Mandrake 9.0, Redhat 9.0 & SuSE 8.1 were all released between October & November of 2002. To my knowledge SuSE 8.1 is the most current edition. With all the version numbers being tossed around in OSS it's hard to keep track.

I use SuSE 8.0 and it was real easy to install. I hear 8.1 is also easy. I do not know much about computers so if it was easy for me most people will have no problem. Also when I needed SuSE support they e-mailed me back within two days with the answer to my question. I like this distro.

Good Luck!
Glenn :Pengy:

You mean Red Hat 8.0, correct? As far as I know, 8.0 is the latest; I'm not aware of a later release.

Thanks brigantine. Are you using SuSE Pro, or the normal distro? Have you used any other distros? I'm curious to hear how SuSE stacks up against others like Mandrake, Xandros, etc., for features like compatibility, ease-of-use, and 'eye candy'! ;)
Thank you.

Thanks theduke. I just checked several mirror sites, and it seems 8.1 is the latest release, but only in binary format; no Intel architecture ISOs seem to be available for download on FTP sites for SuSE.
Does anyone have a link to these ISOs so I can check out this distro?

SuSE 8.0 is the only Linux I have used deesto. I found it to be real easy to get used to. I've herd they all have good and bad points. Since my experiance with SuSE is good I will stick with it. The only problem I have is installing downloads, but this is not a distro problem. I dont know command lines so I think I will have this problem with any distro I use.

Later!
:Pengy:

Thanks for your SuSE 8 opinion.
Hmm... well if you're having trouble installing *.RPM packaged downloads, I ca nhelp you with that...
If installing from a command line, type:
rpm -i <packageName>.rpm
There are other options you can use (like "v" for verbose) but "i" will let you install new packages.
I am not familiar with SuSE, but if it's anything like the other distros, it has some sort of "package manager" GUI application, in which you can add/install new RPM packages.

Thanks deesto

I dont know if SuSE has "RPM". If it does I have not found it yet. If SuSE does have a GUI package manager how do I locate it?

I'm going to try and download Netscape 7.0 tonight. I have the installer downloaded, and now I have to unpack it and use tar comands. I've been reading the info on linuxnexwbie.org on how to do this. They have some instruction files. Hope it works! :D

Later!
:Pengy:

brigantine: here is a direct link to download Netscape 7 for Linux. Click the link and download the file to your computer.
Netscape has some pretty thorough installation instructions, which include Linux directions, here.
As far as SuSE and RPMs: as you know, I've never used SuSE so I have no idea. I'd say check the SuSE support site for RPM applications and support; or the command line will always work if your OS supports RPMs.

I don't think Suse has .iso's to download. I think you have to buy it boxed to get the disc, or do a network install

Those instructions are great!

Thanks!
:Pengy:

No problem brigantine; good luck!

I seem to be having a small problem.
I type in tar -xzvf netscape-i686-pc-linux-gnu-installer.tar.gz and then cd netscape-installer. I then hit enter and /netscape-installer shows up.
If I'm reading the directions right this is what I was supposed to type in next. So I just hit enter and all it does is repeat /netscape-installer.
Have I missed something?

Thank You!

:Pengy:

I'm not sure why that is happening... but if there is a (binary) file called "netscape-installer", try typing in:
./netscape-installer
(with the dot in front)
It should launch the installl program (if it exists and it's named "netscape-installer"

hah! Yes, I do mean 8.0. There are way too many numbers out there. ):


I rate them as SuSE 8.1 | Xandros > Redhat 8.0 > Mandrake 9.0.

Xandros is by far the most fimiliar distro I've used. It reminds me of Win98 and has many simple things thrown in to keep the non-geek users from being scared away. It's default software install is well chosen.

SuSE is a more standard Linux distro.. Very similar to Redhat & Mandrake in that they throw just about everything they can find at you. SuSE will automatically place links to your NTFS partitions on your desktop.. which Redhat & Mandrake don't do. The largest advantage SuSE has over Redhat is it doesn't take 20 seconds to open something on a 2ghz P4. I'm not the first to complain about it's speed at launching applications. The advantage SuSE & Redhat have over Mandrake is Mandrake 9.0 seems to have some hardware issues with IDE controller cards. I rate an distro low if it has hardware problems that prevent installation. I can't say I played with Mandrake much after it was installed.

I've also used Lindows 2.0, Peanut 9.0, Lycoris r2, Gentoo 1.4rc1 and some others. I think they are too much work for the average user. Lycoris is aimed at the ease of use category but it's hardware support is well below most other distros. I don't think searching for drivers then using a CLI to install them is considered easy by newbies.

Which distro do I like best? It use to be SuSE, but now I'm not so sure. I like Xandros' simplicity, but I'm not sure if I like it hiding things from me. I like the size of SuSE's software library, but it's easy to get lost in there. If I was just surfing the web and doing office stuff I would go with Xandros. If I want a distro that will do damn near everything, I'll go with SuSE. I've been looking at just about every distro I can find.. I haven't installed IcePack or Debian lately, though.


SuSE 8.1 is compiled almost entirely for i586 (I think there was something compiled as i686) on the ftp. They don't provide their latest distro as an image file because they want you to buy it.


I think you just double click the .rpm file in KDE. It may have been another distro, but I'm pretty sure it was SuSE 8.1. It's real easy to use.