I had purchased a SuSE 7.3 a few years ago and upgraded to 8.0 within the last year.

Although I have been able to install and get all my stuff working (ie; printer, zip drive, cable modem, etc) I have never really taken a liking to SuSE. I wanted to know if anyone felt strongly, pro/con about SuSE, and if maybe I'd be better off trying one of the other Dist's?

I am not a programmer, but I do like to tinker around and see if I can figure things out. Just thought I'd say that.

Hi !

I cant say about Suse coz I've never used it. In fact I never needed to use any other distros.....I feel two of the best distros around are:

1. Mandrake - Very easy to install-----no hassles absolutely - for the non-programmers.

2. RedHat 9 - I feel its the most Organised in content and highly configurable. Better than MS Windows any time! Not difficult to install either.

My personal fav is RedHat, becos I have been able to run almost all the applications in RedHat 9.

Try Mandrake 9.1 or RedHat 9 today....and I guess you will forget Suse after that!

Red Hat is my favorite server, but sound support absolutely sucks in Red Hat.

Slackware is the best non-PAM distro.

Debian is for the real gearheads. It's also the most "free" (as in FSF) no stupid licensing requirements hidden away in there.

I live in N.C. and RedHat is right here.

I thought about buying that, but I heard that they rushed disto's out and really kind of butchered some of the Open Source stuff that people have worked on for free. I can't remember where I read that, but it seemed like it was over the net, or maybe I heard it on NPR.

I downloaded Debian and kind of got it working, but switched back to just Windows because my wife thought I was going to screw up the computer. I just got an older P3/500m with 256k and a 10meg hd and I planned on loading SuSE on that, but thought I'd see what was up with some of the other Distro's first.

Thanks for the input.

"and a 10meg hd"

I hope that's a typo.

It would help if you could tell us what it is about SuSE that you don't like, so we know what you're really looking for.

You're correct...had a slip there. It's a 10GIG hd.

I don't like all the green for one. I know that's pretty dumb, but I just don't.

The last time I installed it (on even an older P3) along side Win98, StarOffice just took forever to run. I have since stumbled across OpenOffice.org and plan on using that.

Since I do CAD for a living, I've been force fed Win for soo long, that it just seems like they were trying to win the MAC user's over with this Distro. No offence intended, my wife is a MAC lover.

I have also found it hard to find any really usable programs in the 100's they supply. I mean there appear to be dozen's of programs that do the exact same thing, or nothing really important at all...eye's that follow your curser around, a tea timer, 4 or 5 really bad notepad or word processing programs.

I can't figure out how to remove those superflous programs.

If I could find a good Drafting/Design program, or a ?Wine? that would allow me to run AutoCAD or MicroStation that would be great.

I guess that what I really want to do with the computer is...

be able to sure the web securely
set up a home network of sorts
learn to do a little programming
use this machine to keep track of some of my household/personal projects
most importantly, to get away from Windows and learn something new


Cheers.

"If I could find a good Drafting/Design program, or a ?Wine? that would allow me to run AutoCAD or MicroStation that would be great."

http://linuxshop.ru/linuxbegin/win-lin-soft-en/#9
There are over a dozen CAD programs for Linux, but I don't know enough about this sort of thing to tell if they are good enough.

" I have also found it hard to find any really usable programs in the 100's they supply. I mean there appear to be dozen's of programs that do the exact same thing, or nothing really important at all...eye's that follow your curser around, a tea timer, 4 or 5 really bad notepad or word processing programs."

JAMD Linux is good in this respect.

Vector Linux is another that comes to mind.

Of course you can also deselect the programs you don't want installed during the custom installation process of the larger distros like Red Hat, Mandrake, Slackware, etc. Once you know which programs you do and don't want, you can pick and choose at installation time.

I have been using Suse 8.2 Pro for around 3 months and I absolutely love it. Ive tried Mandrake 9.1 but too few programs for my liking.....Libranet is ok but too outdated although I did update thru apt ok......Didnt give RedHat a try since most reviews were not in its favor or at least in my opinion. One day I checked out Suse nad will not go back to anything else. My reasons are this......its easy to install, awesome programs included....everything you could ever want and then some. I do alot of studio recording stuff and the music stuff is really nice. I tried installing some of these on mandrake but they never would work. The games that come with it are actually good, better that anormal windows setup. All the office type programs you could want and probably wont really need. I didnt buy my copy at the time cause 1. I didnt have the money, 2. Id rather try before I buy. So I downloaded the pro edition off the net and its well worth it.....now for x-mas this year Ill buy a copy to support them.
I would have to say it is somewhat more bloated than other distros such as slackware or maybe gentoo but for what it offers and configuring stuff is cake, even in Win XP my gamepad wouldnt work but it does in Suse. The only thing that really holds me back from using Windows altogether is I write programs for work in VB and ive tried gambas in Suse and the first time I use it it works but after that it wont so I have to keep XP going until they come out with something compareable to VB in Linux....or learn a different language.

Bottom line is......Try 8.2 Pro.......I think you'll like it......alot.

Another 8.2 Pro user here - in fact, I've just set up an 8.2 Pro box for my parents. Learn how to use Yast. It is very powerful and a very useful bit of kit. As for colours etc. learn how to use the KDE control centre, and toddle off to www.kdelook.org You can find lots of nice non-green styles, icon sets wallpaper etc. SuSE is a really excellent distro, especially when you install from the dvd - adding/removing packages is so much easier when it's all on one disk.