SUSE 9.0 mumblings

[Matthew Carpenter]

Thanks for the rundown, Collins!  I've found much the same.  Great
product with a few shortcomings (as with all OS's).
While I have had zero issues with ReiserFS (long-used by machines I
maintain), I have found the KWiFiManager (applet that docs in the
sys-tray) to have attracted a bug or two since 8.2pro, namely that it
forces "Closed" encryption, not allowing "Open" mode.

SuSE 9.0 Pro does include many other apps beyond that other distros
offer... including some of the more specialized in my service: Sylpheed,
Xine, MPlayer, Kino, and Audacity.  If you are after yet more SuSE
RPM's, you may visit http://packman.links2linux.de/ although you won't
fint a compiled version of libdvdcss anymore...  just a link to it's
homepage where there is an SRPM (which rebuilds flawlessly and quickly
on SuSE 9.0 Pro).

Great review!



On Sun, 2003-12-21 at 13:06, Collins wrote:
> I finally got around to putting up a SUSE PC again.  This time I plunked down 
> the bucks for a licensed copy (professional edition); first time since 
> Caldera days that I paid out money for linux!
> 
> My intent is to evaluate the product from a generic use standpoint.  I'm not 
> adding all the bells and whistles that I normally prefer to use (xfce, icewm, 
> sylpheed, etc.) but using what is offered (kde, kmail, etc.) to get a feel 
> for what a more normal user would experience.
> 
> All in all the product is excellent, and the published documentation is really 
> superb.  They actually provide as much doco for gnome as kde, for example, 
> and the brief but adequate excplanations of DNS, Apache, et., etc. are really 
> outstanding.
> 
> The install process was practically flawless.  All my wierd peripherals 
> (onboard SIS video, audio, and NIC) were detected and setup properly.  USB 
> worked without a hitch (plugged in a kodak camera and downloaded thumbnails 
> using gphoto2 without a burp).  The YaST printer dialogs setup my Z53 printer 
> aok.  Alas, there's still the CUPS preference for a4 pagesize that you need 
> to fix; I always forget that until I've wasted a few pages!
> 
> The only aspect of the install process that I didn't like was when I needed to 
> reinstall; most users will never see this behavior.  This is a labrat machine 
> that I reconstruct at will.  The first install used reiserfs which I haven't 
> tried in a long time.  After 2 days, something "marvelous" happened.  I added 
> a new partition or two and rebooted, only to discover that my reiserfs root 
> partition came up read only.  All the data was readable, but no combination 
> of reiser fsck, rebuild tree, etc., etc. would make the partition writable 
> again.  Reiser seemed to think that my superblock had moved, even though no 
> change to the partition origin took place, and of course it couldn't make 
> proper use of the journal without being able to decode the superblock.  Oh 
> well, note to never use that POS again, so I backed up my email, and started 
> over with my old standby ext3.  When installing with an existing linux 
> partition, SUSE always leaves the existing root intact and picks install to 
> any empty partition if it exists.  The only way I could find to overwrite my 
> existing root was to delete the empty partition.  There might be a way around 
> this, but it certainly was not obvious.  System rebuilt ok, and no further 
> problems using ext3, even though I've added/deleted partitions several times.
> 
> Although I have a long standing preference for setting up config files 
> manually, there is much to be said for YaST as far as ease of use.  Once 
> again, I've primarily used YaST to get the "user look and feel" of the 
> product, and I've been quite happy with the results.  Reading the supplied 
> documentation allows you to track most of the "magic" that is used after the 
> fact.  I especially like the fact that SUSE has had the good sense to provide 
> the dependancy checking that I've always missed in an RPM based system.  If 
> you attempt to install a new package with YaST, YaST will prompt you and 
> offer to install the missing prerequisites.  Kudos to SUSE.  Now if they 
> would just provide the sort of generic repository of software that I have 
> with gentoo instead of only the CD/DVD versions (mostly up to date but a 
> few .points back level) plus critical patches.  Ah well: more steps forward 
> than backward, at least.
> 
> The automatic setup for X produced a usable if not very readable startup for 
> my old 15" monitor.  After adjusting it for 800x600 it's livable.  
> Unfortunately some of the kde dialogs aren't setup for anything smaller than 
> 1000x768, so I have to mother them around with alt-drag.
> 
> I setup NFS between this box and my gentoo system quite easily with YaST and 
> manual effort on the gentoo box.  More on this in a separate note.
> 
> SUSE 9.0 is an excellent product.