Alrighty, then! Now that I've finally got home internet again (which means that I'll soon be replying to many of the emails that I have piled up in my box!) I've put out a new article! This time, you can actually *have* the future I described, today!
Don't you love the title, BTW? Buzzwords are fun, whee! (Or maybe I've done just a little too much cold medication. You decide.)
A new article is finally up, asking the question is AJAX actually new?
The latest article is up and running!
Free Books on the Internet
-- or --
How to get a Comp-Sci Education in 30 Days!
Check it out, if you dare...
MWAHAHAHAHA!
...the latest and greatest article is up and running! This week I decided to take some time and tackle the recent article by Sal Cangeloso, where he suggests that Linux needs more consolidation.
Sorry if I've been kind of slow in responding to your posts. I've been a little busy working on some cool stuff for the future. Not that I'm going to give anything away...
...it seems that OSNews has picked up the followup series. It strikes me that the comments this time are much better thought out and even handed than the first story. Of course, some people are still repeating the same stupid mistakes. "I don't want 18 copies of a PNG loader in memory!"
*sigh*
Well, I did try to get this article out early, but it just didn't happen. So here we are on Thursday Night (as usual), and I've just published the second part of the Followup series. I highly recommend you read this one, because it covers a lot more detail about how the DBFS can be implemented and used. Feel free to submit the followup to any news source that will take it. I certainly don't mind the traffic.
Another new and interesting thing you'll find on my blog is a small white box located underneath the skyscraper ad on the left. If you type your email address in there, you can sign up to receive an automatic email every time I publish a new article. I'm running it through the Notify List service, so we'll see how it works out.
Enjoy!
A follow up to last week's four part series is now online. Call all your friends, neighbors, relatives, blogging buddies, and Linus Torvalds to let them know!
Unless you've been living under a rock, you've probably seen that my article is now on the front page of Slashdot. Unsurprisingly, the comments are of a much better quality than those on OSNews.
I have to say that it's a bit weird, though. It's like looking into the eye of a hurricane and hoping you won't get blown away. If I thought I had trouble keeping up with the comments before, there is absolutely no hope now.
Now if you'll excuse me, I myself am going to go hide under a rock until the storm blows over. Maybe after it's over, the aftermath will have hooked a few interested Linux developers.
I can't believe my recent blog article is getting so amazingly hammered. I've been trying to respond to criticisms and questions, but I'm quickly getting overwhelmed. So... I have no idea what I'm going to do about it other than keep plugging away. It's kind of fun to fan the flames.
Even though Slashdot doesn't seem to want to pick up the story, I found out that OSNews picked it up. The people over there have been generally unkind, and have decided to ignore the intelligent points of my article and instead use their forums for an all out flamefest. The few actual criticisms seem mostly based on things I either didn't say, or a desire to plug their ears, ignore any points that are made, and hope it goes away. I have no idea why they do this. Are OSNews discussions always this... I don't know... useless?
Outside of OSNews, one of the things that I've noticed is that a lot of people seem to be skimming over the articles and losing the details. They then go on to criticize without double checking. A few examples:
- Is it a good idea to tie MySQL (or other major DB Engine) to the file system? How does that effect maintenance? (For the record, I used SQL tables as a metaphor. The DBFS should be a complete file system. Using something like Berkeley DB to store the data in a file on the DBFS is probably the easiest solution, but is hardly the same thing as bringing a large database online.)
- AppFolders aren't abstract enough. The user can still see inside the folder. (These people seem to miss the HUGE sections on wrapping the AppFolders into disk images.)
- Have you seen technology XYZ? It already does some of this. (Yes, I have seen it. That's why there's a link to it at the bottom of the article.)
Now I realize that the language could use some cleaning up in a few places (especially the last article which was a bit rushed), but is it possible that something else is impacting people's ability to read clearly? For example, does the blog color scheme cause anyone here problems? I've been considering changing it, but I'm none too happy with most of blogger.com's offerings. I may have to create a custom template.
Welp, back to the grindstone. (With a little sleep in between.)
Feel free to to submit the complete series to any sites you like (including the Slashdot front page
Tune in next week for the exciting conclusion!
In case you've been hiding under a rock, I have recently decided to start blogging. Most of my previous articles have already been copied over, and I've been adding new articles on the order of about once per week.
