Customer Reviews

SUSE Linux 10.1

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

While I personally use Gentoo Linux, this has become my distribution of choice to recommend to Windows and Mac converts or new users to Linux in general.

Overall it's an excellent package. The installation is simple and elegant, making everything a breeze, taking between 20-45 minutes depending on your computer. The two most prevalent window managers (user interfaces) KDE and Gnome are both easily selectable.

Suse 10.1 continues its great tradition of excellent hardware support, which is why I looked at it in the first place several years ago. Hardware wise it's also just as easy to install on a Mac as it is a PC. Laptop wise I had no issues. It found all of my hardware including my wireless card just fine, and it was a breeze to locate and connect to networks. Other things like power saving and Suspend also worked effortlessly.

It also comes out of the box with good security in place, although nothing to write home about. This wasn't meant to run a server so it lacks more advanced security technologies such as SELinux, PaX, and GRSecurity, though in all fairness no desktop focused distributions utilize these, they're mainly left to power user distributions like Gentoo and server focused ones like Red Hat. You will have all of the security you're accustomed to from other operating systems such as anti-virus and a firewall, and the fact that you're not running as a super user means unless you really go out of your way malware and security issues in general really won't be a problem. Another major plus here is how updates are handled which I touch upon below.

Beyond that it comes with all the applications users are generally accustomed to such as Flash, Real Player, the ability to play DVDs and common Windows codecs such as WMA/WMV. Windows users will find it relatively easy to run many Windows only applications under WINE and many gamers will enjoy Cedega for its wide game compatibility, although Cedega is $5 a month.

Mac users will be able to enjoy many, though not all, of their favorite applications natively since OS X runs BSD under the hood, which is very similar to Linux. Also while Suse 10.1 by default looks and acts like Windows XP (skinning media players to look like Windows Media Player and so on), it's very easy during the installation to make it mimic OS X if you're more comfortable in that environment.

It also comes very updated, with almost the latest versions of everything including Firefox for browsing and OpenOffice 2. OpenOffice 2 isn't just powerful but is also easy enough to use for anyone accustomed to Microsoft Office, and also features excellent MS Office compatibility. The ability to export documents in PDF format is also somewhere I feel if surpasses MS Office.

Updates system wide won't be a major issue. Where as Windows and Mac users are generally used to going to Site A to download an update for Program A and installing it by hand, Suse has a central package manager that installs, updates, and uninstalls package system wide through an easy-to-use graphical manager. It's very handy in that with one click you can update Suse, OpenOffice, and anything else you've installed on the system. This is certainly one place Linux shines.

Graphically Suse 10.1 excels past Windows and Mac in certain areas. The 3D motions and heavy transparencies rival OS X and what Windows Vista promises. There's also an excellent search feature Mac users will be accustomed to, making it virtually effortless to find files base on their attributes, meta-information (like musician for MP3's), or the information contained within things such as Word documents.

The physical package is solid with good documentation, and as always Novell offers excellent technical support including three months of installation help for new users who have trouble getting started.

I won't be moving off of Gentoo for this, but it's a very worthy distribution I'm more than happy to recommend and support. Also at the cost of a video game these days it's a heck of a deal, less than half of OS X and almost a full sixth of the price that new versions of Windows usually run. I'm not going to declare an all out winner regarding operating systems, but I think Suse 10.1 is a strong competitor for OS X 10.4/Windows XP and even what 10.5 and Windows Vista promise.

A long time unix fan, I found SuSE 10.1 to be a pleasant surprise. While the Novell Enterprise product, based on the SuSE 10.1 code base, is a bit more polished than SuSE 10.1, it's also more specialized, being divided into a desktop and a server edition. For my money, like SuSE 10.1 because it comes equipped with all the tools and features needed to serve either purpose quite nicely.

Linux has long been a power in the server room, with unusual flexibility, long uptimes and good performance, but linux vendors such as Novell are finally beginning to bring the power of the open source community to the desktop, and it shows. The added polish and attention to detail are making it conceivable for non-experts to begin using a linux desktop for their everyday routine.

As has been pointed out, there are some problems with this release - the biggest problem is the update mechanism, which I would describe as broken. Novell is committed to getting it working well, but in the meantime, I find that smart is an excellent replacement for yast. Smart is based on the ideas of the apt package tool, and capably fills the job of installing software packages and keeping the system up to date.

The other problem I see is the consumption of system resources by the beagle search engine. Again, I am sure this will be sorted out over time, but for now, I find that it's better to remove or disable beagle. Doing so completely removes any pauses or freezes on the systems I've tested, and enables a silky smooth game of ut2004 or quake 3 arena over the internet.

One other issue is the app-armor service, which while a good idea, is perhaps a bit restrictive. While it can be adjusted, some may find it easier to simply turn the service off.

With those 3 items addressed, SuSE 10.1 is a very capable, pleasant and snappy OS, and would rate 5 stars. The fact that the couple of issues I mentioned must be dealt to get to that blissful state, are the reason I rate it only 4 stars.

Bottom line: For an experienced linux user, a great OS for desktop and/or server room. For less experienced users, I'd recommend something without the minor nits I mentioned, e.g. Linspire, Xandros, or the Novell SLED 10 product instead.

I've been using linux now for over a year. After countless installations of other distro's, Suse 10.1 worked the best! I have it installed on a Toshiba laptop and everything worked except for the wireless usb. Ndiswrapper worked well and fixed that problem. Other than that, Novell has made a fine desktop distro which can also be used as a server. Everything is gui based which made it so much easier to administer. The other distro's were good as well but Suse was the only one that had the best install/performance. ***Warning though *** the Yast software installer was very, very, very slow but after doing some research, SMART is what I use now (that's why I gave it 4 stars not 5). You could download/install it and then do all of your installs/updates using it and it's super easy to do. I recommend Suse 10.1 for those that want a distro that works well out of the box and has the support needed to get you out of tight spots!

I have never loaded a Linux system and was concerned about my ability to do so. I loaded it on a P-2 350 and it went very smoothly. It has increased the performance of my PC and I am so happy with it I will be converting my other computer over.

Before I start...take those last 2 reviews with a HUGE grain of salt. PCBuilder runs across the street to a neighbor to type up a review on this product? Sounds fishy to me. Sounds like a Microsoft zealot trying to give a nasty plug to some much needed competition.

I run a system I built myself. Has a 3.0 ghz P4 processor, 1 gig of pc3200 ram, geforce FX5500 video card, onboard lan, soundblaster live audio card, maxtor 100 gig ata/133 hard drive, sony dvd-r, sony cd-r...that's the basics.

Out of the box it installed perfectly and ran perfectly the first time. And it is STILL running perfectly even after my 2 children got through hammering it.

Suse has put out what is, in my opinion, the best distro out there.

Hands down the best overall Linux experience you can have. It is not overpriced as others have mentioned, especially when compared to the likes of XP Pro which costs about four times as much...you do know you can download this for free?!
No it does not include a true 3D driver for the nVidia cards (XP doesn't either, btw), but you can download that for free from nVidia.
Being responsible for a very large computer lab, I've performed many, installations of both SUSE and SLES. The only hardware issues I've had were once with a 3Dlabs video card (not supported), and an on-board SCSI controller (required an update). Except for those, every IBM, Dell and Gateway machine I've put this on has had no problems.
It auto detects (and auto loads) drivers for a vast array of hardware and does so much better than XP.
The best feature is the included and well supported Xen engine. It is rather cool having four different operating systems (include XP) running on the same system (Dual Xeon 3.6, 8GB RAM), at the same time..each just a mouse click away - no rebooting! Try running the ST C64 emulator, from the STeem emulator, from a XP Pro VM, on top of SuSE with Xen, it works.

Suse 10.2 has been out for quite some time now. This product is out of date. Amazon has the latest version also but the correct version does not always come up in a search. I bought this, discovered it was an old version, and ended up downloading the latest version for free anyway. Don't waste your money like I did.

I switched from Windows to SUSE Linux for my home computer. It's easy to use and there are lots of good software products available. However, you're making a compromise; multimedia-rich Web sites are often targeted at Windows browsers, the software installation and management process is overly complex, you're behind the curve on the latest hardware support. This is minor to me for the other benefits (I do a bit of programming and general tinkering).

NOTE: 10.2 is just around the corner, to be in stores in mid-December 2006. You'll want to wait to get the more recent versions of the software products included.

I brought SuSE 10.1 to use while I am on a job in Northern Wisconsin. I had a computer but no operating system. Rather than add to Gate's fortune I ordered 10.1. I have an earlier verison of this OS at home and found it easy to install in an older machine. The same holds true with 10.1. However, if you justt want an OS that works right out of the box this is not the one for you. This is especially true if you are connecting into a wireless router as I have to here.

Getting the wireless card to work was an ordeal and an internet connection is a MUST. I was able to get my questions answered at Suse forum. With info from the forum I was able to configure the wifi card and download the nightly tarball needed to get the ra2500 wifi clip configured. With that my wireless card was working but would NOT connect to the router.

Repeated questions to different Suse forums yeilded nothing. Finally I turned to Ubuntu Linux Forum (a GREAT GROUP!) for info to at least connect to the router though the terminal. KNetworkManager never was able to connect. It might be due to the password not being formatted correctly but I didn't feel like messing with it any more because I can connect through the terminal. So if you are using wifi and don't know a lot about it be prepared to spend a lot of time getting it to work.

My second big complaint is that to listen to online radio streaming took even more of my time. Finally I got that problem sorted out by downloading what I needed.

Despite all the time it took to get running Suse is a good OS and if you are connecting through a wired router or directly to a DSL connection setup is fast and easy. And it warms my heart to know that I am not adding to the bottom line of Microsoft!

I wiped a hard drive of everything and then loaded SUSE Linux. If you decide to use this product, you need to understand it is associated with Novell, and you MUST be careful with your security processes while you set it up. Once you understand the multi-tier system in their home base, you can do pretty nice things.

So if you are Novell proficient in a large office with security needs, this is a good choice. If you are not a larger office, and not proficient in Novell, look at Ubuntu and load that to an empty disk. It is the simplest Linux while remarkably secure.