Rating: 
Summary: Not for everyone
Review: First off if you are into multimedia back away from this OS right now! It is NOT a full multimedia operating system.
I have both the free version from the site and this boxed version. I did have it on my mother computer so she doesn't need to worry with viruses. But on finding out there are few games(except online Java games)that work well with Suse. And DVD playback is a no no on most ALL Linux OSes. Why? Playback on Linux is basically illegal! It scares the Hollywood bigwigs,into thinking we Linux users will duplicate the decoder and make copies(too late). She's now using Windows XP and happier. I use Suse at times,but still it needs work. I prefer Linspire. It works like Windows and yes something for everyone with it!
So,if your a basic user who has good hardware,and just wants to play music and burn CD's than enjoy! Also,if your a heavy web sufer who needs seccurrity while online,welcome!
Everyone else as you see here,will complain or want their Windows back. Try Linspireinstead,trust me.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent
Review: I have been using it for a short time so, I am a newcomer but it has a lot nice features very worthy. The interface is amazing, very beautiful and easy to understand. The installation was incredibly easy and everything was done automatically, the only thing I had to do was to select some extra choices about the way how to partition the hard drive to install it as a multi boot (Windows XP and Linux). Actually, it was less complicated than the windows XP installation. The internet connection was easy to do and immediately update was done. The only problem I had was when I installed a PCI wireless Ethernet card that did not bring drivers for Linux, however I found it in internet but it was not easy to deal with. The graphics are incredible, and the office suite included in the software (free) is very complete. The word processor, database manager and the spreadsheet are plenty of features. There are other many application but it takes time to get to learn them. It is amazing, all for less than 40$.
Rating:
Summary: Very Good Distro
Review: I'm a bit surprised at the negative reviews written before this one. I do not believe this distro is anywhere near as bad as these reviewers are making it out to be. OK, here is what I got:My computer is a personal built Intel P4 (2ghz) with 512mb RAM, 80 gig hard drive, GeForce 4 video card, SoundBlaster live sound card, NetGear ethernet card, LiteOn CDRW, LiteOn DVDRW-that's the essentials. Now I have my hard drive partitioned roughly in half with Windows 2000 on the first partition. I installed this distro to the second partition. No problems what so ever. I can boot into windows or suse just fine with no problems. Now I used the default settings on the install (they are just fine), but you can change stuff around. If you do change where and how it loads, be sure to know what you are doing first. I suspect that is how people get themselves in trouble then blame the product. The default settings work great, so don't change'em unless you really need to. All the programs are there, from web browsing to Open Office. The interface is nice and clean yet it is still very customizable. Open Office has opened all my windows office files without difficulty. My wife, who couldn't care less about computers other then web surfing and email, has no problem using SUSE. She took to it right away and hasn't had any problems finding her way around. This distro has organized the programs very well and I've found things easy to find. I think SUSE did a very fine job. I've used alot of other distros, but I always come back to SUSE sooner or later.
Rating: 
Summary: Machine will not boot now
Review: I'm a software developer who likes to use a gnome desktop on linux. With the fall of RedHat's desktop linux, and the need for a 2.6 kernel for SATA support, I decided to buy SuSE personal 9.1. I figured it would be a basic version, but I thought I could download additional packages with SuSE's great tool Yast. Unfortunately, this Personal edition does not include gnome, and you cannot download it using Yast because SuSE has not posted the 9.1 files on their FTP server yet. What really made this product useless to me was the fact that, out of the box, the make or gcc programs were not installed! If they were installed I could not find them in the path or on the hard drive! Without a C complier any unix-based system is useless in my opinion. If you just want something for writing Word docs and surfing the web using the KDE desktop (which is excellent), this is fine. If you plan on doing anything remotely sophisticated, FORGET IT. Get the professional edition (overpriced IMO) or some other distro.
