Customer Reviews

SuSE Linux 7.3 Professional Edition

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Like many others out there, I got on the Linux bandwagon to expand my knowledge and skills in the area of alternative OSes. I have tried 7 different flavors of Linux, and have landed in SuSEville. SuSE for me, is easier to use, comes with better documentation (some flavors come with virtually no documentation). But most of all, it conquers Windows 2000 Server in almost all respects. Squid (the equivalent of Proxy Server) is relatively easy to set up, and comes for free with the distribution. This will save the saavy administrator over $1000.00. Samba (which allows connectivity to Windows boxes) is also included and is easier than ever to set up with SWAT (html based configuration).

To top this all off, I have a powerhouse SuSE server, serving 7 workstations with Squid, File and Print services, and IP routing running on a Pentium 75, with 64 meg of RAM with a 2.0 Gig hard drive. This is not possible with Microsoft 2000. Linux is stable and runs well on older, slower hardware. This saves a lot of money. 7.3 also incorporates Soft-RAID technology (new in Windows 2000). This allows you to run fault tolerance in Linux without the expensive supporting hardware.

I've worked with Red Hat, Debian, Caldera, Mandrake and a few others. But since SuSE came out with version 7.1 and later, I've had few problems (most from lack of knowledge) and SuSE has been stable enough for me to recommend it to friends and customers. To top it all off, I love the games included with this version of my favorite Linux!

I have been using Suse since the 6.x versions. Earlier I have Suse 7.2 on my desktop. I moved to Suse 7.3 about a week back. I did a fresh install and not an upgarde as I had heard that upgrade option had cuases some problems.

The installation was real smooth. If you are not comfortable with manually creating partitions, Suse 7.3 can do it for you. However I choose to create my own partitions. On the root partition I used reiser file system. After installation, Suse 7.3 was able to detect all my hardware, except my modem. Post install configuration was the easiest ever. Sometime back I had nightmares with red hat while configuring video and sound. But with suse, life can be real easy. Moreover I used the DVD for installation, no more idling around the PC to change CDs.

I installed the professional version of Suse 7.3. With all the applications, Mozilla, netscape, Star office, Xmms, Kdevelop, Gvim ..., I had all the application I ever use. I no longer need to boot to Windows to browse the web. I also got Opera and Yahoo messeger dowloaded later. This distribution has almost everything you'd require in a desktop OS. Even changing your network settings does not require a reboot, unlike some widely used OSes.

If you are looking for a great look and feel, fast, stable , easy and feature rich OS for your desktop Suse 7.3 is the one. Even if you want to keep Windows , lilo can take care of it.

My System config: Windows 98 + suse 7.3 dual boot, Amd Athlon 1.1GHz, 320M Ram, 20G HDD, Nvidia TNT 64 video, Creative Sound Blaster Live, with 5.1 speakers, creative Wingman , Logitech Navigator keyboard and logitech optical mouse, DVD and CD-RW drives.

When I decided to take Oracle database administration classes this spring, I faced the choice of buying Windows2000 or a distribution of Linux. Knowing Open Source was the wave of the future, I decided to dive in and get Suse 7.3 Pro; I really didn't want to buy another bloated mediocre Microsoft product (though in all fairness I hear W2K is a lot more stable than other versions of Windows).

You can read the product description for yourself and read reviews of the actual OS features elsewhere, so I won't go into the "what you get" paragraph. I think what's useful for most is an answer to "how hard is it to install?"

Suse Linux comes with a disk partition utility with its installer. It worked flawlessly and resized my Win98 partition and set up the necessary new partitions for Suse Linux. I then opted to have LILO (Linux Loader which starts right after the BIOS checks) installed on the Master Boot Record. LILO works great and lets you select which partition and thus which OS to boot up. It works flawlessly.

Negative points of install:
1. Took me a few days to figure out how to get my DSL connection going.
2. My sound card using the Vortex Aureal sound chip still doesn't work, though Suse.com's support database has a workaround. Unfortunately, I've downloaded the software, but the driver won't compile properly (though I might be missing some developer tools to link/compile it properly...I'm going to have to look at the log files to figure out what's wrong....)

[POSTSCRIPT (added 1/29/02):
Okay, I got the soundcard working to play CD audio, but no sound for MP3 and MIDI or video files. If you don't want to be compiling raw code for an Aureal Vortex driver, I suggest you check out Suse.com to see if your sound card is supported by the ALSA sound architecture.]

Suse's tech support is very responsive, though they basically pointed me to documents in their extensive support article database. Also, the printed documenation is very thorough and well laid out.

