suse 8.2 networking

Mon May 17 11:47:11 PDT 2004

Hey dep-

Did you ever get these things ironed out?  I've been off list for a while
(three jobs and two kids is tough some times) and just ran across this.
Personally, I've only had 2 problem installing SuSE 8.x series, one with a
Sony Vaio laptop with 8.0 (8.1 installed flawlessly) and 8.1 (also SCO Linux
4) on a Compaq 1850R, while probing the USB stuff.  Truth is, that is where I
found that the SuSE knowledgebase is pretty helpful.  John Boland from SCO
helped out a bit too.

It turns out that, in the essence of COL, SuSE install cd provides many
methods of installation, including what they call "Manual", which prompts you
before loading modules, etc, but is still rather user-friendly.  This was the
method I had to choose to get it installed on the 1850R, along with another
well-documented procedure to remove the USB load script, as there is something
broken on the 1850R with regards to USB.

I agree with you, SuSE isn't perfect, but it's better than the rest at this
point.  And their cost/value ratio is outstanding, once you're installed :)

Hand in there.  I have become a convert from absolutely loathing SuSE (having
had my first taste in the 6.x days, and then still loathing Yast in the 7.x
days).  I had to take another look at it when I realized that it was the base
for UL.  It also helped that a non-geek friend of mine borrowed several of my
Linux distros to "try them on for size" and came back to me... without the
SuSE 8.0 cd's I provided.  He, being a Windows geek, loved the way SuSE makes
things so easy.  I hated Yast's way of making things so easy but decided to
try it again "for the first time"... er, from the eyes of a Windows-ite.  I
was amazed at how great SuSE had done at keeping their GUI tools up with the
times.  SuSE 8.1, which has installed without hitch on many machines for me
now, loaded on my laptop vey easily, and included nice GUI tools to configure
the Wireless properties of my NIC (BTW- Orinoco and Cisco cards work great
still).  It recognized and configured my Video Capture board which was an
el-cheapo card from Best Buy, then stuck an Icon for it on my desktop.  It
recognized my CDRW drive and stuck an icon on the desktop which opens K3b
burning software.  It also recognized my scanner and stuck a scanner icon on
my desktop.  Very nice stuff.

Caveats I've found with 8.1 (I'm hoping for improvements for 8.2):
* Netscape and Mozilla don't work with a JVM: They were compiled against a
newer glibc than any JVM is compiled for and it doesn't work.  Simply download
the latest from mozilla.org and it works great.

* My digital camera doesn't work with the cool tools they include.  This is a
problem where GPhoto2 broke the driver when going from gphoto to gphoto2. 
Simply download gphoto RPM from ftp2.caldera.com and install it.  Works like a
champ.  (I wish I had a camera that DID work with it, though because all of
the camera stuff in integrated into KDE)

* Wireless WEP keys: can't put in a "string", only HEX.  This is a minor bug
in the text field verifier.

* Audacity 1.1.3cvs which ships with the 8.1 has a bug recording in stereo.

* MPlayer doesn't do Encrypted DVD's and other "gelded" apps.  Simply visit
packman.links2linux.de and download the full-featured RPMS and dependencies.

* Sax2 and Yast2 both have mouse configurations but Sax2 allows you to set up
more than one, while Yast2 doesn't.

Yast2 has and is continuing to get better about dealing with manual config
file changes.  But there's very little reason not to use it for most things. 
What it does, it does pretty well.

Fo $80, you can purchase (notice the community support-level rising) the
Professional version which comes on 5 CD's, a HUGE value.  This includes
almost all of what you would want to do on a Desktop and/or Server.  Their
distro is rock solid and mostly logical thinking has gone into the creation
and testing of this 10-year old distro.  And they don't treat you like a Beta
tester like other well-known distros (which will remain nameless to avoid a
distro war)

Very important to me is that SuSE makes KDE work well, they focus on it. 
That's my desktop of choice and I appreciate it.  They even make Gnome apps
look good :)  And what's also great is that not only do they include just
about every OSS package from SourceForge, but their package management is
great for the included apps.  No dependency hopping or whatnot.  Yast2 figures
it out and allows you to manage conflicts and dependecy issues in an
intelligent fashion.  It's one thing to have tons of RPM's of varying quality
available on the Internet for download and dependency head-bashing, but it's
yet another to have distro-included and tested packages.

The FTP-install over the Internet or intranet is also very alluring.

If SuSE continues down the road they've been heading, I predict SuSE will take
over the lead in the distro wars within the next 18-24 months.

I've only had to download a few things I wanted, and they were basically
upgrades to software already included:
Everybuddy upgrade
MPLayer upgrade (full version)
Xine and other A/V tools (packman.links2linux.de) and rpmfind, FreshRpms
Sylpheed (0.8.1claws included, upg to 0.8.11)
Mozilla (already discussed.  Upg to 1.3.1)

Let me know if I can help troubleshoot with you.  The networking thing
prompted some questions in my head but I thought I'd check to see if you got
them straightened out before launching into that discussion.

Hope all is well with you and the fam,
Matt

On Fri, 25 Apr 2003 18:37:50 -0400
dep <dep at linuxandmain.com> wrote:

> On Friday 25 April 2003 06:17 pm, Net Llama! wrote:
> | On 04/25/03 15:07, dep wrote:
> | > On Friday 25 April 2003 04:36 pm, Net Llama! wrote:
> | > | On Fri, 25 Apr 2003, dep wrote:
> | > | > this is nuts.
> | > | >
> | > | > i spent the better part of two days trying to get the nvidia
> | > | > driver
> | > |
> | > | [SNIP]
> | > |
> | > | Just curious.  If you're going through such hell with SuSE, why
> | > | don't you use something else?
> | >
> | > because everything else is worse. i mean, it might be easier to
> | > install, but then it's what you end up with. if ease of
> | > installation were the sole determinant, we'd all be running dos
> | > and windows 3.0.
> |
> | at the risk of starting a distro war, there's no conceivable way
> | that Redhat is worse.  I've never had any of the problems that
> | you've been describing on Redhat (7.2, 7.3 or 9).  Have you
> | actually tried any other alternatives (recently)?
> 
> when you install red hat, the install may well go smoothly, but 
> unfortunately you end up with red hat.
> 
> -- 
> dep
>  http://www.linuxandmain.com
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