SuSE Linux 8.0 Professional

Rating:
Summary: Interesting number of negative reviews, recently...
Review: ...Many from them from people who even admit to not buying the product. SuSE Linux is a complete package, from a company that places a great emphasis on after sales support and updates. Security patches and fixes for software vulnerabilities are made available for swift and painless download from their FTP servers within days (sometimes hours) of their becoming available. If secure computing and ease of use matters to you, and you wish to buy your software from a company with real integrity and after sales care, then this is worth every penny.

"Why would anyone pay for this, when you could get it for free", asks one reviewer from SEATTLE (hmm). Well, there are places I know of, where I can get Windows XP for free, but I still wouldn't want it... I'd rather pay for this, thanks :)! I like to but my software off nice companies.

Rating:
Summary: Go linux! but not yet ready for prime time
Review: As soon as my Dell I7k got a new 40Gb HD I thought, "Time to try linux!" Installed nicely with little trouble - set up dual partition, Win98 and Suse linux 8.0. No problems. However - now I discover that my PC card modem will not work with Suse linux (yes, I know why, it is a winmodem, so I can forgive that), but worse is that the PCMCIA network card also is not recognized (much harder to forgive). (Red Hat linux fully supports the card in question - why not Suse linux? When RH 8.0 shows up after the tropical storm passes, I may give it a try.) Sometimes recognized my Iomega CD-RW and sometimes did not. Runs slower than MS Windows 98. Although it does see the Windows partition, which is nice. So now I can log into the church network in *Windows*, download kewl linux apps and eye candy, then log in to linux - and install them from Windows partition. (Anybody else see the problem with this picture?)

Look - I tried out linux because I love the Mac OS X and thought, "This will be close." I want linux to succeed. But until linux (a) becomes more user friendly, (b) offers better hardware support, (c) and has available such killer apps as Dreamweaver, FileMaker Pro, PageMaker (one can live without MS Office) - I will stick with Windows (yuck) or switch to Mac for its gorgeous OS X. Sorry - linux is fun/interesting but *not* ready for prime time.

Being a "home user" I realize I only should have purchased the Personal edition - take note!

Rating:
Summary: Go linux! but not yet ready for prime time
Review: As soon as my Dell I7k got a new 40Gb HD I thought, "Time to try linux!" Installed nicely with little trouble - set up dual partition, Win98 and Suse linux 8.0. No problems. However - now I discover that my PC card modem will not work with Suse linux (yes, I know why, it is a winmodem, so I can forgive that), but worse is that the PCMCIA network card also is not recognized (much harder to forgive). (Red Hat linux fully supports the card in question - why not Suse linux? When RH 8.0 shows up after the tropical storm passes, I may give it a try.) Sometimes recognized my Iomega CD-RW and sometimes did not. Runs slower than MS Windows 98. Although it does see the Windows partition, which is nice. So now I can log into the church network in *Windows*, download kewl linux apps and eye candy, then log in to linux - and install them from Windows partition. (Anybody else see the problem with this picture?)

Look - I tried out linux because I love the Mac OS X and thought, "This will be close." I want linux to succeed. But until linux (a) becomes more user friendly, (b) offers better hardware support, (c) and has available such killer apps as Dreamweaver, FileMaker Pro, PageMaker (one can live without MS Office) - I will stick with Windows (yuck) or switch to Mac for its gorgeous OS X. Sorry - linux is fun/interesting but *not* ready for prime time.

Being a "home user" I realize I only should have purchased the Personal edition - take note!

Rating:
Summary: Love endless tweaking? Pay your toll here for this hobby.
Review: Before you read any reviews, do yourself a favor. Run an errand around any business plaza anywhere in the world, and see how many computers run what OS. I'll give you a brownie for each Linux workstation you find on a desk of any accountant, secretary, firm executive, desk clerk and such. You'll notice that even professional developers who program to live and live to program work mostly in Windows.

Now check the worldwide Linux vs Windows sales. Previously each new "distribution" of Linux was biting a little dent in Windows sales, noticeable dip. Not anymore. Linux fell on its face flat one time too many, too many times the claims of the Linux ye faithful crowd prooved to be more of a fantasy than a matter of fact.

If their claims were true, we would see no Windows workstation anywhere or Windows would be selling for just a little bit more than Linux only for its brand equity.

That's the background. Well, I invested a few hundred dollars already to research the Linux hype, and may try another distro few years from now. This fall a few Linux distributors are going to unite to create something called "United Linux" I think, I am not holding my breath about it. There is no free lunch, and I am sure if they really make it and if it really becomes as good as Windows it will be cost as much as Windows. Minus the huge brand equity Windows accumulated over last 10 years.