The most recent episode is still a work in progress, but the first two parts have been released. So if you're curious and can't wait, here are the links:
The Linux Desktop Distribution of the Future Part 1
The Linux Desktop Distribution of the Future Part 2
I'd love to hear from you all what you think of the new blog. What types of articles would you like to see? Should I just keep chugging on as is? Would you like a mailing list to hear when new articles get posted? I'm interested in your opinion!
Note: I originally intended to submit this to Linux.com or some other online news agency. Since I've recently become quite busy with more lucrative writing, I've finally decided to release this since I'll never finish polishing it. Enjoy, and feel free to share your thoughts.
Linux.com's recent review of Sun's Java Desktop System came up with less than stellar results. When my colleague-in-print attempted to take the OS through its paces, he found that he was unable to even complete a simple installation. In his review, he identified the culprit as Sun's poor support for ultra-modern hardware. (Although many Slashdotters have commented that it may have been due to bad CDROM media.) Given that Sun has often claimed that JDS is targeted at corporations users who wish to reuse existing hardware, I will attempt to provide a second look based on slightly older hardware.
Configuration
For this test I am using a PIII 733 w/512 MB of RAM, a GeForce2 GTS, an AWE32 sound card, an Intel Etherexpress NIC, two 40 GB Western Digital ATA100 drives, a Creative 40x/8x/4x CDRW, a standard PS/2 keyboard, and a Microsoft Intellieye Optical Mouse. This machine was custom built a few years ago for maximum capacity and compatibility, with a focus on machine stability rather than performance. These decisions resulted in a slower processor and smaller disks than the maximum available at the time. In other words, exactly the type of machine a corporate office might look at deploying.
Installation
Upon inserting the disk and rebooting, I was presented with a graphical GRUB bootloader screen. I selected "install" and the YaST installer started up. If you've ever used SuSE, you should know what to expect out of YaST. It does a quick analysis of your system and suggests intelligent defaults for the install. When I previously installed JDS Release 1, the installer automatically chose ReiserFS as the filesystem and detected all the hardware without issue. The same thing occurred this time, except that I told the installer to upgrade the current installation instead of reformatting my ReiserFS partition.
After the installer finished analyzing the system, it proceeded to install all the packages from the first disk. This appeared to be core system components such as the kernel and command line utilities. The installer then asked me to remove the CDROM and reboot. After the reboot, the installer relaunched and began installing packages from the second and third CDROMs. When it was finished, I was presented with the Java Desktop login screen.
All in all, it doesn't appear that the installer has changed from Release 1 to Release 2. The install was straightforward, easy, and intelligent. I can't say that I have any complaints in this area, save for the fact that the install "feels" very much ripped from SuSE rather than having been customized for JDS.
Overview
Upon login, you are presented with a highly customized GNOME interface that looks a lot like Windows. There's the "Launch" button on the lower-left hand corner, volume control on the right, and the list of open windows in the middle. There are only two things about the interface that would seem unfamiliar to a Windows user. The first is that the clock is located directly to the right of the Launch button. This is pretty minor and will only confuse users for a short while. The second difference is the addition of a desktop pager. This is potentially dangerous feature as help desks are bound to receive a large number of calls from users who believe that it caused all their programs to crash. Thankfully, it can be easily removed via the right-click popup menu.
A useful assortment of both Open Source and commercial software can be found under the "Launch" menu. All the standard GNOME utilities and games are there, as well as Mozilla, Real Player, Macromedia Flash, StarOffice, Evolution, GIMP, Java Media Player, and a variety of open source Java software. Given the visual integration of the Desktop and GNOME software, Mozilla and RealPlayer seem out of place. Mozilla has a skin to make it look like a JDS application, but the skin is only half complete. In all fairness, it has been much improved since Release 1. Never the less, there are still a lot of visual glitches and combined button styles.
RealPlayer is the same free player that is available for download from the Real site. As one would expect, there is no full screen support, and it does not integrate with the desktop in any way other than to associate itself with RealPlayer files. Sadly, not even the file associations works correctly. Double clicking on a RealMedia file merely results in an error message about expecting a file path instead of a URL. RealPlayer then forces you to navigate its antiquated File|Open menu in order to open the file.
The Java Media Player is pretty much useless. Of all the videos on my NTFS drive (including professional videos of real events, recordings of television shows, and VCD cartoons for the kids), only some MPEGs (excluding the VCDs) and a few documentary clips of shuttle launches were able to play. MP3s do play, but JMP doesn't have a playlist to queue them up. On top of that, JMP automatically loops both audio and video files. In short, Sun needs to spend a little time working out a few of the kinks in the player.
