Any SUSE folks tried PCLinuxOS 2007???
 

Hi Gang.

I have been a SUSE user for several years now, but I'm thinking about making the switch to either PCLinuxOS 2007 or Kubuntu. I'm still VERY upset that the executives at Novell have been playing footsie with MicroCrap, and if they'd rather kowtow to the likes of Steve Balmer and/or Bill Gates, then I'm not gonna buy their stuff anymore. I was very concerned that Novell would poop up the very solid SUSE distro after they bought it, and when I first heard about their deal with MicroCrap, I was ready to bite my keyboard in half.

With this in mind, I'm wondering if many of you other SUSE users have also had the opportunity to play around with PCLinuxOS 2007? I'm still on SUSE 10.0, and I haven't upgraded to a newer version since there seems to have been lots of on-going problems that give me pause. Hence, I'm at the point that I just might drop SUSE altogether & give PCLinuxOS 2007 a try.

No need for lots of detailed answers, but if some of you SUSE users have been very pleased and/or impressed with PCLinuxOS 2007, I'd enjoyed reading about your overall impressions. I definitely want to use a robust Linux version that has all the programming tools I'll need to use, and I'm assuming that I should have no problems in downloading any compilers & supporting tools within PCLos if they're not already available within this particular distro.

I read some of the user reviews about this distro, and everyone seems to be very pleased with it. As long as it's easy to get all that one needs for good hardware support, multimedia tools, & it contains a very solid version of KDE, then this might be all that I really need to make the switch.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts & opinions that some of you may have. I really wish that SUSE was going to be headed in the right direction as far as the Open Source community is concerned, but ANYBODY that thinks that MicroCrap will EVER "play nice" with us Linux users is obviously either remarkably ignorant or just selfishly concerned with getting some big bucks from the folks at Redmond. I was a MicroCrap slave for 9+ years, and I'm NEVER going to step back into that sorry excuse of an OS EVER again. And I want to use a rock-solid distro of Linux from a development team that will in NO way compromise whatz best for the entire Open Source community, and especially for those of us who want to use & develop the best software tools at a very reasonable price for everyone else.

Thanks for your thoughts!

I'm using Suse 10.2 and have PCLinuxOS and Mepis. The PCLinuxOS installed on my set without any problems. It seems to be a good distro and I use it on the internet mainly. If you are going to use it on a laptop or a desktop I would say give it a try. You have to dig a little harder to find your extra programs that you may want to use. Suse has a lot of their programs on DVD that you won't find with the PCLinuxOS. If you have enough hd space I might suggest setting up a small partition and trying it first or if you do not use dial up internet do the live cd thing.

I got fed up with Suse and dumped it for PCLinuxOS two days ago and I couldn't be happier. I've been using Suse since 10.0 and it seems that with every new release, therez just more bugz. Everything on PCLinuxOS works so well that it's boring (nuthin' to "fix"). It has everything that I use. Flash 9, win32codecs. GoogleEarth, LightScribe, Opera, Nvidia, and so on....... Graphical Grub boot just like Suse except that it works. I had Suse 10.3 on my box for a week or so and it wouldn't even keep my HP C4180 settings after a reboot. Grub kept breaking. PCLinuxOS also seems to be faster than Suse 10.3. I haven't found it lacking for anything for my purposes.

Note:
I did change the repo and ran --> "apt-get update" and "apt-get dist-upgrade"

I think that you'll be disappointed with Kubuntu if your use to Suse.

Hi slackass, try using SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 SP1, Works well with my laptop, haven't encountered any problem yet =)

Hi gurl4sh25,

I think I'm guna stick with PCLOS for my RPM distro for awhile.
It comes with beryl compiz pre-installed and I've never played with that stuff before. (and it all actually works right out of the box...so to speak)

I may re-try Suse when I get tired of Sabayon and have a slot to put it in.
Right now my grub menu.lst is a mess.

Hi, beryl compiz is also pre-installed in SLED 10 =) Anyway I heard PCLinuxOS are pretty good, maybe i'll try to check this one

interesting how differently people think about different version numbers of a distro. if you go through the threads in LX you will find perhaps 50% people telling you that opensuse gets worse and worse since 10.0 and 50% stating the opposite. perhaps this is related to the fact that the operating system is most of the time only as good as the operator, isn't it?*g

if people express their personal feelings about distros, I will also do that. opensuse 10.3 rocks compared to all other versions... and no, I won't try anything else - also no PCLinuxOS - since I almost tried everything worth trying...

I use PCLinuxOS, Mepis and opensuse 10.2. Of the three, I prefer PCLinux. It's a polished distro and was one of the few that copes with my laptop hardware (ATI mobo) Nothing stands still in linux for long, so it's always worth keeping an eye on what is happening.

Mepis 7.0 is due for release shortly and I'm looking forward to that. I'm thinking about installing opensuse 10.3 to have a look at it, but I've just bought a new computer and I can't find anything that will install yet :( So I'm trying several distros to see which one can cope with the hardware. From what I'm reading opensuse 10.3 is looking the best.

Hi,
I am running OpenSuse 10.3 and have no problems at all, except I cant install Epson EPL-6200L laser printer (but that was since 10.1). Yesterday I dl PCLinuxOS 2007, burnt it and try to install it . At startup I got an error message regarding something about loop and mount point to be wrong and the job has been aborted.I cant remember now what exactly was the message. After that, the text window stopped and I have to reboot the comp. (withot the installation CD ). Can somebody tell me what is wrong???

@riba
this is perhaps a question for the PCLinuxOS forum?*g stay with suse its fine... and if there exists no driver for your epson printer it is not a problem of the distro neither a reason to change the distro...

I used to be SuSe for years.
I use both pclinux (Sam) and ubuntu on my laptop.


both work well and are very similar and simple to install packages.
no real pros or cons either way.

my desktop is solaris 10 which is a real quality piece of work
but not pretty!

I have no intention to change the distro. SUSE is my favorite. But I wanted just to check and see what it looks like.

I've been running Suse 10 on several desktops and two laptops (Acer & Dell) for over a year, and currently have 4 Suse 10.2 installs & one 10.1. Apart from the hassles with the YaST software management it does everything I want it to. I've even got a Brother DCP135c all-in-one working with it.

I have tested Ubuntu/Kubuntu 7 on laptops and in some ways it is much better for the user with no technical knowledge. Recently I tried PCLinuxOS2007 on my Acer TravelMate and it looks good. The usual problem with laptop displays is not recognising the correct resolution, but both Ubuntu and PCLos2007 got this right on first boot. PCLos2007 is nearer the look and feel of Suse, but with a control panel more like the Ubuntu paradigm. For a less technical person, it would make an easier transition from Windows than Suse or Ubuntu.

I haven't had much time to try it for real work, but hope to in the next couple of weeks. At the moment I am "recycling" some old Dell hardware using Ubuntu 6.06 for a charity providing free PC's and basic IT training to the unemployed in my part of London!

Pclinux does something else really unique. like mandriva it has a little app called 'live cd', however pclinux works much better at it.
As root in a terminal type the command 'remasterme' and it will create a bootable live dvd iso of your installation.

Since there appears to be no Solaris forum on this site, would you mind expanding on the above statement? I have installed Solaris 10 and find it rather slow and unfriendly. Aside from security issue what exactly do you like about it?

Thanks.

There is a solaris forum,

ZFS

Why? I am a bit wierd.

Well, the reason I took up linux is because there was no free unix available all those years ago.
now there is.

Granted, it is definitely not friendly, especially as I use the CDE desktop but I'm into
programming, C perl that sort of stuff so I just need a unix box not a 3d desktop.
I do everything with vi and CLI.

Also it seems more solid, I have some perl code that will generally freeze mylinux box but
Solaris dumps it out of memory.

I like,
the ZFS file system, I like the SMF, I like the C compiler, and the X development tools you get.
I like the man pages which are much more complete.

I mainly tried it for the ZFS filesystem which is a fantastic piece of engineering I think.
I even like the package management.

i took a break from suse (after my 10.2 refused to start X suddenly)
and went to Kubuntu and its really easy to use.
no longer having to recomplile the nvidia drivers everytime a new kernel comes out and my wifi card worked out of the box!!!

i have since installed 10.3 on a new partition and are moving back gradulally...

