Hi, I like what I read about Novell SLE for office use and interopability with Windows, and Xen integration, but does Open SUSE have all this in the original?

Is this office specialization really so good compared to Fedora 14 or Mint 10 that it is worth trying?

And can it dual boot?

Is it good for security? And Compiz?

Is there a book with it, such as to explain how to connect a USB Wireless Modem?

Will be trying it on a Dell pentium 4, 1 Gb RAM, Intel graphics.

Maybe on ASUS Pentium 4 dual core, nvidia graphics built in 512 Mb RAM, AND 3 Gb RAM.

Should I wait a few weeks for a new release?

for the business office
One i would never install fedora .Having to reformat and reinstall all the office machines EVERY 6 months ... not a good idea

OpenSUSE ??? i might . it depends on who is going to be the it office in the office , and how much experience they have

but on your hardware -- NO -- do not install it
SLED long life 5 to 7 years of paid for support . But it is NOT free
-- only install if you want it to take 30 sec. to open a folder like the $HOME

i take it is a OLD machine

for that I WOULD recommend installing RHEL 5.5 on it ( or the free CentOS 5.5)
but cent has NO tech support other than YOURSELF

Hi, I use XP and like Linux, why is Open SUSE so slow? Why is CENT OS good for business? I prebviously liked Mint 5 and 7 for writing documents and resourcing the net at the same time, it went well on the laptop, and I could use compiz. I have never tried free BSD, is it good for business use? Anyhow, what is Linux good for if not for business computing?

OpenSUSE can be slow on machines with low resources
it is considered a "bloated" os - there are a LOT of programs running in the background
everything is included , including your "kitchen sink"

fedora also can be a bit bloated

Arch is one of the "slimmest" only the "services" that you install and turn on are running


CentOS / RHEL are DESIGNED for the headless server FIRST .
the Office/laboratory second and a very very distant LAST - home use .
RHEL there for MUST NOT crash and MUST be stable to run a fortune 500 corporate server
or to run the particle accelerator in the lab
or the electron microscope

Why is Novell SLE said to be more interpolerable with Windows than say Mint? I use both, I know how to send documents between them. What more is there? Is it the Xen Multi OS wares?

Maybe, but it doesn't cost much to try, does it?

Yes, but then so can anything. Well, with the exception of Windows. Or, more exactly, Windows can be coerced into multi-boot, but it will do exactly zero to help you. And may even throw a few rocks in your path, just for fun.

Potentially, yes, but then you can screw up security by doing the wrong thing with anything. If, for example, you install a million programs, you have the security issues of a million programs to deal with (which you won't be able to do). If, for example, you don't keep stuff up-to-date, you'll have all of the security issues that come with old software to deal with. The distro can only make this easier to do right, not force you.

If you want.

Last time I bought a boxed set (way back, before they changed the name), if you bought the boxed set, you got a couple of really well written introductory books. (And by introductory books, I don't mean 'Some Stuff You Could Do With Your Computer, For The Brain Dead' but actual, useful, stuff.) It should be easy enough to check what comes in the box, these days, either with SUSE themselves or your favourite on-line retailer.

...but you would probably best advised to buy a USB Wireless Modem that was well supported, and ask on a forum if you get problems.

1G is enough. A P4 is hardly exciting, these days, and maybe ought to be banned as a burgeoning environmental crime, but you'd be in more trouble if you didn't have enough memory. You may find that you want to investigate more frugal GUI options (XFCE, LXDE) though.

If that is a machine with an nVidia card, which has 512 M and 3G of main memory that will be fine (although it will probably be a bit of a fiddle to get nVidia acceleration working satisfactorily). if that is two machines, one with 512M and one with 3G, the 512M will definitely push you towards one of the more frugal GUI options.

Of what? OpenSUSE or SLE? Not sure about the SLE schedule, but it probably doesn't make sense to wait for OS, particularly for an evaluation.

@John VV
.and it gives you a nice little app to turn them on and off...you'd be particularly interested in off, I'd guess. And also, rather than some of the more populist/newbie distros, it does give you control at install time of what gets installed (this isn't the default though...you have to go into 'expert options' or some such for this). Not that having extra stuff unused on disk makes much speed difference; Loading may be measurably slower in benchmarks, but most people without exact measurements will never notice that difference.

@Novatian
It isn't. Looking at actual test numbers on Linux distros, as opposed to making up stuff depending on prejudice (which is what you commonly see scattered around the web, and which gets endlessly recycled), shows the real truth. Basically, the speed differences are

• Some kernels have reversions; if you understand the kernel and distro development processes, you realise that this happens to every distro at some time, depending on how the development cycle (or lack of development cycle) of the distro synchronises with the kernel.
• In particular, how some distros set up partitions (filesystems and their precise characteristics) is different, and this evolves with time as newer systems become more mature, but you can always equalise this by setting everything up as you want.
• Choices of GUI make a difference. Primarily this concerns memory usage; computers get dramatically slower when they don't have enough memory and start swapping, so there is a line which, if crossed, causes stuff to be slower. If you want a particularly memory-heavy GUI, buy more memory or make do with a less memory-heavy option. If you have particularly memory-heavy apps, buy more memory, change your workflow to have less in memory at once, or find more frugal apps (for example, replacing Open Office with abiword/gnumeric). If you really want the 'full fat' versions, pay the price.
• Sometimes newer versions of software are faster than older; sometimes it is the other way around. Unless you deliberately choose a distro that specialises in out-of-date software, it is difficult to use this to your advantage, in the same way that it is difficult to use sod's law to your advantage.
• There are differences in defaults, but you can always change them, with some distros tending to go for safe, tried and tested, ease of use, and some going for leading edge. Defaults are just defaults, after all.
• CentOS is good for being a free version of RH (without RH IP); if a program that you need only comes certified (and/or tested, or maybe even at all) for use on RH, and you don't want to pay for RH/Support, then CentOS is a good choice. Given the market share of RH in the US enterprise market, this happens quite commonly with serious/expensive software, such as CAD/CAM.

Interoperability with LDAP or AD, for example. Some poor benighted fools also have fastened on something called 'Outlook' for their corporate mail infrastructure, too. And they probably don't understand anything apart from how to follow recipes and they would still like something that works to interoperate with Outlook without effort, although, taken together, that might be impossible set of conditions to satisfy.

I installed Novell's SLED. Very smooth, don't find it slow on a pentium 4 laptop with 1 gb RAM.

It is responsive so far, not slow, installing has some unexpected security options, blowfish for example and several others I do not know at all.

I will try Xen soon.