StarOffice is nearly identical to the latest OpenOffice release, sans two minor differences. For one, the look and feel has been smoothed out to give it a more professional feel. Second, the clipart library has been upgraded with a wide variety of images for spicing up any document or presentation.
As it turns out, Evolution is a very slick email client. The email setup is reminiscent of Outlook Express, but with the addition of a zooming world map for choosing your physical location. I have no idea why Evolution needs geographical information, but the map widget is so impressive that you'll find yourself not caring. Once Evolution is configured, the interface looks and functions almost exactly like that of Microsoft Outlook. Weather, news, calendar, mail, and contacts lists are all there and function as one would expect. A few features for grouping mail appear to be missing, but this is far from a deal breaker. Even advanced users of Microsoft Outlook should feel right at home.
GIMP is included as an alternative to Photoshop and MS Paint. While the version number is 1.3, the interface is the same as the new 2.0 series of GIMP. Sun must have decided to include a well tested development branch that lead to the 2.0 release.
Java Desktop System also adds a desktop folder called "Network Places" that's very similar to the Windows' Network Neighborhood. It allows you to access various network file systems including FTP, SMB, and NFS. Mounting one of these file systems simply adds a shortcut to the "Network Places" folder instead of actually mounting the it to the underlying filesystem. This has the side effect of preventing most programs from opening and saving files to these locations. Attempts to open a file are usually met with the message "[program] does not support [ftp|smb] urls". To get around this issue, I found myself copying files to and from the desktop to edit them.
SMB (Windows File Sharing) was particularly annoying. The Network Browser doesn't work without a Domain Controller, and every time I changed directories or copied files, I found myself facing three or four "enter password" dialogs. While I was able to muddle through, businesses may wish to consider adding smbfs entries to the '/etc/fstab' file instead.
Java Support
Java support in Release 2 is overall a very pleasant experience. Applets work without any configuration, and Java Web Start programs launch at the click of a link. Even executable JAR files work correctly, which is a major improvement over the previous version of JDS. Given that JDS has no native installer or packaging system, the support for executable JAR files will finally allow ISVs to deploy software on the Java Desktop System.
New in this Release
Java Desktop System Release 2 comes with a mixed bag of new features and broken software. On the up side, JDS now allows you to create and modify Launch Menu icons by right clicking on the open menu. The new Online Update program is very cool looking, and easy to use. It also adds a CD with the Java Development Kit (JDK 1.4) and the NetBeans IDE. Unfortunately, it does a lot of things quite badly as well.
The first thing I noticed was that the graphical boot has disappeared. Where I used to see an att attractive progress bar while booting, I now see a small icon of Tux that quickly scrolls off the screen as the system boots. I'm sure that Sun had their reasons for this, but it makes the system look much less professional.
The next thing I noticed was that several programs were broken. The Online Update program appears to replace the "Online Software Update" program from the previous version. Too bad Sun mislinked it to consolehelper instead of consolehelper-gtk. Perhaps this was an artifact of doing an update instead of a clean install, but somehow I doubt it. It would be far more likely that the link simply wouldn't exist. It's a good thing that Sun is deploying this to corporate users. Home users would have no idea how to fix such a problem.
Sun also added two icons for "Sun Instant Messenger". The first one is a link to a JNLP file that supposedly launches the software. This returns a 404 Not Found from Sun's website. The other icon is a link to sign up for the service. If you follow the link and sign up for the service, you are presented with two launch options. Supposedly one is over a secure VPN. The "non-VPN" link points to an unsigned application. I don't know what they're thinking, but Java Webstart won't launch an unsecured application that asks for unrestricted access to the machine. Launching the link for the VPN version fails with a missing library. Do they want people to try this service or not?
The last change is pretty minor. Totem (listed as "Video Player") seems to have completely disappeared from the system. While the icon for it remains, GNOME cannot find the executable. Again, this may be from the fact that I did an update instead of a clean install. It really doesn't matter as Sun's release of Totem has very few advantages over the Java Media Player.
Final Thoughts
Despite the rather "rushed" feel to Release 2, the Sun Java Desktop System is slowly shaping up into a serious Corporate competitor to Microsoft Windows. Many managers will probably decide that they wish to stick with their Windows laptops for the time being, but they'll probably drool at the opportunity to replace the rest of their very expensive Windows infrastructure. Home users might also appreciate this OS in its prebundled OEM form since its similarity to the Windows interface makes it easy to learn and use. However, they may wish to wait a few releases for Sun to work out the bugs.
Sun has long been criticized for its failure to jump on the Linux bandwagon. Open Source advocates often point to Sun's competitors as an example of why Sun should embrace Linux. With the release of the Java Desktop System, customers can now rejoice at Sun's willingness to please. But does this desktop stack up to the competition, or will it fail as surely Corel Linux did? To answer this question, I purchased Sun's Java Desktop System and took it through its paces.
Installation
The OS came on a total of 6 CD-ROMs, all packed into a standard Sun media kit folder. As is customary with modern distros, the first three CDs contain the binary packages, while the fourth and fifth CDs contain the source code. The source CDs are particularly necessary if you wish to install third party kernel modules. (e.g. The official Nvidia driver.) The sixth CD is merely a collection of various open source and Sun documentation packages. I personally didn't find the documentation CD to be of much value. Of particular annoyance was the fact that all the screen shots on the were for a vanilla GNOME desktop or SuSE install. None of the documentation was really JDS specific.
Installing the Java Desktop System was quick and easy. All of my hardware was detected automatically (including my ISA Awe32 sound card), and JDS chose intelligent defaults for everything. That includes choosing the ReiserFS format by default (a very sensible choice). Beyond that, but there really isn't much more to say. After it autodetected everything, I clicked “Next” and it began installing the OS. A reboot later I was sitting at the fully installed desktop. Overall, a very pleasant experience.
Java Integration
Despite the name of the product, Java integration is something of a mixed bag. On one hand, browser integration works great. Applets work without any special configuration, and Java Web Start applications can be launched and/or installed with a single click of the mouse. On the other hand, support for standard Java applications is very poor.
The first problem is that only the JRE is included. This makes it impossible to do any Java development without downloading and running a full JDK install. Even worse, executable JAR files open in the archive manager instead of being launched with the 'java -jar' command. This is inexcusable for an operating system that carries the Java name. The final annoyance is in the default Swing look and feel. Sun has a GTK+ look and feel, but the default OS L&F is the standard Metal L&F. The result is that Java applications stick out like a badly bruised thumb.
Thankfully, there is a silver lining. Sun has promised to add developer tools to the May release of JDS (not available as of this writing). This package is supposed to include the JDK, Java Studio, and NetBeans 3.6. It will be available to anyone who payed for a previous version of JDS. With any luck, that version will transform the OS into a much more attractive option for both developers and ISVs.
Software
The Java Desktop System comes with a useful assortment of both Open Source and commercial software. All the standard GNOME utilities and games are there, as well as Mozilla, Real Player, Macromedia Flash, StarOffice, Java Media Player, and a variety of open source Java software. Given the visual integration of the Desktop and GNOME software, Mozilla and RealPlayer seem out of place. Mozilla has a skin to make it look like a JDS application, but the skin is only half complete.
RealPlayer is the same free player available for download from the Real site. As one would expect, there is no full screen support, and it does not integrate with the desktop in any way other than to associate itself with RealPlayer files. Sadly, not even the file associations work. Double clicking on the file causes Nautilus to pass RealPlayer a URL instead of a file path. Predictably, RealPlayer chokes on this URL and forces you to navigate its antiquated File|Open menu.
Third Party Software installation is even more problematic. Sun's version of YaST 2 is sufficient to install only a small subset of Open Source software available for Linux, as well as automatically install the latest security updates. In theory, new versions of the OS will also be delivered via the same interface. Beyond that, there are no graphical tools for software installation. Even SuSE's YaST interface for installing RPMs appears to have been removed. This leaves the user with the choice of either running 'rpm –install' manually, or compiling software from it source.
When I spoke with Sun on the issue, they acknowledged that it was problem and suggested that I try a Java product such as Zero G. Unfortunately, Sun's failure to add support for executable JAR files means that even products like Zero G won't be able to create installers that launch from the GUI. Hopefully this oversight will be corrected in the near future.
On the bright side, the Nautilus file manager has been configured to be very similar to Windows Explorer, and should feel perfectly natural to any Windows user. Only the highly attractive icons and in-icon preview mode keep you from forgetting that you're not in Windows.
