Customer Reviews

SuSE Linux Professional 9.3

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

A wonderful Linux distribution. Very intuitive and user-friendly installation. Good for both power users and novices. Great hardware support and easy to install.

Here's a partial list of the packages included in SuSE Linux 9.3:

Linux Kernel 2.6.11.4
KDE 3.4.0
Gnome 2.10.0
OpenOffice 2.0 beta
Mozilla 1.7.5
GCC 3.3.5
Apache 2.0.53
PHP 5.0.3
Samba 3.0.12
Xorg 6.8.2

I installed SUSE on an IBM ThinkPad R50 and overall I'm pretty satisfied. It has excellent support for laptop functions like power management, Trackpoint mouse, and suspend-to-disk, all of which worked immediately without tweaking. Of course, GIMP and OpenOffice are great. The manuals (>900 pages) are pretty good as manuals go. I did have a few install glitches but they were resolved with a little effort. E-mail support was competent and knowledgeable with next-day response time. A few helpful hints: SUSE prefers GNOME but if you choose KDE, be sure to install kppp and use that, not kinternet for dialup. Also be sure to check that display resolution is recognized properly during installation and if not adjust it accordingly.

I find this version to be user friendly
looks like good competition for windows
Suse 9.3 Linux was very easy to install didn't take long at all
was so nice to only have to put in one dvd to install all
the software bundled on the dvd is excellent
the packages are all current with lots of applications browsers, email clients etc to choose
and with wine can run alot of windows programs if need to
Novell also provides great tech support on the install if troubles

Pros: Superb interface, very easy to use, full featured distro with over 2000 software applications, very good Yast control panel, excellent hardware support and security features.

Cons: A bit of a memory hog, 512mb memory recommended. Partition utility, though easy to use, would benefit from a facelift.

I have been using Suse Pro for the past couple of years and their latest version is a gem. Sure it costs a bit more but what you get is the best Linux distro available. Very secure, Novell provides you with continous security updates. Excellent media support.

Well as far as a concern for usability goes SuSE is the best Linux distro. To my taste it is much superior to Red-Hat. But getting the distro it is only a beginning! It is very cool OS and you will learn much about it. It is practical to get some general UNIX skills.
I would recommend Linux and UNIX for a beginner complete training suite, 4DVDs + 2CDs ed.2008
SuSE is very user friendly and very updated. It is easy to use and that is very important to me it is FUN to use. Enjoy it.

I downloaded SuSE Linux 9.3 from a SuSE mirror and installed it this past week. I have worked with a lot of Linux distributions in the past, most recently Mandrake 10.1. Linux has always been very promising but also always somewhat difficult to make work well - it was definitely an OS for the hobbyist who enjoyed struggling with it to get things to work. SuSE Linux 9.3 changes all that. I have dubbed it the "it just works" Linux distro. EVERYTHING I have tried simply works. Printers, webcams, external hard drives, USB memory sticks... EVERYTHING simply works, no muss, no fuss. It is a truly amazing experience. In addition to its excellent hardware support, SuSE Linux 9.3 comes with a dazzling array of excellent software. I have not found it to be wanting anything that I was looking for, and have run into all sorts of excellent new software as well. This is the Linux I have been looking for. SuSE Linux 9.3 is so good that even though I have downloaded and installed it for free, I have purchased the boxed set. These guys deserve to be compensated for the excellent job they have done. If you are looking for a solid, stable, "it just works" Linux distro, SuSE Linux 9.3 is the Linux for you.

SuSE 9.1 pro was very nice which prompted Me to check out SuSE 9.3 pro.

I was surprised to find out most of the standard features in the command prompt were taken out by Novell.

Pine
Mutt
fd_locate_pkg
apache, now has apache2 which no one uses
nmap
lynx

Some other stuff also, some you can directly find the download and ./configure ; make while others SuSE requires many rpm dependancies which starts to become a bit of a headache.

