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http://www.madpenguin.org/Article1131.html
Here we are again. Another SUSE release and another review on Mad Penguin. What's so special about this release to merit taking up your valuable time? Well, for starters this will be the first commercial Linux release built on a production 2.6 kernel. To top that off, it includes the newly released KDE 3.2 and GNOME 2.4.2 desktop environments. This could turn out to be one slick desktop system. Will it live up to expectations? We intend to find out.
SUSE's first 'post-Novell pickup' release includes the following features:
Linux kernel 2.6.4
KDE 3.2.1/GNOME 2.4.2 desktop environments
Samba 3 for Windows networking
Gimp 2.0 image editing
Kaffeine 0.4.1/Totem 0.99.9 video players
XMMS audio player
MainActor 5.5 video editing
OpenOffice.org 1.1.1 office suite
K3b 0.11.7 CD/DVD burning package
Kontact 0.8.1 email & Ximian Evolution 1.4.6 groupware suites
Rekall 2.2.0b1 database management
Installation
Installing SUSE LINUX hasn't really evolved that much over the last several releases. The Professional version (which we are reviewing today) comes in a 5 Cd/2 DVD set. One thing it lacks from the personal edition is the inclusion of a bootable live CD (similar to Knoppix, PCLinuxOS, etc.). This disc contains a working SUSE LINUX desktop environment that will run entirely from CD. There is no need to install anything to the hard disc, which allows you to carry your desktop around in your pocket.
To be honest, it is quite a good installer, and has enough options for advanced users while being easy enough for a new user. My only concern (and this has been a standing concern for some time now) is that the YaST-based (Yet another Setup Tool) installation process is too lengthy. The installer asks a lot of configuration -related questions which could most likely be automated or, at the very least, give the user an option for a 'beginner' install. I really don't mind the more complicated questions during installation, but it might be a bit intimidating for new users to Linux. SUSE has a wonderful status of being easy enough for new users but powerful enough for power users as well. To make this completely accurate, the installation needs to have more focus on new users. This is definitely the case when it concerns dependency handling. There is too much user interaction during installation to resolve dependency problems. Other distros automate this and there is no reason that SUSE should not that I can think of.
During the installation I chose the default package selection option which, from what I assumed, would install a basic KDE system (no GNOME. I could always install it later), basic supporting applications such as office suite, audio/video apps, CD burning, Internet software, etc. I wanted to see how well the applications chosen by SUSE would fit my needs. Normally I would get more granular with my selections, but this is for the sake of the review... we'll see how it goes.
The Desktop Experience
SUSE is a KDE distribution. There is no denying that, but considering their recent acquisition by networking giant Novell, the future to some is unclear. As you may know, Novell also purchased Linux desktop company Ximian, the people responsible for bringing their modified GNOME distribution to the masses. So what you have is a very good potential for some excellent work on the GNOME desktop with SUSE... but sadly it hasn't happened yet. I half expected Ximian GNOME to be the desktop of choice with this release. Instead, a very vanilla GNOME 2.4.2 was included (I chose the default installation, so GNOME was not installed by default. It was easily installed via YaST... simple enough for a monkey to install, really). You can definitely tell that far more effort was put into KDE development as there was into GNOME, as it look very 'stock' and unattended to. Granted this software is in beta4 release, so there is still room for improvement, but so far all of the development effort has been on KDE. Even still, it hasn't gone unnoticed. KDE has never looked better.
SUSE, as usual, has spent some time tweaking the KDE desktop to look the best it can. This has to be one of the most attractive Linux desktops I have ever seen, hands down. I just wish the SUSE developers would place as much effort into the GNOME desktop as well. Even though I am a KDE user, I can appreciate the GNOME desktop for the great piece of art it is and it really deserves some attention. Perhaps in future releases SUSE will incorporate the Ximian desktop into its releases. An update via YOU (YaST Online Update) or Red Carpet (Ximian's online update utility) will probably cure this problem very soon. On that note, I had some fun with this and will describe in more detail later. Please note the screenshots of the GNOME desktop below as compared to KDE. Even though it is hard to capture in a screenshot, I think you will see the difference.
The KDE desktop itself is decorated in the Thin Keramik style with the traditional SUSE window decoration. From what it looks like to me, the menus are done in the dotNet style, but it could very well be a feature of the Thin Keramik style... if not, SUSE has done some modifications to the theme itself. None of the visual effects (drop shadows, transparency, etc.) are turned on by default but can easily be adjusted within the KDE Control Center (Kcontrol).
The K Menu (similar to the Windows Start menu) has been reworked and organized to an extent that it makes many other distros look pale in comparison. Everything is organized into categories that are easily understood and followed by application names that make sense. This is pretty close to the way LindowsOS handles its menu system but I prefer the way SUSE has handled it. Rather than label everything with names such as SUSE Messenger, SUSE Internet Browser, and SUSE Mail, they have grouped applications into menus with names like Chat, Web Browsers, and E-Mail. Inside of those menus are common application names such as KMail, Kopete, etc. You get the idea. All in all, it is a well thought out and simple menu system.