Rating: 
Summary: personal edition is crippled
Review: I'm a software developer who likes to use a gnome desktop on linux. With the fall of RedHat's desktop linux, and the need for a 2.6 kernel for SATA support, I decided to buy SuSE personal 9.1. I figured it would be a basic version, but I thought I could download additional packages with SuSE's great tool Yast. Unfortunately, this Personal edition does not include gnome, and you cannot download it using Yast because SuSE has not posted the 9.1 files on their FTP server yet. What really made this product useless to me was the fact that, out of the box, the make or gcc programs were not installed! If they were installed I could not find them in the path or on the hard drive! Without a C complier any unix-based system is useless in my opinion. If you just want something for writing Word docs and surfing the web using the KDE desktop (which is excellent), this is fine. If you plan on doing anything remotely sophisticated, FORGET IT. Get the professional edition (overpriced IMO) or some other distro.
Rating:
Summary: Not as good as 9.0 Personal
Review: I'm not sure why Suse changed the nature of their product. It seems that after using 9.0 and loving it, they created this version of 9.1 with KDE 3.2 and things work, but, not in the same manner as before. I tried using the TV Tuner software and that use to work on my 9.0 system and now it works much more flakey. I installed 9.1 on my Thinkpad T22 and the a strange noise emits from the computer. Plus, very little packages that you need are available anymore. I think Novell is trying to make it less worthwhile to use the GUI environment native to Suse and go out and buy Ximian Desktop (which the by the way doesn't install on 9.1, OS isn't recognized).
Rating:
Summary: Do NOT buy this product to UPGRADE your old SuSE!!!!!
Review: In general, I think SuSE has always produced a great product. I've been using SuSE since version 6.4 and It's been my primary home operating system since version 8.0. I do not use Windows at all. I'm currently running SuSE Linux 8.2 and I'm very satisfied with it. I was anxiously awaiting SuSE 9.1 and the new SuSE kernel in the inexpensive "personal" edition that I've always used to update my SuSE Linux O/S. I soon discovered that Novell has changed things!!! !!!YOU CAN NO LONGER UPDATE YOUR SuSE Linux OPERATING SYSTEM USING THE PERSONAL EDITION!!!! I'm not sure if this changed in version 9.0 or within this version, but it was a shock to me. I've always used the inexpensive personal edition and supplemented it with downloaded software from various sites online. To all long-time SuSE Users considering buying this version, be aware that you will need to have the "update" or "professional" edition to update your current SuSE Linux system! I'm very disappointed by this change, particularly since I spent about $30 on a version that I have no use for whatsoever. The box should have been clearly labeled to indicate that this version CANNOT BE USED FOR UPDATING SYSTEMS and I would strongly recommend that Novell place this prominently on the box in the future!!! For USERS NEW TO SuSE AND/OR Linux WHO WANT TO GIVE IT A TRY, I can recommend this edition however. The "Live CD" makes trying SuSE painless and SuSE is still probably the best desktop Linux around for the price that's *relatively* easy to install, configure, and enjoy. As for those users complaining that it doesn't work with or like Windows, I think they just wanted a cheap Windows knock-off, but Linux is something different and has to be approached as a separate thing with its own merits. A new user will have to learn Linux just as they once had to learn Windows. It's an adjustment, but it's not so bad if you can devote a little time and energy to learning it. Novell folks reading this review: LABEL THIS CLEARLY NOT FOR UPDATING, DANGIT!!!! IF I EVER WASTE MONEY LIKE THIS AGAIN, I WILL BOYCOTT YOUR PRODUCT!!!
Rating:
Summary: Do NOT buy this product to UPGRADE your old SuSE!!!!!
