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SUSE after a month


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Well its been some time since I started with SUSE (a little under a month). I still haven’t tried a whole lot but I got some more to say after some time using it.

 

I’m going try and explain the differences I have had on my personal Laptop. I currently have SUSE9.0 (from here) and Mandrake9.2 (Download)

 

SUSE - 199 (default kernel)

MDK - 2.4 mm kernel

-------------------

HPze5185 Laptop

2.4ghz P4

512mb DDR SDRam

15" SXGA+ TFT

CDRW/DVD Drive

60gb HD

ATI M6 (32mb)

3.5mb Floppy

V.90 Modem

2 USB (1.1)

1 Firewire

I can add some details later when I’m home.

--------------------

First me put on my flame vest :D

 

>>>>Speed

Ok speed is comparable to MDK with the multimedia kernel. What I mean by speed was how fast programs open / close. Transfer files. Mandrake bootup is much faster than SUSE.

One test I did was with NWN. Now with a ATI w/32mb of ram I can’t expect much:

 

Mandrake -

Sound quality was bad. Video was skipping to the point that I had to lower the video settings to make the game playable. Had to use "nice -n -15" to get it to work smooth.

 

SUSE -

Sound and video worked well. Could raise the setting up quite a bit. No "nice" needed.

 

>>>>.rpm dependency solvers

Mandrake -

urpmi. works good for updates and install. Not very good with system upgrades (from experience). Love the fact of cd (ing) to the directory that has a .rpm to install then:

urpmi yourpackage.rpm

 

If dependency issues are needed it will handle them during then install. apt-get and synaptic are available by Texstar for 9.1. I never got around to try it with MDK. I have a large (over 1gb) loacl samba directory of Mandrake .rpms. no problem:

 

genhdlist /mnt/VOLUME/RPMS

 

then

urpmi.addmedia /mnt/VOLUME/RPMS with hdlist.cz

 

SUSE -

Well SUSE has its own installer in YAST. unfortunately I had no luck with it. It could install from the original 5cds but when I tried to add a local .rpm directory it would crash on me.

apt-get / synaptic

I was familiar with these from Fedora Core1. From my limited knowledge I did not like the way it handles dependency issues. I may be wrong but this is how I had to install a local .rpm in a directory:

 

cd to directory

apt-get install yourpackage.rpm --nodeps

apt-get -f install

 

2 steps to install a .rpm. Like I said their may be a better way. To get my 1.2gb of local SUSE rpms (from previous update) I had to use apt4rpm. I was not to familiar with it but learned enough to use it (Me thinks)

 

Found this:

http://freevo.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/moin.cgi/AptGet

 

Changed the script to match my settings. In my sources.list added the local directory and apt-get update. All worked well. What I liked is it made a “base” directory in my /home then sym linked all the .rpms from my local samba file server (/mnt/VOLUME/local.rpms). So it did not take up any space on my /home partition. (this may be old hat for most but I thought it was cool). Also I have read that apt-get does a better job with system upgrades than urpmi.

 

>>>>Updates

Mandrake-

Urpmi via the PLF site. Then:

 

urpmi –auto-select –no-verify-rpm

 

Update went smooth. All updated files in my local directory that mirror the one from web sites were used first. Only problem, I had to update-menus –v to get back my menus.

 

SUSE

Well since I had most of the update files on a local network computer I had to use synaptic (apt4rpm). Could have used apt-get but I used the GUI. After update all was smooth. One note: I had to change my grub menu file manually (I read that I had to somewhere)

 

>>>>Notables

to get my usb joystick to work:

Mandrake – add joydev in /etc/modules.conf (I think it was that one)

SUSE – just worked. Joydev added automatically

 

Modem (winmodem)

Mandrake – never worked (never tried to get it to work)

SUSE – First boot it found it a loaded drivers – works

 

Acpi (cpu temp, battery state, poweroff) don’t use suspend (breaks on Window$ too)

Mandrake – had to add acpi=on nolapic into lilo, then urpmi acpi

SUSE – works first boot

 

My usb camera card reader

Mandrake – plugin reader, mount it (/mnt/removable) and it works. No configuration needed.

SUSE – plugin reader, mount it (/media/sr1) and it works. No configuration needed.

 

Software

Even with apt-get for SUSE, Mandrake just has more to choose from so far. This was based of adding all repositories listed in PcLinuxOnline.com for each Distro. I had found myself “googleing” to find some apps for SUSE that Mandrake has (smb4k, nano)

 

Support (as in online free)

Mandrake wins hands down. Something about mandrakeusers.org. Aslo finding a large English speaking (or writing) forum for SUSE is difficult. I did found:

http://forums.suselinuxsupport.de/

with 347 members and after about a month I see only one person answer most of the questions.

