Suse Professional 9.0 has been working happily in dual boot next to XP for some time now. For some reason I want to upgrade to 9.3. Novel wants to sell me 9.3 "upgrade" for $55... but various online folk will sell me a "9.3 upgrade DVD" for $8 or even for $2.50 plus mailing. (not talking about 64 bit DVD... this is a 32 bit AMD processor.)

1) I assume these cheap $5 DVDs are legal/ noncopyright violating, right? But isn't stuff like Yast a proprietary Suse thing?

2) Are these $5 DVD only deals identical to what I'd get from Novel?

Next question.

3) I know that 9.3 is based on the 2.6 kernel and is several generations removed form 9.0. Can I expect to just pop the DVD in and have an auto-magicly successful upgrade... or should I worry? And what should I worry about?

4) Finally, even if all that works, I have recently installed Firefox 1.04 which might even be newer than what comes on the DVD ( I don't know)... will the upgrade potentially downgrade an application like Firefox?

5) I assume the upgrade doesn't do anything like wipe out my mail folders, right?

6) Finally, finaly, when I purchased 9.0 at retail I seemed to be purchasing some kind of relationship with Suse... which surely must have lapsed, no? I could and did download stuff from them directly, although not recently. Would any of that still apply, or be renewed, either with the purchase of a box set $55 thing, or with just purchasing the DVD from some guy's trunk?

7) What is the added value of the $55 package... just books? I don't need those.

Thanks for your wisdom and experience.

license.txt on the Suse 9.3 allows for copying, distributing, etc. for FREE. If they are asking for money, services, or trade for the distribution (aside from the official retail box) they are committing breach of contract and copyright infringement. Illegal. I can post an ISO for you to download if you want, since that is legal, but it would be illegal for me to ask for anything in return per the license.

They are identical if dual layer, or they are remastered minus the 64-bit modules if single-layer media.
However, since they are asking for compensation/consideration, they are committing breach of license and copyright infringement (they are not distributing under the conditions the Novell copyright allows)

Yes, it will work automagically.

Even if it downgrades you, YOU will upgrade it back to 1.0.4. Mine did not downgrade.

Correct, but you do back up regularly just in case, right?

The value of the $55 package is installation support PLUS you help to fund continued development of one of the better distributions going.

suse allows you to redistribute the cds so it's perfectly legal. yast is open source. upgrading shouldn't mess with your stuff but when I did 9.0 to 9.2 this way it didn't upgrade my kernel (this could be because I had a custom compiled 2.4 kernel) I would recomend backing up your home directory and doing a fresh install.

The copies for $5 are legit they should have YaST as well as everything else that you would get by buying from SuSE/Novell, The one thing you don't get is the installation support and the books.

you should not have any problems running the YOU program to get patches. Patches should always be free, unlike the SLES (SuSE Linux Enterprise Server) that has a full support/update contract with it where I believe for the duration of the contract you are entitled to full upgrades (think MS Service packs).


As far as upgrading goes, you should be able to run the install as an update but with all the major changes since version 9.0 (move to X.org, KDE3.4, I think sound is handled a little differently as well) I would recommend you do a clean install. Either way definitely back up anything important before updating/installing and you should be fine.

Thanks much.

I like SuSE so I'm not inclined to support illegal copying.

I suppose they might argue that $5 is just the cost of the media ... but that would be putting a rather fine point on it.

Since you've been so generous with your answers, one final question...

Is 9.3 "worth it" relative to 9.0?

Is there a page of side by sides that show the added functionality from 9.0 to 9.1 to 9.2 to 9.3?

Not really sure why I'm thinking of the upgrade to 9.3. I guess I want to try running photoshop and dreamweaver mx with that XP emulator thing (codeweaver? something like that.) Of course that is just more money to spend. I just want to keep playing with the latest thing. $55 is a bit steep just to play. I still do my "real work" on Windows XP, but I keep wanting Linux to be work for everything... looking forward to the day when I can kiss MS goodbye.

Well maybe this is a question that only I can answer.

I just upgraded from 9.2 to 9.3 and I like 9.3 better. Its more fluid and its moving more and more towards perfection. Its crazy. It was so much easier this time to get my wireless going with WPA. I even got Wine working pretty easily.

I know this is a bit off the subject of the discussion but Codeweaver is good if you want to pay, otherwise a little tinkering and research with Wine will go far and for free. I'd start w/ www.frankscorner.org.

In terms of getting 9.3, just BitTorrent the CDs. It only took overnight and I had them the next day free. Install was easy as always.

Sounds like 9.3 would be a fun upgrade.

I haven't figured out the Bit Torrent thing yet. I know I could, but I doubt that I have the time.


I don't know how to reconcile Kim's / Novell's post with the other posts.

Kim says:
Of course I understand that Novell would like to encourage purchase at $55 and since I like the distribution I might even consider doing that.... but if someone is charging a few bucks to ship me a CD I think I would just be paying them for the media and their time... Is there really an ethical or legal argument against doing that?

Kim? Henchman? Johnson? anyone?

And should we distinguish between whether this is legal and whether this is ethical?

Is there a high principle at stake here? (intellectual property! the capacity of companies to survive selling open source! the war against MS!)

Or is this just a low principle? (More money for Novell! Technical illegalities like jaywalking with no real consequences or moral weight!)

How should an person think about these $5 disks?

I shouldn't have to pay for "linux" but SuSE has arranged it all very nicely so it installs and works well.

Their license says it has to be provided for free... consistent I assume with the GPL... but does it really prohibit me paying for the media or the shipping? And if so what is wrong with these disks?

Hell if I know what the right answer is here.

Maybe I will try downloading over a dsl line overnight. In the past when I've tried to burn dvds from ISOs they have not worked as "install disks." Never figured out why. I assume that that sort of trouble is what Novell is counting on to cause people to buckle down and spend the $55, and in my case it might just work. Haven't decided yet.

It is forbidden per the license. If you really are so cheap that you won't pay for it drop me a line and I will post a 32-bit ISO for you. Or, you can send me a blank DVD and I will burn it and send it back to you. If you have dual layer media send me a dual layer disc and I will do a direct disc -> disc copy then you'll have the entire package.

You can receive NO consideration for redistribution. Read the paragraph again and again until you realize that it means what it says and it says what it means. None. Nada. You can GIVE it away. That's it. Under no other condition.

The only way around it is to go the route of centos; take the source packages, recompile them, package them up with an installer, create an ISO and then you can burn THAT image, derived from the source in accordance with GPL, and you can distribute THAT for compensation.