so i'm walking through best buy, thinking about how i'd like to try another distribution of linux (have only really run red hat), when lo and behold, there lies 20 copies of Suse Linux among the various softwares!

my first thought: wow, suse is actually in stores? my second thought: are they actually so big that they are the ONLY distro in best buy, AND they have 20 copies just lying around waiting to be bought?

after observing this, i get even more curious about it. could suse be my next distro? could suse be the linux distro i am actually able to stick with? possibly!!

i walk up to the 20 or so green boxes, looking at them, admiring the newly advertised 64 bit processing, first out and supported on linux before windows.

i scan the box, continuing to admire the options and such. then i come to a little sticker, strange to me, strange to the origional availabliity of linux. a price tag. $89.99, causing me to wonder, what could possibly be in this version of linux that would cost $90.00?

so here's my question: what comes packaged with the $90.00 version of SUSE Linux Proffessional. what is in it that makes it cost so much? has anyone tried this version yet? if so, your pros and cons please.

Bestbuy has to make a profit........but I'd rather give my money to a distro "made in the USA" like Slackware..............

Since SuSe won't support an official forum here at LQ, why give them
your hard earned money........LOL

http://www.suse.com/us/private/index.html

http://www.suse.com/us/private/downl...nux/index.html

suse is owned by novell, an american company...

http://www.novell.com/

you don't get the same benefits by buying slackware than you do by buying suse...

remember, suse has A LOT of corporate customers...

5 cd's, and 2 dvd's packed with every app and development tool under the sun, plus 1 cd with sybase iAnywhere sql studio, 500+page admin guide, 400+page user guide, geeko stickers and other box filler. whether that is worth $90 to you, is your decision. (it's only $70 at amazon, btw)

Personally, in the Open-Source world, why would anyone buy such software, when you can get it for free by just downloading it, or something very similar to it.
I'm all pro at supporting distro's and such, though, but I'm not gonna pay for something I can d/l, I'd rather contribute that money to something more specific.

you can't download corporate service and support...

also, commercial distros tend to include licensed closed-source extras that you simply can't get anywhere else without paying, unless you engage in software piracy...

Additionally, buying the boxed set and installing from a CD saves a lot of downloading time. I installed Suse via download, which requires transferring about 3.3G of data, and took pretty much an entire day just for that. The thing is though, I screwed up something up a couple of times, and needed to start over, which required firing up that 3.3G download again. Altogether, it took me a several days of waiting around while trying not to be frustrated to finally get to the point where I actually could start the installation. In my case, I needed to perform 3 of those downloads, each of which took about 8 hours to complete, so the question becomes: What's the value of your time? $90 divided by 24 hours = $3.75/hour, which in the US is significantly under the minimum wage. Next time, would I be willing to spring for the $90 to save myself 3 days, plus get top-rated documentation? You betcha.

Plus, if you don't want to buy Suse without trying it out first, you can download the Personal edition for free, and give it a tryout, without any further obligation. If you decide that you like it, then you can buy the boxed set with confidence that you're getting good value for the money. Plus, you're supporting a Linux distro you believe in.

Just my 2 cents -- J.W.

the version i was looking at was the proffessional version-and i figured i didn't want to pay for something without at least knowing what i'm getting ffirst. so i went to the suse site and downloaded the suse personal edition iso. after much figuring out how to get it to work (the iso installation i mean), i installed it on my laptop, and i was VERY impressed. the initial installation itself was easier than windoes installations, the redhat installation, andmost program installations.

on top of that, it even detected my laptops hardware-the other distributions i've tried aren't very laptop friendly (to my laptop at least).

only problem i had intially was the dual booting on my laptop. for some reason it didn't want to boot up in windows, although the inital boot up in suse was perfect.

after consideration i decided to go ahead and try again, dual booting on my desktop. t worked better on my dekstop, everything went smoother.

as of now i'm actually testing out the browser, and finding that i'm very very content with it.

so, my impression of suse right now: thumbs up! will i buy the proffessional version? i'm not sure yet. maybe after i get to play around with it more, i'll see.

90 dollars could very well be worth it!!!!

I paid the $90 at Best Buy for my SuSE and feel it was worth every penny. I've also used Red Hat 8, TurboLinux and Mandrake 9.1 - 10.0. SuSE is the most stable of the bunch and I'm running an updated 2.6 kernel.

Another factor is :
"if it cost that much it must be good !"

look how well it works with windows

SuSE is my favourite commercial distro. (note: I know slackware is commercial too, but not in the corporate-sense). It just looks and feels very professional. 90 dollars isn´t that much for the 400+ page manuals/huge amount of software. Btw, it also contains a 64 bit version on DVD, which is a nice plus if you plan to upgrade to amd64 some day. And by purchasing it your supporting a good cause (novell has GPL:ed YaST for example)

Can you tell me what is on the extra two discs (CD's or DVD's?)? They are unlabeled, and I haven't had a chance to look at them yet.

Thanks,


D.

the source code for the apps plus the 32 bit apps and the apps recompiled for 64bit architectures

500+ page guide alone makes it worth it. IHMO.
SuSE need to make $. BestBuy needs to make $.
Go figure.