As of this distro, still not yet. No. One thing it is really good for is writing/sharing major number crunching programs written in C/C++. Windows and Mac are horrible in that, tools are awfully expensive, unreliable, just a pain. In Linux it's pure pleasure, everything compiles without a snag. So, I prepare data in Windows or Mac, give it to Linux using either Cygnus shell from Windows or Samba on the Unix side, run the crunch, send result back to Windows/Mac.

For server, it's good but OpenBSD, FreeBSD are better.

As of the Office, see my review of StarOffice 6. It's a joke. Look at your computer count in that office plaza you visited. Get a Windows box or your office and don't torture yourself and your co-workers.

Multimedia, oh, good luck. You'll need lots of spare time with the Linux crowd which is mostly very young, extremely opinionated, unreliable and not very trustworthy. Too much hype, too little solid substance, rumors (mis)represented as a matter of fact, intentions (mis)represented for done deals etc. On Linux conventions you better behave like an excited puppy talking about Linux and like a vicious perp-chasing pitbull talking about Windows. Reminds me of something.

So, if you like endlessly tweaking things and chilling your nights away on forums with a few cuckoo owls not really expecting any outcome, that's for you. Otherwise, buy a Mac and do your multimedia projects right from the box.

Rating:
Summary: A lot of stuff for so little outlay.
Review: Being a Linux virgin, I was pleased my installation for this Suse 8.0 distro went smoothly: all hardware detected and installed without a hitch, as is normal for a Win 2000 Pro install. But I always start with the bare minimum of cards in place, to minimise any hassle with network cards and internal modems. Also, all my cards are brands such as D-Link, Matrox, and Creative Labs, which makes driver availability more likely. I was surprised to see the Axion monitor range so well supported.

With Suse 8.0 installed, I had a pretty complete system with Star Office, a web browser/e-mailer, Acrobat Reader 4.05, and many other sundries including a CD burning application. Another software load gave me The Gimp for image editing. All in all, you've got a very useable system.

The downside: The launching of the computer and Star office is comparatively slow. On the 850Mhz Celeron fitted with 128MB of RAM, that I was using, the Win 2000 Pro and associated applications flew along, unlike Suse, which performed about as well as Win 2000 Pro on a P100. And the software options are limited. So no Photoshop, Acrobat, or Dreamweaver, etc.

The Upside: For not a lot of money, and installed on an up-to-date machine, anyone can now have a Linux based PC without the pain, and have enough applications and webability for most circumstances.

Although you can't install Adobe Acrobat, you can use the system's GhostScript application to make PDFs that are compatible. You are also supplied with the discs to set up a sever and fit it with firewall features.

Suse 8.0 would be a viable proposition for educational and community work where the cost of workstation/server Microsoft licenses is too much to be budgeted for, but where high performance, stability, and simple and cost effective upgrading is required.

Whilst the Suse part of the equation is inexpensive I would recommend that sensible dollars be spent on the hardware to minimise disappointments. It's amazing how much grief is encountered for the sake of the (money) not spent, you thought looked to be a good idea at the time.

Rating:
Summary: A lot of stuff for so little outlay.
Review: Being a Linux virgin, I was pleased my installation for this Suse 8.0 distro went smoothly: all hardware detected and installed without a hitch, as is normal for a Win 2000 Pro install. But I always start with the bare minimum of cards in place, to minimise any hassle with network cards and internal modems. Also, all my cards are brands such as D-Link, Matrox, and Creative Labs, which makes driver availability more likely. I was surprised to see the Axion monitor range so well supported.

With Suse 8.0 installed, I had a pretty complete system with Star Office, a web browser/e-mailer, Acrobat Reader 4.05, and many other sundries including a CD burning application. Another software load gave me The Gimp for image editing. All in all, you've got a very useable system.

The downside: The launching of the computer and Star office is comparatively slow. On the 850Mhz Celeron fitted with 128MB of RAM, that I was using, the Win 2000 Pro and associated applications flew along, unlike Suse, which performed about as well as Win 2000 Pro on a P100. And the software options are limited. So no Photoshop, Acrobat, or Dreamweaver, etc.

The Upside: For not a lot of money, and installed on an up-to-date machine, anyone can now have a Linux based PC without the pain, and have enough applications and webability for most circumstances.

Although you can't install Adobe Acrobat, you can use the system's GhostScript application to make PDFs that are compatible. You are also supplied with the discs to set up a sever and fit it with firewall features.

Suse 8.0 would be a viable proposition for educational and community work where the cost of workstation/server Microsoft licenses is too much to be budgeted for, but where high performance, stability, and simple and cost effective upgrading is required.

Whilst the Suse part of the equation is inexpensive I would recommend that sensible dollars be spent on the hardware to minimise disappointments. It's amazing how much grief is encountered for the sake of the (money) not spent, you thought looked to be a good idea at the time.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent distribution from SuSE once again!
Review: For a few weeks I couldn't decide whether to get the latest distribution or not, since have solid 7.3 Pro system running already.

