Some Suse Questions
 

I am considering installing SuSe but i have a few SuSe questions.

Firstly I have SuSe 9.2 Pro Retail that i bought second hand from someone on ebay back in febuary but never got round to installing it. Now I notice 9.3 is out :( . What is the difference between these two releases, i.e what is new or has been updated is it worth still using 9.2 or are the upgrades in 9.3 to great or usefull. (Does anyone know where there is a list of upgrades for 9.3)

Secondly is the 9.3 Download from the SuSe site exactly the same as the retail. People say it is but at the site it mentions it is only a free trial.

Thirdly as i own the 9.2 retail is there anyway i can install this and then update for free through an update process to 9.3 (similar to how microsoft updated XP to SP2)

Fourthly i currently have Mandriva on my machine as a dual boot partiiton with windows XP on my C Drive. I wish to remove this (Mandriva) and install SuSe in its place. Same size partition that mandriva took up. How would i do this

Fifthly one of the problems with Mandriva was its inability to recognise my USB mouse, will i have the same problems with SuSe 9.2 Retail or 9.3 free if i were to install them as im stumpt if i cant use my mouse. My mouse is plug and play and i cant find no drivers for it on the internet

Finally I wish to browse the internet but my broadband modem (BT Voyager 100) needs drivers to be installed, i tried this in mandriva but they seem to be windows only drivers. How do i get them to work in linux. So i can install my modem and browse the internet.

Thanks
Anthony

"Firstly I have SuSe 9.2 Pro Retail that i bought second hand from someone on ebay back in febuary but never got round to installing it. Now I notice 9.3 is out :( . What is the difference between these two releases, i.e what is new or has been updated is it worth still using 9.2 or are the upgrades in 9.3 to great or usefull. (Does anyone know where there is a list of upgrades for 9.3)"

Here is a table of what is in each SuSE release.
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=suse

"Secondly is the 9.3 Download from the SuSe site exactly the same as the retail."
Yes.

"Thirdly as i own the 9.2 retail is there anyway i can install this and then update for free through an update process to 9.3 (similar to how microsoft updated XP to SP2)"

I did this when upgrading from SuSE 8.1 to SuSE 8.2. This method is a lot of work and I do not recommend it. I much prefer to install thae latest version as a dual boot with the previous version. Once I have the new version stable I copy my data to the new version and erase the old version. I think that Microsoft's method of updating software is a recipe for disaster. If it doesn't work correctly the first try you are screwed.

"Fourthly i currently have Mandriva on my machine as a dual boot partiiton with windows XP on my C Drive. I wish to remove this (Mandriva) and install SuSe in its place. Same size partition that mandriva took up. How would i do this"

You would install SuSE and tell it to format the Mandrake partition and install there. However, I recommend that you create an empty partition, install SuSE as a triple boot, get SuSE stable, and then erase Mandrake.

"Fifthly one of the problems with Mandriva was its inability to recognise my USB mouse, will i have the same problems with SuSe 9.2 Retail or 9.3 free if i were to install them as im stumpt if i cant use my mouse. My mouse is plug and play and i cant find no drivers for it on the internet"

I don't know. Problems such as this are why I don't destroy a working system until the new system is stable.

"Finally I wish to browse the internet but my broadband modem (BT Voyager 100) needs drivers to be installed, i tried this in mandriva but they seem to be windows only drivers. How do i get them to work in linux."

You can't get Windows drivers to work in Linux. You need Linux drivers. You may have to buy hardware from a company that supports Linux.

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Steve Stites