparison seems valid. They are fundamentally similar enough that a user who is happy with one will probably be happy with the other.

      I also found that you HAD to do things SuSE's way -- if there wasn't a button for it in YaST, the SuSE configurator (and generally, there was.. YaST is probably the most comprehensive config tool for Linux), or YaST didn't give you all the options you needed, you couldn't do it yourself because YaST would stomp all over your changes.

      One has to wonder what "things" you're talking about. I've never had that particular problem. You need to be careful where you put changes, of course, just as you have to with any other OS.

      (again, you can't just update say, package X from a source tarball because SuSE will throw a fit).

      That rather depends on the package, with any distro. If all the package's dependencies can be met with the distro's prepackaged libraries, there's absolutely no reason why this shouldn't work. Other than the obvious problem that a lot of Linux development kiddies tend to target their build process to, well, their personal machine.
    • "Disclaimer: This is only my experiencew with SuSE. Yours may differ.

      I bought SuSE 9.0 and tried it a few months ago, and must say I didn't particularly care for it.

      While they are definately producing one of the most polished distro's available, it deviates from most linux distributions somewhat dramatically; I still don't know how exactly the init system works. (It's not exactly SysV, it's not exactly BSD). "

      Got to disagree most vehemently here, its the other distro's that are deviating from the LSB and

  • it doesn't matter (Score:3, Interesting)

    by CAIMLAS ( 41445 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @12:43PM (#8599713)
    A new office suite? Cool. Will it work? Even cooler.

    Most importantly, however, is will it be standards-compliant? Will it have a proprietary file format, or will it be able to talk with OOo flawlessly?

    From the screenshots on their site, I'm fairly impressed so far - it looks to be able to edit things somewhat more complex than OOo can, at least. Time will tell.

    Anyone use this product yet? They have goofy naming conventions. :P *maker.

  • Version number games (Score:3, Interesting)

    by hackstraw ( 262471 ) * on Thursday March 18, 2004 @12:48PM (#8599779)
    I can't be the only one who has noticed that major product version numbers are a) inflated, and b) the same (+- 1) as the competetors. For example, this is Suse 9.1, Mandrake [mandrakesoft.com] has some 9.x stuff and even a 10.0, RedHat [redhat.com] had a version 9. RedHat even stripped the .X like Solaris [sun.com], which is at version 9 and a 10 is coming. Slackware [slackware.com] is hovering around 9.1 as well. Of course more pure distros like Debian [debian.org] does not participate. Nor do the current owners of all things UNIX [caldera.com]. Hell, even Apple's OS [apple.com] is in the 9/10 range.

    This happened when there was competition with word processors (Word vs. WordPerfect), also this happened when there was competition with Web Browsers (Netscape vs IE). etc. Microsoft has surpassed the whole version number thing by appending 2 random letters at the end of their products, so I guess that is next for everyone else to do.

    Just an observation.

  • What about Netware tools? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Rick Zeman ( 15628 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @12:52PM (#8599823)
    One of the things that got me started on Caldera oh-so-long ago (whenever COL 1.3 was out) was their Netware integration and tools (having an NDS client when ncpfs was just bindery) and a KDE version of Netware Admin.
    I'm wondering if there's anything Novell-y in this, or if it's Just Another Distro.

  • Do we really need another office suite? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by petrus4 ( 213815 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @02:56PM (#8601528) Homepage Journal
    It's funny...I remember a time (not so long ago, either) when diversity was encouraged in the Linux community. I'm assuming that the reason why unity has become the Holy Grail is because of the desire to convert Windows users to Linux.

    I read a good article on madpenguin.org the other day though about how if a reasonably consistent, unified *interface* is maintained, it doesn't matter how many actual programs there are out there.

    Also, methinks peeps need to keep in mind that the whole reason why Outlook Express and IE are now the target of so many viruses is precisely because nearly everyone and their dog uses just those two programs. Only having a single set of apps which everyone uses makes life a lot easier for the crackers, script kiddies, and virus writers, and a lot harder for everyone else.
    If we want unity and consistency, I think we should aim for it primarily in the UI space. If we follow ESR's paradigm of creating the core program and UI as modules connected by protocols anywayz, we can have a boatload of different programs all doing different things, (diversity being a GOOD thing) but the UI can be consistent enough that Joe Sixpack will have absolutely no trouble using them. The bazaar lives on.

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