Rating: 
Summary: great OS for those switching from WinDOZE
Review: This operating system has all the benifits of windows: easy to use, autodetects almost all hardware devices, is compatabale with NTFS (the windows file system) and using certain applications (like WINE) you can even play windows games on it. The difference is you also have the extrememly powerful LINUX operating system at your disposal... Even logged in as the administrator with windows it will still prevent you from performing a huge variety of tasks, but with Suse you can log in as "root" (linux's version of administrator) and do whatever you deem necessary, then log back in under your normal profile... its a win-win situation at less than half the cost of the current version of windows xp.. (not to mention the incredible variety of applications that come with suse, which I might add are almost entirely free!) I know some other distrobutions of linux are free (almost all of them in fact) but I've found suse to be more user-friendly (especially since I myself am switching over from being a long-time windows user) If you're asking yourself "does he sell this product seperately or something" nope.. I'm the network admin for a small company and I do a lot of tech support, I've simply found this operating system to be better than all those I've tried before...
Rating: 
Summary: Solid, complete linux for the power user and linux geeks
Review: SuSE 9.0 Pro is everything every knowledgeable linux user could want. And this is precisely its main disadvantage, as converting new users from Windows with this distro is going to be a bit difficult due to the learning courve. The documentation and the OS in general follows the original trend of using linux acronyms instead of "plain english" in several critical places that leave the begginer confused. For example: why the need to label the Video Configuration editing program "sax2"?. If you tell a windows user just beggining with Windows "You just need to run Sax2" do you imagine the look on his face?. Don't get me wrong, SuSE 9.0 pro is a great linux for the linux connoisseur. If you are "into" Linux and you are looking for the best distro (specially after the news that Red Hat is leaving the retail space and end-user market), get SuSE 9.0 pro. Installing it from the dual-side DVD-ROM is a pleasure!. This is a good excuse to get a dvd-rom drive if you don't have one already. Instead, if you are trying to convert someone from Windows to Linux, you will have better results by introducing him/her to something like LindowsOS 4.0. The only "bad point" I give SuSE 9.0 pro is that the default config is too "kde-centric". For instance the default browser is Konqueror with is highly annoying (for example you try to bookmark a web page using the familiar ctrl-d and you get a Duplicate browser window opened). Once you switch to Mozilla 1.4 as the default browser, everything gets useable again. I think one of the first things Novell should do with this product is to remove the reliance on half-baked KDE utils and use the "best of breed" tools for every area. (For example: why include KDEMail at all, with decent email clients already in the package in the form of Mozilla Mail and Ximian?). OpenOffice 1.1 is okay, yet I would like to see them including the full StarOffice 7 suite from Sun, instead of the "free" opensource version.
A cd-burning and dvd-burning program is included!.
Rating:
Summary: Easy Install
Review: After reading several reviews, I was a bit intimidated when it came to installing Linux along side Windows. Fear not!! This software made the install as simple as I've seen. I am NOT a PC GURU by any stretch of the imagination, and the install went flawlessly. If you want to get a little information on some of the terminology used during the install (it was greek to me) I found an online course at www.linux.org that you can take for free, it will help explain some of the lingo and will ease your mind a bit. If want to move to Linux (a good move in my opinion) don't let others intimidate your decision because they refuse to read manuals. Linux is working great for me, it has loads of tools, from picture editing, cd burning etc... I think you'll find it a great OS for your PC. By the way, I have had no problems booting into Windows, switching back and forth is done when you re-boot the machine.
Rating:
Summary: highly recommended
Review: An easy install. Download the evaluation and try, then buy. Downloading evaluation tedious & many drop server connections.
Have dell 8200,philips dvd+ burner,adaptec firewire/usb pci card, dvd-ram&dvd-r external firewire drive, 2 firewire&usb hubs,
usb san disk reader, wacom usb tablet, old panasonic printer,
viewsonic VG171 lcd monitor for hardware. Everything works.
Dual booting with winxp. Partitioned hard drive with Power Quest Partition Magic and then installed SuSe 9.0 Pro.
Moved from Mandrake which will no longer install.
Enjoy & best wishes.
Rating:
Summary: Hello, people! It's not called "Open Source" for nothing!
Review: I bought my copy of SuSE 9 Pro back in November. The only problem I had was that the N-Vidia graphics card I bought wasn't supported right from the installation. However, a quick trip to the N-Vidia website solved the problem with a driver program. (Hence the 4 stars and not 5.)
People, this is Linux. Just like all other Linux distros it falls under the GNU Public License, meaning it is open source software. If you have a problem, don't try calling the SuSE help desk! Go online, find a linux chat line, and ask the users to help you with your problem. We have ALL been there, and won't look down on you because you have a problem with a particular linux distro. Half the time you can find what the problem was to begin with on sourceforge.net. This might seem like a bit of work to some, but the rewards of Linux are well worth it! Rewards such as free office software, incredible graphics, powerful programming tools, ect... Now that the sermon is over, back to the review. SuSE Linux 9.0 Professional ROCKS! There is almost too much being offered on this distro. Don't get me wrong, I will still use XP, (mainly just for games and surfing the internet) but I'm finding it harder and harder to justify using it. SuSE packs just about every tool you can think of in 9.0 Pro. I have two computers: one running SuSE Linux 9.0 which cost about $500 including all the software, and one running Windows XP that cost about $1600 (not including the games!). I could have the XP computer do as much as the SuSE machine, but I don't have an extra one or two thousand dollars lying around. I think that to be an objective reviewer, I should say what I use the computer for: Web design (using GNU Emacs), programming (Java), office documents (Open Office), graphics design (Gimp), and learning MySQL. All of these and more are included with the package. You don't have to buy any of this software, even the SuSE linux distribution, but it sure will save you alot of time over downloading the programs yourself. So do yourself a favor, plunk down your money and buy it. PS. Even my non-computer geek wife likes it!
Rating:
Summary: Best Linux available, bar none!
Review: I've tried all the big ones - Red Hat 5.2 through 7.3, Mandrake 7.0 through 8.2, and finally I found SuSE. Now, unlike many others, I have a dedicated machine for Linux. It's a couple of years old, but I'll get it on a newer machine next year. Anyway, I've never encountered any of the problems except the mouse problem listed below in other reviews. It's not uncommon to SuSE, either. I had the same mouse problem in Mandrake Linux too. Seems Microsoft uses something proprietary in their mice. Getting a Logitech or other non-Microsoft mouse fixes the issue. My only gripe: SuSE ships with crippled software. Some applications, due to possible unwanted litigation, are crippled to block certain features. I understand that a Linux distro vender doesn't want any legal mess, but Mandrake and Red Hat both provided full working versions of the software they provided. However, there are several places to go on the internet, including a great one by a guy that calls himself Packman, to get newer rpm packages that have complete usability. I burned a bunch of mp3's while writing this review, unlike someone has claimed here. That said, SuSE is every bit as reliable as Red Hat ever was and twice as reliable as Mandrake. Never had reliability issues that I didn't cause myself by messing around where I shouldn't. Unlike Windows, though, dropping into text mode allows you to fix most, if not all, problems without ever rebooting. Yes, Linux has a learning curve. Did you forget you had one when you first sat down to a Windows or Mac computer too? It's a completely different OS, so don't expect it to act anything like an OS you're currently using. You must learn the Linux/Unix way of thinking and how and why it behaves like it does. One thing I like about SuSE is the use of the Kool Desktop Environment, or KDE. It is chock full of eye candy and customization features. Anyone claiming this user interface is dated is just plain lying. No, it isn't the hand holding, brain dumbing, wizards everywhere interface that XP has. That's the point. You have so much free access to customize your experience that Windows and Mac pale in comparison. With your investment in SuSE Linux 9, you not only get the OS, but every application you'll ever need, unless it's something exotic. Compare that to $299 for XP Professional, then all the software you must buy, and the days of installing it all. You check off what you want in SuSE and in about an hour or so, you have your OS _and_ all of your software and drivers up and running. Now, don't get me wrong...there are hardware issues. That's just Linux. Third party hardware companies haven't seen fit to provide Linux drivers for their stuff. Who's fault is that? It's not Linux's... The open source community has done its best to reverse engineer everything they could, and for most, it's fine. For some, there may be problems. Once I started using Linux and got the hang of it, I spend more time using SuSE than I do my Windows machine, and it's both newer and faster.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent - but with a few areas for improvement
Review: I switched from RH 9.0 to SuSE 9.0 Pro because of a few concerns/frustrations with Redhat. (1) Difficulty with configuring access to the Windows network at my workplace, (2) RH's failure to recognize my new box's graphics card (Radeon 9200), (3) Redhat's shift in emphasis/philosophy away from developing and supporting directly Linux for the "average user". So far SuSE 9.0 is doing well on the above concerns plus many others. YaST is overall an excellent way to control bootloader configuration, important for someone like me who messes with several OSes. (RH does not make it so easy.) Or network access/configuration. And many other issues. I am browing our Windows network with no problems. And SuSE 9.0 has supposedly added excellent support for accessing numerous dialup ISP's - a feature I admit I have not had cause to try yet. (Our family uses Netzero, which normally one cannot access under Linux.) Installation was not as easy/smooth as Redhat. Choosing software packages is a bit clumsy the way YaST is set up - I had to search for Evolution, Mozilla, GAIM and then "check" them for installation. I prefer Redhat's partitioning - although I admit SuSE does give more control. (Primary or extended? Ah!) My new Athlon box had trouble reading the software packages on the DVD - had to use the regular CD's, which defeats the whole point. And I am still having trouble getting it to work on my DELL Inspiron 8200 laptop, my main machine - so far SuSE boots to a blank screen. That's not very helpful and pretty much hoses the reason I bought it. That having been said, SuSE is still excellent. It seems much faster than pokey RH 9.0, much much better selection of software packages (Pingus!!! OpenOffice.org 1.1! KDE 3.1! and so on!), hardware detection/compatibility is stronger (whither Fedora?!?). Redhat (now Fedora) can learn some lessons - but frankly the reverse is also true. At least I didn't get a blank screen when using RH 9.0 on my laptop.
Rating:
Summary: lovely "SUSe"
Review: The first time i got interested to know about linux then i felt lucky becoz i had choosen SUSE 9.0 professional. Its installation is very easy even for the naive users.Now i'm recommending it to everyone to feel it. It outclassed "Mandrake" in many sections.Especially its(suse) system requirements are minimal and are compatible to PC users.
Rating:
Summary: SuSE Linux 9.0 becomming the Windows alternative
Review: They really did a great job on SuSE Linux 9.0. The hardware compatiblity is tremendous, along with the hardware it auto detects. Has support for winmodems which is no lie, it picked up the one on my laptop(previous versions did not)and even recognized properly my display adapter(Radeon Mobility 345IGP)and even caught my printer correctly(HP PSC 1210v). I am amazed this time and definately considering switching! It is more secure, stable, and more configurable than Windows possibly ever will be depending on if longhorn really does fix all or most of those previous problems. It has better networking capabilities this time around too. GUI seems to look "cleaner" than previous builds also. If you don't want to spend thousands on a mac(even though they are superior machines)but still want the in between that kind of takes the best of both worlds, then download or buy SuSE Linux 9.0, it's the best version ever!
Rating:
Summary: Be careful of the 1-star reviews...
Review: While I feel great sympathy for the user who rated this amazing product with 1 star (because he lost his Windows partition), I must take issue with some of the statements he made. Yes, it is quite possible to lose your Windows partition when installing Linux, but to do this, you have to simply either NOT read the directions or not realize what the software is asking you to do. Windows will happily remove other OSs from your hard drive without even telling you, or will simply refuse to install, OR will install and render other OSs un-bootable. As for Linux not having hardware support... well, this is somewhat misleading. Not every manufacturer has drivers for Linux, but almost every piece of add-on hardware imaginable is supported or will be supported. As for Linux not having software "on the shelf" at the store... what in the world are you looking for? SuSE comes with *thousands* of packages included. I will admit that if you are a game player, Windows is the platform of choice now, but other than that, you can get just about anything you need ALREADY IN THE BOX. Sheesh. I have used SuSE since the early days and I absolutely love it. It installs with minimal effort and can run on machines that Windows would have trouble even booting on. It comes with tons of great software and has excellent documentation. Try it for yourself! if you are like me, your Windows box will be relegated to the role of being for game-playing only.
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