I'm thinking about switching from FC4 to openSUSE. Which is best, the eval version or the oss version?

hmmm i never tried the eval version - didn't know there was one. But I can tell you I'm running suse 10.0 now and it seems pretty good. i assume the eval is just an evaluation version (of SuSE, not openSuSE), meaning that someday you'd be prompted to pay for it and that is jive.

Open suse all the way..... OSS (edit)

The only things that are lacking are apps that can be freely downloaded from the net (flash, java, MP3codecs etc.) I recently installed 10.1alpha and I'm not looking back. Even in it's alpha build it runs better on my system than 9.3 ever did... and KDE 3.5 rocks! I would suggest supporting open source as much as possible, I mean think of all of the unpaid manhours that have gone into releasing this amazing software!

Normally I would go for the oss, but on their website it says that there is no time out whatsoever on the eval version.

I'm using SUSE 10.0 Evaluation (DVD) and so far everything looks good.

Just to clarify, the eval edition is the whole thing. It just doesn't come with telephone support.

The eval version is superior, unless for some reason you're an open source zealot that refuses to use free (gratis, but non-libre) software. It has everything OSS does plus the free proprietary packages.

Thanks for the input. I think I'm going to try out the eval version.

Actually the eval never prompts you and never expires. Incidentally, the license.txt from 10.0 seems to be identical to the 9.3 version in that it explicitly allows sharing, copying, etc. providing you receive no consideration for it.

I ordered 10.0 last Saturday and it shipped Wednesday. As soon as I receive it I will rip the DVD and publish a torrent of it.

Does the Eval version have anything like Eval written on the boot screen or anything like that, its just that Mandriva 2006 has Free written in big letters on the boot screen which i hate.

I want to switch from OSS to the Eval

No there is no such branding.

hello,
i have just swapped to the eval version because software like realplayer, flash, acrobat etc are actually configured for you, so you dont have to go through yast2. Now to most yast2 is easy to use(even for me) BUT when i did download from repositories the plugins etc required, they worked to a degree...but not that well.(ie the bbc news embeded real files).
However, after downloading the eval version, all 5 iso files, it loaded with no problems at all. Considering i use an sli motherboard with a athlon 64 with 6800gt g/card this was very good news indeed. The embeded files on all the sites i have gone on worked, first time and seemlessly, without stalling. Hope this helps ?

Just noticed this little text at novells website
Novell - Suse :

"SUSE Linux 10.0 Eval version - It includes an installable evaluation version that can be later upgraded to the complete product. "

What the hell should that mean?

There is no no register/update link to buy the complete product. Will it pop-up to the screen after some 90 days or so?
And what will you get and with what price?

I still dont get it what Novell is trying to gain with all these versions and with the bad naming policy.

Well, Its not over yet.
Wait for the OpenSuse server...

Novell now offers SUSE Linux Enterprise Server . Ok now add oss version,live, and eval version of that and there you go..
At this time the "free" version of Enterprise Server is a 30-day evaluation version with 30 days of free support & maintenance.

hello,
i have only just joined the suse experiance, but i must admit that i am using the eval version as it it works just fine...and it will not time out. You just get no telephone support, but just stick to this forum( and other suse sites) and all will be good. Hope this helps.

I only just installed suse the other day, but I can tell you, it is a hell of a lot better than Fedora. Everything worked fine right out of the box.