Being a bit disappointed by WindowsXP HomeEdition's lack of features beyond pure basics (on my Dell laptop), I was deciding in between SuSE 8.0 Pro and WinXP Pro as a replacement. Picked SuSE as the second OS for this machine (dual-booting) and I really don't regret.Installation was very smooth with updated Yast2 tool, new KDE 3.0 desktop environment, new kernel, new more and more compared to ver. 7.3.

All hardware detected correctly except LT WinModem; I had to compile the module from available sources on the Internet and modem works OK now.

Manual adjustment of the antialiasing (recompilation of Freetype source needed) puts visuals on par with WindowsXP ClearType. SuSE 8.0 looks incredible on my 1400*1050 SXGA+ LCD display now.

Basic system was installed in 30 minutes without a glitch; the extra tuning mentioned above took some more time, but I have beautiful system now....

For those who don't mind to learn new things, SuSE offers incredible value compared to WinXP in general, and particularly to crippled HomeEdition (XP Pro is way better, but more expensive of course while still just pretty much "bare" OS). SuSE 8.0 Pro comes with a few thousands of applications on 7CD's and 1DVD; installation is automated by Yast2 incl. dependency check preventing errors, so you have a lot of software to explore before getting bored :) This huge distribution is real blessing for dial-up users, eliminating effectively the need for hours of download time....

I recommend SuSE 8.0 to everyone; you don't have to abandon Windows entirely; SuSE can serve very good as a second OS if you have need for Microsoft based programs for certain tasks (I myself do), but don't want to pay hundreds of dollars for additional Windows based software....what you get here for [a price] is a total bargain.

The only things I'm bit missing from the previous distributions are 1.44" boot & modules floppies (which you can make from CD if you'll need to install on old PC without bootable CD-ROM), case stickers (which you can't make in that quality), and maybe original Yast configuration tool. Also printed documentation seems to be scaled down a little, but still more than sufficient.

From my previous experience with SuSE tech.support, to get first response may take a few days, but afterwards the quality of tech. advices is excellent. Further, the available SuSE newsgroups will help with most of problems you may run into.

Rating:
Summary: SuSE Linux 8.0 Professional
Review: Having been a long time user of Linux(5 years), with experience in several other Linux distributions, I would have to say that SuSE is the best overall distribution. It provides a very good balance of both Desktop and Server administration tools. Maintaining your system is a breeze with their YaST tool, and SuSE provides an excellent support database for most problems that occur. An excellent Firewall is included, along with Office (although you may want to consider StarOffice 6.0), Multimedia, CD-Burning, Database, and thousands of applications, and if you have a DVD drive installation is a breeze. The KDE 3.0 desktop manager is simply the best there is.

The only problem I had, was with my USB mouse not working upon booting on occasion, which was easly fixed after scanning SuSE's online support database.

Rating:
Summary: 8.0 disappoints
Review: Having been reasonably happy with SuSE Linux 7.3 and all the functionality and programs SuSE puts into their product, I thought 8.0 would live up to its hype admirably.

Oops.

I ran into some problems which should not have happened. My USB mouse, which worked perfectly during the install of SuSE Linux 8, stopped operating after the final reboot. (The USB mouse worked perfectly under SuSE Linux 7.3, so this is a new bug they inadvertantly created.)

Worse, 3D acceleration can't be set for my video card (ATI Radeon) - it keeps reverting to "Disabled". It could in v7.3. Again, another new bug in SuSE Linux 8. I purchased a GeForce 3 video card, and although SuSE 8 detected the new card without fail, I couldn't properly enable 3d acceleration either.

Worst of all is SuSE's support. I registered the product and asked for help, knowing I'd have 90 days of free support. They have yet to respond, it's been days! They should have responded by now... perhaps they're overwhelmed with complaints. I am looking into a refund as these problems are unacceptable, but I doubt I'll get one. I will likely try Red Hat v7.3 next. SuSE used to be great, but I'm not sure anymore.

Rating:
Summary: A buggy *.0 release - wait for 8.1
Review: I "upgraded" from SuSE 7.2 to 8.0 only to encounter a lot of
bugs. Things that worked nicely in 7.2 no longer worked. Here is
a brief list of problems I encountered:

configures system to run at level 4! after upgrade

fails to detect hardware that was previously (7.2) handled correctly (ethernet card, TV-tuner, sound system)

Misconfigures X11 to claim low resolution graphics options while
running in high res-mode (which is unavailable from its configuration tool, Yast2)

Apache web server has scripts with typos

KDE menus very disorganized, redundant and inconsistent

KDE customization broken as delivered (you need to online update first unless you like to redo your customization evry time)

Prarallel printer driver broken (their "free installation support" considers a non-functional printer to be part of a
successful installation: you are on your own)