Review: In general, I think SuSE has always produced a great product. I've been using SuSE since version 6.4 and It's been my primary home operating system since version 8.0. I do not use Windows at all. I'm currently running SuSE Linux 8.2 and I'm very satisfied with it. I was anxiously awaiting SuSE 9.1 and the new SuSE kernel in the inexpensive "personal" edition that I've always used to update my SuSE Linux O/S. I soon discovered that Novell has changed things!!! !!!YOU CAN NO LONGER UPDATE YOUR SuSE Linux OPERATING SYSTEM USING THE PERSONAL EDITION!!!! I'm not sure if this changed in version 9.0 or within this version, but it was a shock to me. I've always used the inexpensive personal edition and supplemented it with downloaded software from various sites online. To all long-time SuSE Users considering buying this version, be aware that you will need to have the "update" or "professional" edition to update your current SuSE Linux system! I'm very disappointed by this change, particularly since I spent about $30 on a version that I have no use for whatsoever. The box should have been clearly labeled to indicate that this version CANNOT BE USED FOR UPDATING SYSTEMS and I would strongly recommend that Novell place this prominently on the box in the future!!! For USERS NEW TO SuSE AND/OR Linux WHO WANT TO GIVE IT A TRY, I can recommend this edition however. The "Live CD" makes trying SuSE painless and SuSE is still probably the best desktop Linux around for the price that's *relatively* easy to install, configure, and enjoy. As for those users complaining that it doesn't work with or like Windows, I think they just wanted a cheap Windows knock-off, but Linux is something different and has to be approached as a separate thing with its own merits. A new user will have to learn Linux just as they once had to learn Windows. It's an adjustment, but it's not so bad if you can devote a little time and energy to learning it. Novell folks reading this review: LABEL THIS CLEARLY NOT FOR UPDATING, DANGIT!!!! IF I EVER WASTE MONEY LIKE THIS AGAIN, I WILL BOYCOTT YOUR PRODUCT!!!
Rating:
Summary: Microsoft has nothing to worry about
Review: Let me start off by saying I'm a fan of the idea of Linux and have played with a few versions over the years. It's nice to think that you have an option other than Windows when it comes to PCs. Don't get me started on how I wish OS/2 was still around either.
I bought this product to use on my laptop, an IBM Thinkpad. It's now sitting on the shelf whilst I re-install Win2K.
Firstly, the CD wouldn't boot. I tried everything. It's only because of past experience that I knew you could make linux boot disks using rawrite that I even got the thing finally installed. The manual that came with this product was useless and I couldn't find any boot disk images or rawrite utilities on the 2 CDs either. I had to go online and find them.
Once installed, everything looked great but the sound didn't work properly. After going online again, I managed to find a BIOS tweak that fixed it.
Well, I was ready to roll with my nice new Linux system. I popped in a DVD and... it dodn't work. This product comes with NO DVD support. Given the popularity of DVD players in computer systems, this strikes me as nothing less than madness to not incorporate it in a new release of ANY operating system.
Guess what? I went online (again) and found that there was a solution to getting DVD to work, which involved several downloads and tweaking. I finally got a DVD to play, but then once I started the system the following day, It would no longer work.
So, I uninstalled and went back to my old Windows platform. It may be the evil corporation and it may need patches galore for security issues, but at least it works right out of the box.
In conclusion, Linux (at least this distrib) still has a long way to go before your average PC user will ever go near it. They would have given up at the non booting CD stage. Considering my own personal struggles with this product, I wish I had.
Rating: 
Summary: Not as good as 9.0 Personal
Review: Updated Review (17 July 2004): I've been using Suse 9.1 on the IBM 600x for a few weeks now, and I think I may have been wrong about the distro. It is working real well now. I used the wireless driver, ndiswrapper and now have wireless connectivity without the linuxant driver. I had to go out to the internet to configure it, but, after some simple web searches, you can make it work. I installed Suse 9.1 on a Thinkpad 600x and didn't get that sound anymore, so, I was wrong about Suse 9.1 creating the noise. My apologies. But, when I tried doing some simple like MAKE, it wasn't installed by default. Wireless is still a pain to install, the easiest way to do this is to use Linuxant's drivers. I'm not sure why Suse changed the nature of their product. It seems that after using 9.0 and loving it, they created this version of 9.1 with KDE 3.2 and things work, but, not in the same manner as before. I tried using the TV Tuner software and that use to work on my 9.0 system and now it works much more flakey. I installed 9.1 on my Thinkpad T22 and the a strange noise emits from the computer. Plus, very little packages that you need are available anymore. I think Novell is trying to make it less worthwhile to use the GUI environment native to Suse and go out and buy Ximian Desktop (which the by the way doesn't install on 9.1, OS isn't recognized).
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