Saturday, April 22, 2006

Agama Lizard RC2

Introduction

The SuSE guys got in the pool.. They just brought out the RC1, here I have RC2 and RC3 of 10.1 (codename: Agama Lizard) is coming next week. By the way this is the 14th development release since september 2005, which means they are really active, and they really care about the opinion of the consumer (why on Earth would they bring 14 dev-releases if not so?); the final release will hopefully be out in a few weeks.
They do not provide full images, only "delta" isos, which cover the differences between the two releases, and can be "installed" with the applydeltaiso command.

Some of the most annoying bugs still present in this release:

  • Language dependent packages for the default language are not installed (Bug 162064)

  • Every update from a 10.1 Beta/RC adds another selection to the system Bug (160792)


My first SuSE distribution was v9.2, I bought it with a magazine around a year ago, and remained with open when saw the "$90 retail value" text. Well, since then many things changed, from inner project philosophy through default background to version number :-) So what is really OpenSuse? According to OpenSuse.org it's "a worldwide community program sponsored by Novell that promotes the use of Linux everywhere. The program provides anyone with free and easy access to the world's most usable Linux distribution, SUSE Linux."
SuSE used to be my distribution what I show to my newbie friends, and they always used to say "Wow, I wouldn't imagine linux can do that!". Even if it was (and still is unfortunately) a bit slow, and it uses the RPM package management, which is considered by many people (including me) obsolete, it's the best distribution for newbies, and I always recommend it for that purpose.

Installation


Installing SuSE always was an easy task. It provides a bunch of drivers, you don't have problems not even with bluetooth devices or USB webcams. Some people say that YaST (yet another setup/system tool), the SuSE installer is an Anaconda clone, although that cannot be possible, since SuSE uses graphical installer since 1999, and RedHat only since 2000; the only common in them is that both are based on GTK..
I'll relate RC1's installation, since RC2 only needs the delta iso to be applied.
By the way, it seems that they didn't change anything in the install process anything since 9.2, it really looks the same, maybe I forgot how it looked like. As any other install, it starts with collecting information: Time zone, packages, desktop selection, partition layout, hardware. Apropo, partition layout: for a typical installation 2-3 GBs will be enough, though you should sacrify around 5 GBs if you even want to use it.. using a common /home partition with your another (if exists) distribution might solve the problem. The install process itself takes around an hour, so it isn't that short..

Applications and the desktop

Once the installation is finished (you'll get a bit tired if you don't look for other occupiation looking at the self-advertisements), you'll face GDM, with several (depending on what you've selected) optional windows managers, however, the default is either Gnome, either KDE (again, it depends what you've selected). OpenSuse provides a lot of applications, although it somehow doesn't give that "bloat" feeling which I felt using Fedora. It's just a handful set of software for all categories, so you don't really have to download anything to be able to use OpenSuse daily. Anyways, if you're still unsatisfied, or your packages simply went out of date, you can use YOU (Yast Online Update) to solve these problems. One thing I felt missing was X.org 7.0.. Don't know.. Maybe only because all the distros I've reviewed lately had it, and because Xgl "needs" it (maybe it would run on 6.9.0 too, but 7.0 would be better), and I'm so disappointed I can't have XGL under SuSE. SuSE! The distribution of Xgl's company, Novell!

Verdict

SuSE is the ideal distribution for beginners and for those who do not have an internet connection. It's plenty of packages, it contains all the documentation, to only mention two from the bunch of awesome features offered by this new release candidate - and previous releases as well. Advanced users might also find SuSE to be their distro of dreams, but they'll have some work to do, since the default SuSE era is kinda customized for beginners. I'm looking forward for the stable 10.1 release, and hopefully I'll review it as well! Good luck SuSE, and keep working!
Cheers!

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

You're wrong: Yast is Qt-based because SuSE had always been KDE-centric, although as you probably know that has changed since it was acquired by Novell. On the other hand, you CAN have XGL, I happen to have it with 10.0, just take a look at these pages:

http://en.opensuse.org/Using_Xgl_on_SUSE_Linux
http://en.opensuse.org/Compiz

By the way, thanks for the review

Anonymous said...

YaST and hence the installer is based on Qt, not GTK+.

And of course runs Xgl with X.org 6.9, why shouldn't it? X.org 7.0 is the exact same code as 6.9.

Anonymous said...