A few other 'Novell Nightmare' touch ups include ssh which is a bit of a nightmare using their version to tunnel and network with, and their ssl and apache2.conf files

If you are a KDE and/or Gnome user, and like to chat with a friend on msn messenger thru Gaim or Kopete, good luck keeping O.SSL updated. I never had this problem before on Fedora RedHat or Gentoo

Alot of dependant rpm's needed. Being this rpm dependant may as well use fedora Red Hat. At least they have a good rpm manager.

I can understand wanting to simplifing things but they shouldnt have dropped their 'personal edition' as in 9.1 build, and make their 'pro' watered down.

The sad thing is, on Novell's offical site for 9.3 they admit to taking out these tools and programs from the shell or 'personally customising' to give it their own touch, which helped screw up alot.

They did however add alot of unneeded fluff which you dont need with linux unless you just want to chew up cpu's like the pretty menus and such, but if your going with a pro linux build your just in the command prompt most the time anyhow.

I do hope their new 10.x build is better but Im not going to waist My time to check it out. Going back to R.H.

I did give it two stars because if your a home user and nothing more, the 9.3 is great! But if all your going to do is home use and not program or admin, go with something cheaper thats set up more specifically for a home user such as Xandros linux made by Debian which is also a bit cheaper for the new home user to try out too.

I installed both Win2K and Suse Linux Pro 9.3 on my laptop, and for every hour I spend in Windows, I spend 12 hours in Linux. If I were to pay for and install all the software for Windows that's comparable to what's included with this OS, I'd have to shell out at the very least several thousand $$$. I think this was the smarter option.

Loaded with new features like fast switching as in Win XP. Thousands of minor improvments. Sure there are unfortunately some bugs but hey this is no free version, this is the cream of the crop of Linux and all updates are included. People who claime it is third party software, should think twince before investing a couple of grand only to discover that 3 years later they are outdated. With Linux you just buy the operation system and everything is there.

Features: F-Photo, Beagle to search your files, easy set-up of your network, secure internet browsing, better support for USB hard drive, Fast switcher capacity as in Win XP. The pleasure of browsing the Internet without having to worry about spyware, adware, malvare, bad scripts.

Disagreements. Some of the applications were litteraly rushed into the distribution like Open office 2, all works ok but have occasional bugs.

Highly recommended... provided you know how to turn on a computer and manipulate a mouse. I am slowly getting rid of all my Windows computers, not a bad product, but tired of always running some scans and checks for viruses.

Suse 9.3 from Novell : recommended for both power users and beginners.

If your wanting to ditch Windows, and don't want to spring for a Mac, this is what you need. It was easier to install then Windows and comes with just about every normal application you would ever need. Office, email, web, instant messaging, music, even talks to iPods and Palm Pilots right out of the box. It includes DVD's and CD's both. It also comes with two very nice large manuals, a User's Manual and a Administrator's Manual. Not even Apple includes manuals like these any more.

You can install it right along with Windows, right on the same hard drive. It will automatically shrink your Windows partition, add SuSE in it's own partition, and install a boot loader when you can pick which OS you want to run when you turn on your computer.

It looks very nice, and even includes TWO desktop systems, KDE and GNOME. KDE is the default desktop system and is most like Windows, GNOME is most like Mac. That's the nice thing about SuSE, lots of choices, it has multiple desktop systems, web browsers, instant messengers, email programs, etc. Your sure to find one you like, and they all work with their Windows counterparts.

The only catch is hardware support. While it supports more hardware then ever, it does not support my Shuttle PN15g Wireless adapter or the extra media keys on my Logitech keyboard included with my Logitech Cordless MX Duo. It does have a long list of supported wireless adapters, but not many multimedia keyboards. For that I give it four stars, otherwise it would be five.

The Linux desktop has come a long way, and SuSE is a very viable replacement for Windows. The only thing you'll miss from Windows is viruses, spyware, malware, Trojan horses, pop-ups, spam.... :)