Since I bought Linux to install and learn Oracle software, I'd say I'm getting my money's worth. There's SO MUCH GPL(Free) software out there for Linux! There are several different GUIs to put on top of the kernel (I'm using KDE now, and it's great, though I plan to check out others).
Last note: Linux, since it's based on UNIX, is NOT an OS for your grandmother. I'd used various flavors of UNIX back in grad school in the mid '90s, so all those usr/ var/ log/ etc/ ... directories didn't scare me. Even with YaST2 (Suse's equivalent of Windows Control Panels) you'll still need to feel comfortable using a text editor now and then to edit configuration files.

Overall, I'm very happy with Suse Linux. The install was smooth and for that reason alone I recommend this company's distribution.
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Very easy install, I've tried Mandrake and Red Hat after trying early SuSE distro's of linux and have come back to SuSE everytime.
Problems I've had are very minor, xscreensaver has a flakey config. Auto power-down of the monitor doesn't seem to work.
The software itself is very stable and refined. All the packages included here would cost around $...dollars to get a windows machine with similar software.

I have installed Linux servers for many customers, but with SuSE 7.3 ANYONE with some unix knowledge can easily install and maintain his own server or workstation.

My son recently bought and installed RedHat, and had many problems setting up Apache as he wished, getting usb devices to work, and he still can't get his TV tuner card to work. All of these problems are easily solvable, in fact do not even appear with SuSE. Intel's usb chipset does require a tweak, but it is documented at SuSE's website, and is easy to apply.

Overall, this is the easiest Linux distribution to set up and use that I have ever seen. I judge it easier to setup than Windows 2000. Now, if only more applications were available, and the TrueType fonts were handled a little better .....

SuSE has again impressed me. Solid distribution that is well-featured. Straightforward to install, setup, and update. I would recommend it. I consider SuSE excellent "Bang for the Buck" as OS's go.

After many attempts at installing Linux on an older non-Linux supported Laptop Computer, I find that SuSE 7.3 Pro is the very first distribution of Linux that works. I had attempted Mandrake 8.0 and 8.1, Red Hat 7.1, and there was always something that didn't work, such as sound compatibility (onboard win-modems excluded). Right out of the box, SuSE 7.3 gave me sound and an automatically configured LCD display. I didn't have to do any kernel compiling or driver manipulation as I did with all of the other distributions I tried. Looking to switch over to Linux? Go with SuSE 7.3 Professional, and wave goodbye to that win-box.

If you are a newbie to Linux or a old seasoned pro then SuSe 7.3 will offer a lot to both of you. I been running SuSe on my system since 7.1 and I must say that these Germans really know how to engineer a good and stable Linux disrto. The install is easy as pie and the online update feature is as easy to use as M$'s update feature of course minus all the constant reboots. I would reccommend this distro to anyone looking for a alternative Nicro$oft's O$ and to people who have never tried a Linux OS before.

Here are my system specs:

Asus A7M & AMD 1.2 ghz CPU
512 DDR-RAM
LeadTek Geforce 2 GTS Pro
SoundBlaster Live X-Gamer ( with LiveDrive )
3COM Etherlink XL C905C-TX NIC
13.6gb Quantium FireBall XL HardDrive
60gb IBM DeskStar GXP HardDrive

P.S. I gave it a 4 because nothing in this world is perfect, but if Suse keeps working on their OS like they are now then it will eventually be as close to perfect as a OS can get.

If you are a newbie to Linux or a old seasoned pro then SuSe 7.3 will offer a lot to both of you. I been running SuSe on my system since 7.1 and I must say that these Germans really know how to engineer a good and stable Linux disrto. The install is easy as pie and the online update feature is as easy to use as M$'s update feature of course minus all the constant reboots. I would reccommend this distro to anyone looking for a alternative Nicro$oft's O$ and to people who have never tried a Linux OS before.

Here are my system specs:

Asus A7M & AMD 1.2 ghz CPU
512 DDR-RAM
LeadTek Geforce 2 GTS Pro
SoundBlaster Live X-Gamer ( with LiveDrive )
3COM Etherlink XL C905C-TX NIC
13.6gb Quantium FireBall XL HardDrive
60gb IBM DeskStar GXP HardDrive

P.S. I gave it a 4 because nothing in this world is perfect, but if Suse keeps working on their OS like they are now then it will eventually be as close to perfect as a OS can get.

I have used Linux personally, and more recently, professionally since it was started. SuSE Linux has always been very consistent in how things are done within the system, like keeping libraries and system paths the same. Other, hat wearing distributions, seem to change, and force change, on a whim. SuSE makes it easy to integrate Linux into your environment, and stay up to date... both with super easy tools, but also with consistency, attention to detail and a lizard... apparently.