 

SUSE’s menu icons. I don’t know about everyone else but on first boot I found about 15 or 20 apps in the menu with no icons. I understand the SUSE uses the standard linux menu but it needs work (IMO). Such as kget was not in the internet menu. Some programs didn’t even show up on the menu (some games). KDE control center in SUSE looks good. They included the YAST menu into the kcontrol. Nice touch. YAST=MCC in most cases. In SUSE I have a libsmbclient problem. I cant smb:/ in to see my local network. Their seems to be a bug:

http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=66381

 

The more I work with MDK9.2 the more I personally preferred 9.1 with Texstar .rpms. I haven’t tried the 2.6 kernel with SUSE. 2.6 with Mandrake was easy and it worked. After my update on SUSE via synaptic I lost GNOME. When I boot to GNOME all I see is garbage. No icons and an unreadable menu. To put it simple – GNOME broke. This is probably an isolated case with me though. Thank god I use KDE.

 

The End Result:

First I am by no means a power user. I use Linux for all day-to day stuff. I learn from breaking it. I cant program at all, but I have made some VERY BASIC scripts to make my life easier. I have learned alot about Linux and I am comfortable in CLI.

Im going to SUSE as my day-to-day Distro. I still plan in buying Mandrake10 when it comes out. Looking back the turning point for me started with the loss of Texstar. My personal opinion was that Mandrake was silly not to hire him to promote Mandrake to the home user. I could not switch to SUSE so easy if it was not for the support that Mandrake has. I am curious to see how a Distro upgrade with SUSE would go. Besides Gentoo I have not found a Distro that upgrades easy. Remember my post on Distro upgrades?

http://www.mandrakeusers.org/index.php?sho...wtopic=8001&hl=

 

I think that is what stops some from coverting to Linux. A 6month cycle on Distro's. Frankly I could go for yearly and 4-6 month beta testing. Maybe the end product would be more stable. With SUSE now belonging to Novell I hope it well promote english support. I had a hard enought time getting through school. Unlike other countries, most American schools dont start you on a second language until middle school (10 thru 14years old). Common action in the US is if children are failling, they just lower the standard. My first course was in 10th grade (Spanish). Cant remember any of it (Im 30 now). From my posting here you can guess that me english aint to well either. :cheesy:

 

I want the currency/upgrade ability of Gentoo, support and packages of Mandrake, and the hadware setup / ease of use of SUSE. Not to much to ask huh?

 

I know others tried SUSE from this site. How did it turn out for you??

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linuxiso.org

 

has a good english speaking suse forum too.

 

As far as upgrading, i've bought every version of suse from 6.3-9, I have updated from cd from 7.3-8.0 and didn't have problems. I don't regaler use suse anymore so it's not on my box long enough to try dist-upgrades from one to the other. ;)

 

Suse is what really grabbed me away from windows so I will prolly always by them just to support them.

 

From my distro pimp'n the easiest distro's to keep up2date are:

 

Slackware

Debian

Gentoo

 

SuSE does some great things for the Linux commuity and I have to problem recommending it to people to use. They do some weird things with config files imo, but still very workable.

 

I only hope with Novell & IBM backing that it will continue to grow and prosper in the Linux communtiy.

 

/me out for now!

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>>>>Speed

Ok speed is comparable to MDK with the multimedia kernel. What I mean by speed was how fast programs open / close. Transfer files. Mandrake bootup is much faster than SUSE.

One test I did was with NWN. Now with a ATI w/32mb of ram I can’t expect much:

 

Mandrake -

Sound quality was bad. Video was skipping to the point that I had to lower the video settings to make the game playable. Had to use "nice -n -15" to get it to work smooth.

 

SUSE -

Sound and video worked well. Could raise the setting up quite a bit. No "nice" needed.

 

>>>>.rpm dependency solvers

Mandrake -

urpmi. works good for updates and install. Not very good with system upgrades (from experience). Love the fact of cd (ing) to the directory that has a .rpm to install then:

urpmi yourpackage.rpm

 

If dependency issues are needed it will handle them during then install. apt-get and synaptic are available by Texstar for 9.1. I never got around to try it with MDK. I have a large (over 1gb) loacl samba directory of Mandrake .rpms. no problem:

 

genhdlist /mnt/VOLUME/RPMS

 

then

urpmi.addmedia /mnt/VOLUME/RPMS with hdlist.cz

 

SUSE -

Well SUSE has its own installer in YAST. unfortunately I had no luck with it. It could install from the original 5cds but when I tried to add a local .rpm directory it would crash on me.

apt-get / synaptic

I was familiar with these from Fedora Core1. From my limited knowledge I did not like the way it handles dependency issues. I may be wrong but this is how I had to install a local .rpm in a directory:

 

cd to directory

apt-get install yourpackage.rpm --nodeps

apt-get -f install

 

2 steps to install a .rpm. Like I said their may be a better way. To get my 1.2gb of local SUSE rpms (from previous update) I had to use apt4rpm. I was not to familiar with it but learned enough to use it (Me thinks)

 

 

>>>>Updates

Mandrake-

Urpmi via the PLF site. