SuSE 8.0? To buy or not to buy?
 

I had great success with SuSE 7.3 - my first positive Linux experience - and as a result, I was able to remove Win98 from my home box. I was happy about that - it was too much like work!

My needs changed and Mandrake 8.2 was there on a magazine. I had heard that it was easier to set up masq using it. All went well and my network functions but - because I have the download edition and no CD 3, I'm finding it difficult to set up eroaster, openoffice etc. etc.

I am ready to buy a distro. I would like to go with SuSE (the gecko does it for me) 8.0 but I am torn between the personal edition and the pro. I need -

1) Masq
2) Office
3) Sound
4) TV (my Hauppauge card worked fine under SuSE 7.3 but was hopeless with Mandrake)
5) etc. It's a home office system with added bits - nothing fancy. I do need the network (well - my neighbour does!)

Will the Personal edition be enough and if it's not - can I get everything I need (ie all the pro stuff? whatever that is) or should I go with the Pro edition?

I never seemed to use everything on the 7 CD SuSE 7.3 Pro edition I bought at the end of 2001.

Please advise. I want simplicity - my wife will shoot me if I don't have a working system up and running soon. She's got work to do.

Please advise!!! And thanks a lot....

i think personal is enough for any normal user

I have the pro version... but it would not really be needed. I bought the campus version, that costs the same than the personal but has the contents of the professional.
I really don't know what is not included on the personal edition... but if you've got a fast internet connection, the personal will just be fine (or you get the campus version, if you're a student)

Hold Off
 

I just upgraded from SuSE 7.3 Personal to 8.0 Pro; I have two comments:

1) Personal is all you'd need for what you're looking to do.

2) 7.3 is all you'd need for what you're looking to do.

8.0 is a good distro, in the SuSE tradition, but it is an x.0 and uses a default x.0 desktop (KDE 3.0). Give it a little time to mature. Despite all the glowing reviews (which mostly just discuss how perty KDE and YaST2 are), there are still a number of problems which I'm sure will be sorted out by 8.1. I'd wait a while.

The choice of going for the personal or professional edition is entirely yours decause it depends on what all apps you'd require. I suggest you also check out the suse site for the list of apps. I had posted the urls in another Suse 8.0 thread here in this forum. The personal edition may just be sufficient for most people.

Agreed that suse 8.0 is a .0 version of the distro and has the .0 version of Kde. From how I see it , Kde 3 and the konqueror itself should be a reason to upgrade. The new konqueror is not just pretty it's good. I have it running on my desktop at work, at home and in my laptop. All of them had Suse 7.3 earlier. I just had a little problem with the rear channels of my SBL 5.1 sound card, but could fix it without a sweat.


- manas

I wouldn't even bother.
 

I've been perfectly happy with Mandrake 8.1 on my machine, but like you thought I'd be getting more if I opted for a German Distro with that famous Teutonic Overkill I've heard so much about.

Be forewarned! Mandrake caters to the North American market and the hardware to be found in the machines made for that market. Just because Mandrake works on your machine without a hitch is no gaurantee that Suse of any version is going to work too. I was told by a German newsgroup posting that North American computers are considered to be toys compared with the hardware they have over there. While I can't imagine why that is so, my Hewlett Packard machine choked big time on Suse 8.0 Pro and under no circumstances would it install despite the best efforts of Suse tech support and newsgroup support to help me.

If you've got money to burn be my guest, but before you do, drop me a line and allow me to sell you my copy at a substantially reduced price! jonesph@msn.com.

Good Luck!

I said in my original post that I had great success with SuSE 7.3 - no hardware problems *at all* (except for my scanner) - I want to know whether, if this was the case, my hardware will be recognised by 8.0

i have suse 7.2 proff, bought 8.0 proff, no problems with hardware, in fact , suse 8.0 is suppose to be more hardware friendly. suse 8 is a nice operating system , like the software update from the kde menu, just click on the software you like, put the cd in, and it installs it. also can use idie raid, a plus

i have also bought mandrake 8.2 power pack, the retail box version has a nicer looking desktop than the iso downloads i did .also like this operating system, seems to be a little easier to use, though i don,t like their tech support. suse you get 60 or 90 days.

also have redhat 7.3.

which do i like the best, really hard to pick a favorite, seem to spend most of my time on mandrake 8.2. any of the 3 are very good linux systems./

If money is a problem, I would reccomend getting the Pro *upgrade* version from SuSE's online store for $49.95. It's the same as the regular Pro version just minus paper manuals that existing users don't need as much. :-)

I went with SuSE 7.3 in the end - the whole evening spent setting it up and then I realised that it still won't set up my second network card so I went back to mandrake 8.2 and what a quick and easy set up that was. Ip Masq is working and so is everything else.
Except for eroaster - I still have a problem with permissions relating to sg* - whatever that is.
But
Yipee!
Choice made.

i just bought a 120gig hd and for some reason whenever i use that in suse 8 it freezes after couple of hours not sure why its not the ide or ram becasue i fi take the new hd out it works fine for days. Does suse support WD 120GIG 7200RPM 8meg buffer hd?

Please HELP.

should i now go buy suse 8 professional?
i am debating should i stick with suse 8 or redhat 7.3 now that its out too.

why not try red hat 7.3 first, since you can get it cheaper than SuSE? then you will have had a chance to try out a different OS, even if you do eventually go with SuSE 8.0. Also, if you had some apps that came with Red hat but are not included in SuSE, you then have the red hat CDs and you can just install them from there, on your SuSE system.

SuSE 8.0
 

You MUST try SuSE 8.0

SuSE 8.0 was a dream to install especially in terms of hardware. It recognised by USB webcam no problem, my all-in-one HP scanner/printer/copier (also usb). No problems with my graphics card - I have had problems in every previous install of SuSE.

As far as stability goes I have not detected any serious problems with the fact both KDE and SuSE are x.0 versions although no doubt 8.1 will be even better.

I would go with the pro version quite simply because the difference in price is so small it is worth getting the pro version just to try out the many different apps available - there is likely to be a different app that suits your needs more than the default install.

Guys guys when will you learn hardware is about simply linux kernel not linux distro just upgrade kernel to 2.4.18 and you must be mostly ok.