The GNOME interface has also been tweaked to feel very much like Windows. The standard “foot” menu applet has been restyled into a “Launch” button that's reminiscent of the Window's “Start” menu. To the right of the “Launch” button, you have your system clock, the list of running programs, then the system tray icons (including the Volume Control). Other than the clock being in an odd place, this should all seem very natural to a Windows user. The desktop pager might cause some confusion, so companies may prefer to disable it before they receive the inevitable “my applications disappeared!” tech support call.
Multimedia
In the past, many desktops have used their business focus as an excuse to include reduced multimedia support. Normally I'd simply make a note of it and move on. In JDS's case, Sun has also made an effort to target home users through OEM machines sold at WalMart. It's possible that Sun has added extra multimedia capabilities to the OEM install of JDS, but I do not have such a machine to verify this supposition. Thus I must to proceed on the assumption that the OEM version of JDS is no different than the Media Kit.. This is rather unfortunate for Sun as multimedia support is one of the weakest areas of the Java Desktop System.
JDS includes the Java Media Player, GPlayer, and Totem. Double clicking on an MP3 brings up the Java Media Player. The upside is that JMP plays MP3 files. The downside is that each instance is only good for playing one file. Play lists are out of the question, and the default is to continuously loop on the same file.
None of the Media Players I tried would play any of the AVI files I had available to test with. Since most AVIs today are encoded in patented formats like MPEG4, this came as no surprise to me. Most Linux distros seem to be attempting to avoid patent issues in a similar fashion. Given how large of a company Sun is, it would be a nice surprise for them to simply license the patents required to legally ship non-crippled software.
MPEG2 files were associated with Gplayer. These seemed to play reasonably well. I had very few MPEG2 files on hand, so I found that other than testing there wasn't much use for this support. I do not have a DVD drive, but it's possible that this program is for current or planned DVD support.
3D support is non-existent. In fact, Sun has completely removed the GLX extension. I only realized this omission after downloading the NVidia Linux drivers from the official site (only the generic 'nv' driver is included in JDS), and attempting to run a few JOGL (Java OpenGL) programs. I was a bit surprised when the first program immediately exited, and the second program hung. A quick check of the console confirmed that the GLX extension couldn't be found.
In the end, I performed a command line install of XMMS and Xine. This was sufficient to make use of my multimedia collection. 3D games are still out of the question.
Overall Impression
The interesting part about the Java Desktop System is that despite all it's flaws, it's actually a very pleasant and usable system. I would even go as far as to say that it reminds me a lot of when I first started using Windows 95. Everything is new and shiny, the desktop is pleasant on the eyes, the GUI is responsive, and you don't feel the overwhelming need to drop to a terminal. Given that the JDS interface is supposed to be ported to Solaris, it may be that Sun intends JDS Linux to be to Solaris as Windows 9x was to NT.
The downside of such a comparison is that JDS Linux is just about as quirky as Windows 9x. Putting an Audio CD in the drive once caused the CD Player to hang and the rest of the system to respond in short spurts. Opening and closing the CD Drive resolved the problem. Another time I was doing an 'rpm --rebuild' in a terminal (JDS uses GLIBC 2.2.5 instead of the latest 2.3) and the GUI became sluggish and unresponsive. Data CDs will frequently fail to eject, supposedly in use by some mysterious program. None of these quirks are insurmountable, but they do give the OS a “beta quality” feel to it.
JDS does have a few things in its favor that Windows 95 didn't. Unlike Microsoft, Sun releases updates to their software on a quarterly basis. This means that major OS fixes are (hopefully) no more than 3-6 months away. JDS also has the advantage of being able to pull from a large base of existing software. Whereas Microsoft had to build everything for themselves (admittedly a doable task for such a large company), Sun can pick up an Open Source project that meets their needs, add some polish, submit the changes back to the project, and release it with the next update of JDS.
Wish List
Besides the standard list of OS improvements (e.g. Make it faster, support more hardware, bundle more software, etc.), I believe Sun could really improve their OS by making use of some of their business connections and clout as a large corporation. For example, Sun should license the MPEG4 and/or DivX codecs. That alone would make Sun the only Linux company to distribute a working media player. Next on the list, they could convince Adobe to create a version of Acrobat that would integrate with the GNOME desktop. Even a RealPlayer version that supported full screen would be a welcome change.
Beyond that, I think that Sun really needs to take the lead on software installation. Packaging systems are great for keeping system libraries and command line programs in sync. Unfortunately, installing a GUI program ends up being a frustrating experience fraught with dependency hell. Simply defining a new standard for GUI software installation (preferably one that included all dependencies) would go a long way toward making the system more usable to the technology challenged. Even those of us who are experienced with Linux would readily appreciate being saved the trouble of tracking down dependency after dependency.
