I am thinking of going from Redhat 8 to SuSE 8.1. I have heard good things about SuSE. Redhat seems to have problems with my hardware and I am not patient enough to do tinkering. The SuSE support page claims support for my hardware so i think i will give it a go. I would like to know if i am going to see any dramatic differences between the two distros.

shart121

SuSe and Red Hat are very similar. The most noticable difference is probably the way KDE is set up in the two distros. SuSE has put some work into enhancing KDE and Red Hat, with their Bluecurve initiative, seems to have tried to simplify KDE.

From a practical standpoint this means that somtimes SuSE users will talk about KDE menu enties that Red Hat users can't find.

You will be using different administration tools in Suse.
Suse usually uses YAST instead of the Red Hat tools.
I have found Suse preferable to Red Hat myself. I used 6.4 and 7.1
Consider dual booting for at least a short time.

I have used both and I find that Suse is better for a Home user in my opinon and that if you make changes in the gui they tend to accually change while running suse while Red Hat that is not always the case. Also Yast is much more user friendly in my opinon

i will be using for a server as well... does that make any differences to your statements?

If you are going to run a server then you should use SuSE 8.1 Professional instead of the cheaper Personal package. SuSE has also come out with a Server package which I know nothing about.

http://www.suse.com/us/business/prod...les/index.html

that is a little out of my price range... SuSE 8.2 Profesional is what i think i am getting

I'm interested in this.

I began in Linux with trying Phat Linux, which (though didn't know at the time might have been old CDROM) was erratic. CDROM since replaced.

Then various attempts at installs - Mandrake 9 which didn't work. Did eventually get this installed from a friend via ftp, but had problems with Gimp display being not readable. Tried Red Hat 8 and wiped MBR somehow so had no computer access!

Prior to the Red Hat debacle used Suse 7.1 for a few weeks. Install was easy (friend helped first), and printing and internet worked immediately. Following this a friend did an ftp install of Mdk 9. He had trouble with GUI config but didn't remember what he used unfortunately. Internet and printing okay, but some things didn't display properly - eg GIMP. Since he had Mdk 9 running I decided to try a clean install - had new CDROM now. Couldn't configure XFree in 9 or 9.1.

Now using Red Hat 8 which is okay, but prefered Mdk.

Wondering if Suse 8.1 or whatever is a viable option seeing as 7.1 worked so well?

Ideas/opinions appreciated.

Thanks
Rose

The areas where SuSE is improving include the following areas:

KDE - KDE 3.1 is noticably nicer than the previous releases. And SuSE enhances the KDE versions that they ship with on the SuSE CDs. It is well worth upgrading to KDE 3.1, however you do it. If you install SuSE 8.1 then I advise upgrading KDE to 3.1 as soon as you get a stable system. SuSE 8.2 installs KDE 3.1.

YaST2 - YaST2 is the SuSE setup tool. SuSE has been developing YaST2 to where it can compete with apt-get as a package manager. So far, in my opinion, YaST2 is both good and improving but it hasn't reached apt-get quality yet. I have not tried SuSE 8.2. In the following article the reviewer says that YaST2 package management has reached apt-get quality in SuSE 8.2. As an initial install tool YaST2 is very good and on most releases it probable is better than the equivalent Mandrake or Red Hat setup program.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/30512.html

Thanks for that information. I'll take a look at that review. Will need to make some enquiries as to where I can purchase Suse from in this country - NZ - it's not a free download I think? Would be good to be able to try before I buy.

Thanks again
Rose

Suse is good, i'm not knocking it, but to me, red hat 7.3 is still king - 9 is very good also, I didn't like 8 much though.

I'd just upgrade to Redhat 9. Suse isn't anything special and has some weird proprietary tools that don't work half the time. If you buy Suse and then try Mandrake, you'll be kicking yourself on spending money something not near as good as Mandrake. Havng tried all three, I prefer Redhat. I prefer ap4rpm over Mandrke's vaunted urpmi.

Okay - thanks for the advice.

Have decided against Suse - in part because noone on my LUG uses it so would be difficult for support.

Lycoris and vector have both been recommended as good desktops (all I need). So will take a look at them sometime. I'm not all that impressed with Red Hat 8 but would be hard pressed to say why. Partly because it doesn't seem to always do what it should - according to the instructions. It seems quite difficult at times to me, but maybe had gotten used to Mandrake.

One of the local LUG is going to try Red Hat 9 when the stable release is out, and problems have been sussed - which may have already happened.

Thanks again
Rose

I have rhl 9.0 on my pc using grub.
I'd like to install suse 8.0.
I'd like to dual boot between the two of them.
How to do that?
Many thanks!