The KDE desktop, well organized menus
GNOME needs attention, menus need some polish
As I stated earlier in the review, I chose the default system configuration to see how well it equipped me to do everything I would need to do on a daily basis. Well, I was not pleased with the results. While it had several very useful applications, and very well could satisfy most users needs, I found it lacking a few key components. For one, the Mozilla web browser was noticeably missing, as was Gaim instant messenger. There was also no graphical FTP clients available such as KBear or gFTP. While these two applications were available through the YaST software installation/removal tool, I found it odd that SUSE would not add these to a default configuration. Sure, they are technically GNOME applications (on a certain level anyway), but that's no reason to leave them out of the configuration. Konqueror and Kopete are great applications, but are not up to par with Mozilla and Gaim as far as I am concerned.
One interesting and comforting thing that I found while in the install/remove tool was that there were some great apps available on those five install CDs. Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Thunderbird, and Mozilla Calendar are a few that come to mind. I know they are all Mozilla apps, but they are some really outstanding Linux packages. If anyone doubts the power of Linux on the desktop, use a few of these applications on SUSE and it will quiet your concerns immediately. With so many quality packages on the discs, it would be in the best interest of SUSE to include them in the the default installation. Another application that stands out is the Rekall database manager. This application compliments OpenOffice.org in a similar way that Microsoft Access compliments their Office products. This is actually another app that might be included in the default configuration.
Configuration, Documentation, and Support
Let's take a look at configuration of a SUSE system. Almost everyone is familiar with the YaST configuration tool provided with all SUSE systems since the beginning of time, so I won't go into too much detail. For those of you who are new to SUSE LINUX, I will say that this is a wonderful tool to configure your Linux system, and has improved over time. More functions have been added to this tool to make it rival with the likes of the Mandrake Control Center, which in my opinion is the best graphical configuration tool available for Linux today. I look at the Mandrake tool as 'YaST Simplified'.
For the KDE side of things, Kcontrol (version 3.2.1) is available as always, but is better looking and more sleek to operate than its predecessors. Rather than a tree view of all options available, it now almost operates like an HTML document. Single-click actions open and launch the individual control applets, and at the top of the screen is always an option to return to the previous menu. This is very similar to what Ark Linux has been doing with their control center for quite some time. YaST has been tightly integrated into Kcontrol (see the screenshots below) to allow centralized administration of all system settings. This is an excellent modification to the package.
The YaST control center, YaST networking options are plenty
Kcontrol/YaST integration, YaST inetd config embedded into Kcontrol
System updates are handled by YOU (the YaST Online Update tool). While it's not up to the standards of Apt or Yum, it is coming along nicely from previous versions. Once upon a time, YOU would barely work... most of the time just timing out trying to find a mirror to pull its updates from. While there are still a few questionable mirrors in the list, most worked well. Download speeds on a 3MB cable connection were a steady 200k-300k. Not too bad for a free tool. One of my only problems with this tool is the fact that I can't figure out where to change the repositories. For instance, what if I have a local network share I would like to user rather than a mirror online... how do I change it? I know that in Debian, Mandrake, etc. it is pretty simple. In SUSE I am lost. This could totally be user error, I know, so if someone out there knows how to edit these settings, comment below.
For those of you who want one-click (or automated) access to updates, YOU can be set to automatically update your system. If you would like to be in control, you can use the SUSE Watcher utility, which sits in your system tray (ala up2date) and notifies you of available updates to the system. See the screenshots below.
SUSE Watcher utility for YOU
Hardware Detection
While the review system is nothing out of the ordinary, I have found that some distributions simply don't like it for whatever reason they have. The system is an Athlon XP 2400+ w/768MB PC2100 DDR RAM and 120GB IBM hard drive. Other hardware includes a SoundBlaster Audigy Platinum sound card (with Live!Drive), MSI GeForce4 MX440 128MB 8X video, and Logitech Quickcam 4000 USB webcam, and Olympus C-720UZ digital camera. For printing, I use a remote CUPS HP LaserJet printer.
SUSE did well detecting everything on the system and configured everything optimally, including the video card. ALSA handled the sound card perfectly and even setup the Live!Drive addon. This unit houses additional inputs/outputs, MIDI, optical, and firewire connections that sits in an open drive bay. It's quite convenient if you do a lot of multitrack audio recording like I do. The only issue I had with the whole setup was the webcam. While it worked well, when the system initially booted I had to disconnect it in order for the sound card to function properly. Once the sound card was detected (minus webcam), I was able to plug it back in and everyone was happy. Everything worked.
Hotplugging works extremely well on this system. The webcam, digital camera, USB Flash drive, and an external USB hard drive all worked well without configuration. Even the microphone on the webcam worked. The only thing that I needed to do was create my own icons if I wanted them on the desktop, otherwise they were located in the 'my Computer' icon similar to a Windows system.
Documentation
I won't say much here except for the fact that SUSE is the leader of the pack when it comes to documenting the Linux desktop, followed closely by Xandros. This is something that has been a part of SUSE history for quite sometime. Even though electronic manuals are fine for certain things (and in this case, the documentation takes up over 10MB... that's a pretty large amount of paperwork my friends), there is nothing like a large manual to round off the package. SUSE has also added more application support to the manual for such packages as The Gimp. Not only do they cover the desktop and its functions, they also take on application documentation. This is a huge achievement and it has been well done as always.
