This is a fantastic distro - just download the boatloader image, burn it to CD, reboot and point to the nearest ftp site and off you go. I have a SONY laptop which are completely shite when it comes to Linux support, but SuSE have spent a lot of time and effort getting Linux on these machines. For me it's the only choice if you have a Sony. It's easy to use, robust (as you'd expect) and FREE!
Whopee :)

Since I am realy using Linux for about half a year, my opinion is that of a newbie.

My first encounter with Linux was version 6.4. After a short time I gave up.
For about a year I bought a version 8. I installed it but I did not manage to get realy acqainted. For one reason or another, I didn't get the picture. The linux docs didn't help me out. So it was still on one of my computers, but I wasn't realy using it.

In spring I bought a RH9 version and a lot of books. Since then I am getting to the point step by step. Recently I found a Suse Linux 8.2 DVD by a magazin Linux Intern. I rememberd SUSE as an environment that was apeeling to me, but I also rememberd the troubles I had to understand something about it.

After my experiments with RH, I thought give it a try. So I installed SUSE on one of my computers. Unfortunately the asus A7N8X-X mobo was not fully in the database of SUSE. First it didn't want to install. I tried another system with a KS75A mobo. Even the newer NVIDIA FX card was reconized. But there where no drivers. The install was a walk over.

I followed the suggestion to have the system updated and yes there was a possibility to install the NVIDIA drivers and anything else. Even my cardreader (2 luns) worked without any problem. One line in fstab, restart and off you go. That's the way I like it. I have spend weeks and weeks, to read docs and all kind off stuff to get some drivers installed on RH9 and this thing did it all by itself.

The problem with the NEWBIE's including myself is, we want to have our computer started as quick as possible.......... So no reading, installing and up. But unfortunately this doesn't work that way. Get a realy good book, get the OS and take some time to studie, experiment and read on the web. Slackware has a complete book on its site. For the old GURU's this isn't not interresting, but for newbie's it gives a lot off answers.

Talking over books, I bought some books like Red Hat Linux 9 Bible and that kind of stuff. I must say most of these books are incomplete and lack a lot off realy needed information.

Back to the OS. This is an os a NEWBIE can use. Do not use the newest hardware (this counts for all Linux Os's). If you have very new hardware you can run into trouble as I did with my A7N8X-X. At the end it installed,
but without ACPI. Also the NVIDIA lan driver gave some trouble, but this was also the case with RH9. It also installed without troubles on my laptop ( asus 3000D). So it looks very flexible. The update is also a peace of cake.

There is just one thing I don't like, and that is the amount of programms Suse puts on your HD if you make an automated install. (No roses without....)

A fine OS with lots of things to play with. Take your time and if you don't understand anything, this forum is the right place to ask.

CB

YaST installer is really great. Basically I've installed it on alot of machines on our network. I can setup printing, internet and office applications without problem. Intuitive windows-like gui's allow ease of use for my traditional windows users. I have had a few probs installing it on PII and AMDK6-2's. But 8.0 worked fine on them.

From the beginning, I've always used SUSE, so maybe I'm a bit biased. Started with 7.2 and then upgraded to 8.0. Found that I was having a lot of problems printing, getting old packages to run, and on and on. Someone passed the 8.2 release my way, and it's been lovely! My only gripe is that I frequently need to install or find development packages (even though I have the "professional" edition). It seems in comparision to other distros, SUSE is lacking on games and fun stuff - but I'm not too much into that anyway.

I really wish I could get a richer multimedia experience with the software included with the distro!

If 7 seems a little low in light of my praise, it's because I used SUSE 9.0 at work, and on comparable hardware, the 9.0 release just seemed to offer more at your fingertips!