adoll's Journal: Suse 10.1 install

I've been running SUSE Linux for some time now, mostly the 9.x series. I bought a new drive and thought I'd install a different version of Linux on all the virgin space. The distribution I decided to try was OpenSUSE 10.1 with Gnome desktop.

The result was very disappointing. First of all, OpenSuse 10.1 doesn't have any MP3 or MPEG support, likely due to patent problems. Trying to install mplayer failed due to the GCC compiler in SUSE 10.1 being too new; the mplayer ./configure complained about it and sure enough, it failed to compile. I finally managed to get basic MP3 support by using the XMMS rpm from my SuSE 9.1 system, but no MPEG. List this as a partial win and a complete loss.

Other apps I wanted to recycle included Falcon's Eye (nethack), Audacity (audio track editor), and OpenOffice 2.0. Well, OO 2.0 wasn't in the SuSE9.1 base install, but I got it to work anyways. OO 2.0 was included in the SuSE 10.1 distribution but listed as "unstable". Ok, fair enough, chalk up one win.

Both Audacity and Falcon's Eye complained about assorted dependency problems and refused to compile properly. GTK and Audacity seems to be a recurring problem that I've had many times. Both don't work.

One pleasant suprise was the integration of the proprietary NVidia driver works much better in 10.1 than 9.1. Worked with some fiddling getting the parameters right to do twinview.

Then another loss - the Java support appears to be inferior in 10.1 to the 9.1 version I was running. My favorite game Wurm is graphically intensive, and the 10.1 graphics look poorer than the 9.1 graphics (particularly the clouds). Call this a partial loss because it still worked, just looked poorer. Also some of the input dialogues didn't work in 10.1, yet work fine in 9.1.

Gnome was generally appealing, except that Nautilus was CONSTANTLY crashing. It seems that viewing a folder with hidden files in it kills that program dead (yes, I submitted several bug reports using the automated crash submitter). Many of the features of Gnome were appealing, though. Much simpler CD burning than k3b, for example. Much less eye candy, but generally works well.

I've blown away the SUSE 10.1 system and tried unsuccessfully to install Slackware instead. Guess I'll try another distribution for that new drive... more later.

update Feb 18, 2006

Also tried a Fedora distribution, but was appalled by the small number of applications that were available with the automated installer. SuSE spoiled me with YaST. Getting automated critical updates is a major selling point for YaST that doesn't happen if I'm installing stuff from source.

Final analysis: I'm back to running exclusively the SuSE 9.1 system on the old hard drive. I've moved my home directory to the new drive and gave up trying other systems. For now.