Final Thoughts
If you're a business looking to break your Microsoft habit, or a Linux user who's looking for a distro with a comfortable GUI, then JDS is definitely for you. If you're a home user looking for an OS that's cheaper and easier than Windows, then I suggest that you wait a few releases before making the big leap.
One way or another, JDS represents a tremendous shift in usable Linux Desktops. I applaud Sun's efforts and eagerly await their future offering.
If you haven't read my first entry, I would be much obliged if you did. It gives the setup for this series of articles. While you're at it, you might even go back and read the Mandrake review as well as the comments.
So here I am. A SuSE 9.0 boot CD in my hand, and a desire to find a Linux distro that works. I'll be damned if SuSE isn't off to a great start. They *only* allow Internet installs via a small boot ISO. And unlike the Fedora boot.iso, this thing has everything. Installation, Rescue CD, boot manager, etc. I might just have to keep this thing around for the next time an OS goes haywire.
The installation proceeded smoothly, right after I got over the initial confusion caused when the CD asked for the IP Address of the FTP server. It turns out that you can enter a hostname just fine. (A hint: Make sure you write down the name of your mirror server, as well as the directory SuSE is in before you start the installation. There's no predefined list of mirrors to choose from.)
The installation GUI was slick, with it autodetecting just about everything. I had to change a few setting (such as installing GRUB on
Once installed, I rebooted only to see "GRUB" on the screen and nothing else. Thankfully this great install disk of SuSE's allows me to boot into an existing OS directly from the CD. Once I was in, I played with GRUB until I got it to work. It turns out that the BIOS informs GRUB that the drives are backwards when booting from the second drive. Thus (hd1,5) (where it was looking) was actually (hd0,5), and Windows was (hd1,0). I changed the menu.lst file and everything worked fine.
I suppose I should probably be annoyed by this problem, but I'm not. Given that I'm installing these OSes onto the second partition of a secondary slave drive, I'm willing to cut them some slack.
When the system came up, everything pretty much worked. All my NTFS drives were mounted, the sound worked, I could play MP3s, my TV card worked flawlessly, etc. Things that didn't work were the mouse wheel, and the video player. The mouse wheel was easily fixed by adding in the "ZAxisMapping" setting to the XF86Config file. The video player played sound, but there was no picture. This really didn't bother me too much as I was planning to install VLC.
Which brings me to my next point. Why does every Linux install have to involve RPM hell? I had to pull 15-20 RPMs from various sources in order to get VLC installed. Most home users won't know what "libtheora" is, where to get it, or how to install it. Not to mention scary names like "libart_gpl.0". Linux systems work fine for the software that's in their catalog, but anything even slightly "different" becomes a real pain in the ass for users. It's time to decide whether Linux wants to be a "hacker's system" where everything is compiled from source, or a "desktop system" where binary compatibility and simple installation is a must. So far, Linux has been targeting the "Workstation" market which just isn't good enough. FreeBSD, Windows, and Mac OS X will eat Linux for lunch in that market.
Anyway, after mucking around with half a billion RPMs, VLC installed and even put itself into the SuSE start menu. (A nice touch.) I then loaded one of the kids' cartoons off of the NTFS drive, and it played flawlessly.
I still have to set up the NVidia drivers, but otherwise the system is working beautifully. My only complaint is (wait for it) my mouse still locks up!!! Ok, it doesn't happen as much on SuSE. In fact, I thought that the problem didn't exist until I was mucking around in the hardware GUI trying to make the GUI install my mouse wheel. That was the first time it locked up, and I figured that as long as I didn't mess with any hardware, I'd be okay. Well, it eventually locks up anyway. This seems to be an epidemic with the Linux kernel.
Please! If anyone knows how to fix the mouse problem, tell me! This is the only major issue I'm having with SuSE!
Final Verdict: I think we have a winner. There's still a few areas that would be difficult for the average user (e.g. Setting up the mouse wheel, installing the NVidia drivers, and dealing with the installation of non-catalog software like VLC), but overall it was easy to set up, and the YaST2 software library made software installation a breeze. I'm very pleased with SuSE, and would recommend it to anyone looking to find an easy to use Linux system.
Update: Check out Dot.Com.CEO's review of SuSE in the comments!
"Protozoa are small, and bacteria are small, but viruses are smaller than the both put together."