The Things That Should Not Be...
While reviewing this distro, Gaim 0.76 was released with some nice new features so I thought this would be the time to test out the system for what it was worth. I downloaded the source RPM from the Gaim website to my home directory and attempted to rebuild it. I say 'attempted' because it didn't work. The system immediately complained that I was missing around six or seven dependencies. I opened YaST and installed all of them but two. Mozilla-nss and mozilla-nss-devel were missing from the distribution. Hmmm... what to do, what to do. I went to RPMFind and downloaded the packages for Red Hat 9. There were no SUSE packages so I figured I would try them out. This was mainly an attempt to blow up the system, really. Read on, it gets worse.
The RPMs for Red Hat installed nicely and I was able to compile my own Gaim RPM. It also installed flawlessly and I now had an upgraded, bleeding edge Gaim package. Now, what about GNOME 2.6? This software has been out for a few days, right? No SUSE RPMs? No time for source complications? With a little prodding from a friend in IRC, it was decided that this system would be the proud receiver of the unstable Ximian Desktop 2 (XD2) for SUSE 9.0. This would almost guarantee a blow up right? Nope. Not really.
I downloaded the 515MB worth of RPMs needed to install XD2 unstable and issued a well-placed rpm -Uvh *rpm –force –nodeps at the command line, sat back and waited for about 10 minutes or so, and exited back to KDM. There was no entry for GNOME. My original entry had disappeared. I logged back into KDE, opened YaST and told the system to use GDM instead of KDM for its display manager and rebooted. Ahh, the Ximian Greeter! Not surprisingly there was no entry for KDE. I was in a catch 22 for sure. I logged into GNOME and after an error complaining that XDB was too complicated, Ximian GNOME 2.6 loaded. As a matter of fact, it ran well. Other than completely destroying my gtk settings and OpenOffice.org everything was fine. All my OOo links needed to be repointed to the new “Ximianized' location once I got back into KDE. Also, there was that small display manager problem... since this is a review system, I will stop there.
There were other things I thought of doing on this system but it was best that I stopped there. At least you all know now that this is possible, if anything.
Final Words...
SUSE LINUX 9.1 is an excellent Linux distribution for the price. At $89.95 USD, you would be hard pressed to find a better package. Sure, you can download Linux all day long from the Internet for free, but in no way does that give anything back to the developers who innovate. You are showing support for them by running and promoting their software to others, but nothing helps keep development flowing like cold hard cash. SUSE is worth the price. For the 90 days of installation support, online and email support, as well as the plethora of packages that are included, you simply can't go wrong. One thing people frequently miss when comparing Linux distributions and pricing is the included applications. I'm not just talking about the quantity, but the quality. So many distros these days have apps that are just 'broken', not working, and trouble to work with. I visited as many apps as possible during my review and everything worked. This to me is a huge selling point.
While I love the power that Linux gives me to compile my own software from source and configure it to my liking, I am starting to realize that the time it takes to get everything running the way I like it is at a premium. I could spend this time doing other things like playing hide and seek or reading story books with my daughter. SUSE gives me these opportunities. They have built a desktop system that works very well out of the box. Almost everything is configured the way I need it to be, hardware is simple to manage, and while software management can come a long way with online updates I can live with it. Within a minimal amount of time I can have a SUSE system running with all the applications I could need, all working, and still have the power to compile and configure my own software exactly as I see fit. Gone are the days of fighting with 3D drivers. nVIDIA drivers installed easily through YOU (or from nVIDIA's site). Everything simply worked.
Future notes for SUSE: Spend more time with GNOME. I know you are working on a KDE-based distro, but give a little TLC to the other desktop. We will love you for it. I am also unclear on the direction SUSE is going to take with the new Xfree86 4.4 licensing scheme. This release is running on version 4.3.99, so it is sketchy as to their intention for the gold code. It's very possible that this could be what it will be running when it hits the shelves in May. I will update you all as I learn more from SUSE.
I recommend this distribution to anyone looking for a powerful tool that is easy to setup and configure. SUSE LINUX 9.1 is a real time saver when it comes to having a working desktop in the least amount of time. If you are a Linux newcomer, I'm sure you will feel very comfortable in the hands of this most competent company. The forums at Mad Penguin are also a good place to ask some questions!
Until next time, my friends...
Product name: SUSE LINUX Professional 9.1
Manufacturer: SUSE LINUX
Price: $89.95 USD
Availability: May 8, 2004
OVERALL RATING:
Features:
Performance:
Usability:
Overall value:
Total score:
Reviewed by Adam Doxtater - Co-author of Snort 2.0 Intrusion Detection and MCSE Designing Windows 2000 Directory Services by Syngress/Osbourne/McGraw-Hill. Adam is the co-founder and Chief Technology Editor of Mad Penguin. He is available for business consultation regarding Linux implementation on a first-come/first-serve basis, and can be contacted here for rates.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons License.
Posted by madadmin on Saturday, April 03, 2004 - 03:39 PM
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