I know that for a while SuSE was not completely open, they had YaST but now that is under GNU. I also noticed that one can download isos for SuSE personal as stated here. I personally have been a fan of SuSE, I think that they have a chance to actually get onto the desktop. So what could hold them back? I have been told that they are not as open as others. What does everyone think?

well as i see it you can download the personal edition now. and it looks like you can actually do that right off of their website too hopefully it's true because as you said this distro could very easily be a main desktop os, especially if it's free.


EDIT: on second thought mabye it isn't "free"

here's the install notes for the latest ISO from SUSE's site, checkout the last 2 steps

i'm going to try downloading from linuxquestions.org here and see if this one is a trial cd


EDIT # 2

ok i've read a little more and one of the reviews on here has said it was free and on the suse site it seems like you don't have to pay unless you want the tech support

It's pretty much completely free. Like the earlier post indicated, you can download an iso of the Personal Edition. Be forewarned, it's lean in terms of all the bells and whistles...a single CD...KDE only, no development tools. You can add sources to YaST or use apt4rpm to get 99% of what comes with Professional.

Yes, you can download the various iso's just like we're used to doing with the other distros, 'cept RH's EL line is now closed source, or doesn't have iso's available.

The SLES (Suse Linux Enterprise Server) 9 iso's are available from the novell.com site now, though it says it's a 30 day eval copy, there is NO timeout for the product, just the 30 days of free install support is timed out.

You will be able to get iso's of the Suse Pro 9.2 product very soon now, and thats got some really nice features for laptop and desktop users, including the 2.6.x kernel, hibernate mode and much more. Keep checking the sites for it, and we'll post it as soon as we can see it publicly.

Ross

If you don't want to download all the iso's just get the personal edition.
Then open up yast2, go to software and at the top there should be a change source of
installation option.
From this link suse ftp choose
and configure one of the ftp sites as one of your sources to install your rpms from.
Now when you go to add and remove software you have the same rpms to choose from
as if you were using the pro edition.

Yes, it's very possible to download the personal edition and then spend the time to get the updated packages (a lot) for the pro edition.

My thinking is this: why not spend the time to get the real iso's and _have_ them if you reload, than spend all that time ftp'ing the packages each time you make a mistake and reload? (I'm talking about the newbie experience here, blow the distro up, reload it and learn from the mistakes, repeat as often as necessary).

It all comes down to what you want to spend time doing, loading from the cd-rom or pulling it across the web from germany.

Ross

I enjoy the responses, but when I say open, I mean legally open as in GNU licensing etc. I am not against paying for linux once in while. A point has been made as to whether you should spend your time downloading all the necesarry features or having them at your disposal.
I will definetely be looking for the 9.2 iso's with all the new laptop features. I have yet to see a "drop in" linux distro that is laptop friendly. If this is true, then a big thanks will be going to SuSE.
There are a few things that I want from a linux distribution: entirely open sourced, easy configurability, easy to update, and easy to install. If any one of these elements is hampered then I argue that the usability of that distro is jeopardized. As a few examples: Gentoo - open, easy to update, easy to configure, but long install. Slackware - open, easy to configure, pain to update (yeah, yeah swaret, slapt-get, they both need some work), easy install.
My experience has been like this with SuSE: not completely open (YaST, some Ximian), easy to configure, snap to update with YaST (which was not GNU licensced at the time), and one of the best installers out there.

What about speed? I have yet to see any real difference in speed between distro's. People try to go on hearsay alone without any real facts. I would like to see compile times, or some other benchmark to show that Gentoo is faster than Mandrake. Ok, argue about pre-linking. Show it.

Not to start any distro wars or anything, but I would like to see someone finally "get it right" with all the option that a linux user needs. We want Debian/Gentoo apt-get/emerge updating, we want KDE configurability, and we want easy installers.

Now the hard core user is fuming by now, "I installed Slack with no problems, I installed Gentoo with no problems." Good for you exhalted ones, you are guru's in your own right, now let us see you install those things 100 more times and watch you get sick of Gentoo's compile time. (I guess slack isn't that hard to install, pretty good installer actually) You get my point.

Maybe this time SuSE can get it right.

Are you meaning open as in free? lol

Suse is a good distribution in my opinion. Ive used it on and off for a few years. Of all the "pay for it" dists out there, Id say its the one Id most likely drop my money on. Xandros, Linspire, and Desktop/LX aka Lycoris are all Debian rips that break if you attempt to use sources other than the ones they supply you. On top of all that, Suse has Novell's backing, thats good enough for me to "buy" a copy and support the industry.



BW/

http://os.gwos.org

Oh, I get it now. This post was for the Novell folks.

Hey, I'm all about getting it right, I had holy heck getting the SuSE Desktop 1.0 product to do anything I wanted it to, putting it on a Dell 5150 was tragic, nothing seemed to work or be detected. My experience with the current branch of SuSE 9.x is it's really good, it detects all the stuff on my laptops, even finding the winmodem on one and correctly reporting the model.

I did fight a little with the suseplugger and wireless, but it turned out that broadcom doesn't have ANY linux support, so I used the LinuxAnt driverloader, bingo, working. BTW, if you are doing wireless on SuSE and there isn't a driver for the card or chipset, try the ndiswrapper product or http://www.linuxant.com for their inexpensive but very nice product.

Ross

This seems to say that you can download the suse pro iso's. Is this true, and if so where can you get them. I thought only 9.1 personal was available an an iso. It is the only one listed on this website.

I have been using SUSE on my Inspiron 5150 ever since I got it. I love it, and finally have a place to post my minor issues. I noticed several links to full isos I'll have to download them as it should beat downloading the basic installer and grabbing it from a ftp site.

Why not spend a measly 11 or 12 bucks like I did for the 9.1 pro from www.linuxcd.org?

My question is the same as his...is it really possible to download these isos? I see that you can buy it on a dvd for 11.95 as mentioned, but can't I just d'l it anyway? Perhaps a bit torrent like the Fedora ISOs?

I agree that SuSE is the distro worth paying for, but I already shelled out the cash for 9.0 Pro and I don't feel like paying full price for the upgrade if I don't have to. That's my biggest complaint...they don't have an inexpensive upgrade path.

Yeah, it's true that up to 9.1, you can't get an easy download of SuSE products, that is because YaST wasn't open sourced at that time. I am currently checking to see how 9.2 is being made available. You can check the torrent sites such as torrentreactor.net for 9.1 pro bittorrents, I have seen them there, and have heard of download sites, but those come and go with the lifespan of fruit flies...

By the same token, you CAN get SLES 9 downloaded for absolutely free, and get 30 days of install support, it's on the Novell site here:

SLES 9 D/L Site

A direct comparison of the SLES/Novell Linux Desktop and 9.2 branches can be found here:

SLES/NLD and Suse 9.2 Comparitive Guide

I'll post back when I have something about 9.2 availability, but it's slated for public release in early November.

Ross