10.0 was good... 10.1 was useless! 10.2 was ok and 10.3 looks to be the best 10.x so far

I installed opensuse 10.3 dual boot with Vista on my new computer on the weekend and I'm very impressed with it. Polished professional. It installed all my hardware and it was easy to setup the Nvidia driver and the Marvell Gigabyte LAN was included with the kernel.

I like the LiveCD of 10.3. It meant I could check for any hardware problems without guesswork. To date it's the only LiveCD that's worked.

I need the 2.6.22.9 kernel to recognise the Marvell NIC. I will probably install PCL as well once I've updated the kernel and remastered the CD image. I just haven't had time.

I only had Vista installed when I got it and that's all I had to use for 5 whole days. I'm quite happy now suse is installed and running smoothly and I'm very grateful I'm not stuck with Vista as the only option on this machine ;)

yes, i was unimpressed with the first novell release.
so bad I left suse.

but i had a drive of my friends 10.3 and it looks really polished.
I don't like the suse config model though, so complicated to get around.

but to be honest, loads of distros are very polished and professional now.
even gnome, which I have always hated is becoming usable.
i even put ubuntu on my old folks box cos they got fed up with IE viruses
(it has solitaire and mahjong games)


it's all good news.

I dumped Suse for PClinuxOS
 

Hi there

Your original question was a while ago now, but I dumped Suse for PClinux. I have tried most distos and finally settled on Suse 10.2 on both my laptop and Desktop. However, Suse could never get my graphics card working in 3D and believe me (check my threads!) I tried everything!

On putting a new hard drive in my laptop - I installed PClinuxOS for a quick 'play' as it was on a CD with Linux Format mag that week. I couldn't believe how good it was! 3D worked straight out of the box as did Wifi, printing and everything else. I did go on to install Suse 10.2 (and I recently tried 10.3), but nothing I've used compares to PClinuxOS

I have tried others - hated Ubuntu, Kubuntu a little better, Mepis and Mint pretty excellent - but for me, on my particular laptop - Compaq Presario R3000) PClinux is the best OS I've ever used.

I'm going to put Mint 4 on my desktop though as I did like the look of that....

openSUSE and PCLinuxOS are quite dissimilar IMO. If you want an open source replacement for openSUSE, Fedora is closer. The new version 8 runs solid in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

I tried PCLinuxOS twice--versions p92 and 2007. The first was good, but slightly inferior to the version of Simply MEPIS that was out at the time (I recall that was ~ 3.4). Version 2007 would not run or install on the two computers I tried it on, although I have to admit part of the problem with one of them may have been my patience. It took about 5 minutes to start the setup and I felt that at that rate I was looking at a 2-hour install, so I aborted it.

I've been using SAM linux, which is a derivative and have had lots of problems
with the net connection.
the wireless seemd to hardly work, even when set up by hand
using ifconfig and iwconfig I couldn't get it to work often.

which I usually have no trouble with this method.
I've tried many times deleting, reloading, reconfiguring the interfaces
with the GUI tool. I gave up with the wireless and used the wire
but still I need to put the DNS in every time
(I use no DHCP). quite annoying from an otherwise enjoyable experience.

BEL on a wireless laptop
 

Update to my previous post. I am having a look at Business Edition Linux which is a remaster of PCLinuxOS 2007. I'm writing this on my Acer TravelMate 2304 WMLi which has Suse 10.2 as default. It is a 1.6Ghz Celeron M with 1Gb of ram.

I am running BEL Workstation from the Live CD, and it is very impressive. It allowed me to set-up the wlan adaptor using ndiswrapper and logged on to my network with no problem. It found the correct resolution for the display, and apart from the known OpenOffice Quickstart bug looks very good. This is the first Live CD I've tried that looks like I could do real work with it.

Tomorrow I am going to try out BEL Workstation on a Dell Optiplex and BEL Terminal on some older P3 & P4 hardware. Terminal is a cut-down version of Workstation for use on older hardware - slower, less ram, etc.