"My first SuSE distribution was v9.2, I bought it with a magazine around a year ago, and remained with open when saw the "$90 retail value" text."

I'm by no means a grammar Nazi, but this doesn't even make sense.

cruocitae said...

I meant with open mouth.. it's just a forced translation from hungarian.. sorry if it seems too weird..

Anonymous said...

14 releases of a product that is not even a Final yet,..typical Linux designers and users.
Could you imagine making 14 half-built Rolls Royce car's?
Hey Customer here is Rolls with half an engine, and another with 80% of the gearbox,..and another with half-finished back-axle,..but hey folks just use your tools & garage at home and fix it,..then let us know when its done. Welcome to the cr*ppy amateur Linux world of DIY

Anonymous said...

They are not final releases, and I presume ur a windows user and it's not like they can up date their OS in a under a year, try over 5 yrs. (Shock Horror)

Anonymous said...

@ post above:

"14 releases of a product that is not even a Final yet,..typical Linux designers and users.
Could you imagine making 14 half-built Rolls Royce car's?
Hey Customer here is Rolls with half an engine, and another with 80% of the gearbox,..and another with half-finished back-axle,..but hey folks just use your tools & garage at home and fix it,..then let us know when its done. Welcome to the cr*ppy amateur Linux world of DIY"

You don't have to use it yet, just wait until the final comes out, it's not stable yet and for testing purposes only. This way the developers can get a lot of feedback. You should be glad that you can see how the product is coming together instead of bashing on it, you are in no way forced to use it! You don't have to fix anything. You just go wait for Vista then if you think linux is crap, wich doesn't really have anything new to offer than linux has right now...

Anonymous said...

..."You just go wait for Vista then if you think linux is crap, wich doesn't really have anything new to offer than linux has right now"...

Windows offers a simple, professional finished product, that any pensioner of 60-80years can operate after a few hours,.. (a program with few minor flaws that are deliberately exploited by criminally-minded-intent Linux hackers)out to do MS and its reputation down. I have been using various OS's and Linux for 10 years and Linux has one thing in common,...drabness, greyness, tacky, slow, excessive use of the command line, infantile design,/logo's of penguins splattered all over the place as if designed by 10-14 year old child, and most irritatingly over 3 different ways to update your system as with the current childish design OS Fedora 5.

cruocitae said...

I agree.

Regards,
the author :-)

P.S.: I'm happy that kinda discussions are going on.. :-) I feel emotion in my blog from now on, woohooyeehaa :D

Anonymous said...

I do not agree,

You might wanna read this review http://madpenguin.org/cms/index.php/?m=show&id=5937&page=1

Anonymous said...

"drabness, greyness, tacky, slow, excessive use of the command line, infantile design,/logo's of penguins splattered all over the place as if designed by 10-14 year old child"

I agree with the design part ;), altough it's getting better with SUSE 10.1 and Tango and stuff. The power of linux is the use of its command-line. If you can't see that you should probably stick to Windows. I never said WIndows was a bad product, Linux and Windows just have a different userbase.

Anonymous said...

Microsoft is in trouble today...

Vista mess should go OPEN SOURCE LOL

No joke...

cruocitae said...

You add a "LOL" at the end of your sentence, and write a "no joke" at the end of your comment. Please use your logic before commenting..

Anonymous said...

"You add a "LOL" at the end of your sentence, and write a "no joke" at the end of your comment. Please use your logic before commenting.."

OK. blog police... Here are some corrections since you are so concerned with correctness.

- the logic you are talking about is universal; so when you say "your logic" then you don't know what that logic's principles are and he most definately did use "his logic" even if he's insane.

- "commenting" is not a word. The correct way to say it is "to make a comment". "Comment" is only a noun and not a verb.

- if he used logic "before" making the comment then he could have wrote jibberish and it wouldn't have made any difference. He could however apply logic WHILE making the comment.

it goes on...

SUSE is a great piece of software and Novell is a good name behind it. Hopefully it will be up to par with Windows one day in the areas mentioned. I say any alternative operating system that wants to win support would have to have a complete implementation of the Windows API.

Best Regards.

Anonymous said...

move out of your parents basements

Anonymous said...

"drabness, greyness, tacky"

I'm not a huge fan of Linux, or a hater of Microsoft, but that's crap. Linux is far more flexible than Windows, it looks like whatever you want it to look like. So if your Linux desktop looks drab, grey, and tacky, you're looking in a mirror.