Hi,

As you might have noticed I'm considering taking a bit step from Gentoo to SUSE. The reason is very simple: I want everything to work smooth and fast. Upgrade the system in a few minutes, and change network settings with a few mouse clicks. I also no longer want to spend time changing network settings in /etc/conf.d/net, /etc/hosts, and /etc/resolv.conf, taking the time to upgrade a kernel manually, or stuff like that. This time I want a system that just works and makes things easier for me, even if I have to pay for it.

My questions related to SUSE are:
- What are the differences between the available software in the Eval, Download, Personal and Professional versions?
- How recent are all software packages? (for example, I use getmail instead of fetchmail, install many random kde apps, themes)
- Can I run Games easy? I tried installing Wine manually before, but I hope SUSE works out of the box.
- How well does the system cope with manual changes to config files? or manual kernel upgrades?
- How does one upgrade a SUSE 9.1 system to for example, SUSE 10? do I also need to pay for it?


Rationale:
I've used Slackware for one year, Gentoo for 6 months, finding out everything yourself, doing all system maintenance from the console, but this time I want something easy. My desktop is KDE, so this might explain a lot Gentoo's packaging system is brilliant, but it has many long-term quirks, and upgrading KDE 4 times doesn't give me the feeling Gentoo is fast. Slackware, Gentoo, have perfect uses, but aren't polished for home use.

as to your 1st question (comparison eval/pers/prof/etc

see http://www.suse.com/us/private/produ...pers_prof.html
for a comparison personal/professional.
AFAIK, suse doesn't offer downloadable ISO images. there are no eval versions.

I got sick of compiling things in gentoo so I installed SuSE over my gentoo partition. A basic SuSE 9.1 is available as a downloadable iso. Once you get it installed, you can install almost everything the professional version has off SuSE mirrors.

The following is only my opinion so don't shoot me.

If you use the unofficial package repositories, you can probably find most of the software commonly available in almost all distros. You can install/upgrade software with Yast (official) or you can install apt-get w/synaptic (official and unofficial). Everything I use is available but YMMV. Most packages are are or are near latest version but they are not updated as quickly as gentoo. Package quality is very good. From what I have read, one is probably better off using the SuSE kernels (2.6.5). I use custom compiled 2.6.8 kernels on other distros and they don't do anything for me that the SuSE one doesn't. I don't have a super fast PC (P4 1.6 o/c'd to 2.25ghz) but I do not notice any speed difference between gentoo/slackware and SuSE. You can manually edit the config files but your changes may be lost if you use one of the tools provided by SuSE afterwards.

After using SuSE for a week (it took me a week to configure it to my liking), I no longer missed gentoo. If you can configure it to use all your hardware, it works quite well.

That's kind of the road I'm taking now... I originally started with linux a year ago with red hat 9.. from there have gone to fedora 1, suse 9.0, fedora 2, FreeBSD, Solaris 9, Debian... and now I'm coming back to SuSE now that I have learned more about how the OS works.. I am more comfortable with configuring stuff using both GUI and command line... I think SuSE is a good choice... and using the FTP install of SuSE 9.1 Professional is very easy...

Thanks a lot for your replies.. I'll try to make some space soon to try the personal edition first.

There is one thing I'm wondering about: how easy can one install packages online? Debian or Gentoo have a huge package database where almost everything is available, from desktop applications to specialized libraries. Are there simular mirrors for SUSE?

mhollstein, you are wrong, SUSE offers a downloadable live cd, a downloadable personal edition ISO, and you can install the full Professional edition across FTP for free. As far as I know, SUSE has been offering their Pro version across FTP for free for a couple years now. Go to linuxiso.org or even SUSE's site and click download if you don't believe me.

Also, SUSE is very easy to use, but if you want an extremely easy system, you might want to consider Linspire or Xandros.

In response to your package availability on-line. I have found SuSE to have a huge number of package sources on-line that can be integrated into YaST for one click installation with dependancy resolution handled automatically. See the post I made here for instructions on setting up the great packman.links2linux.de library in YaST as well as how to easily upgrade to KDE 3.3

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...5&pagenumber=2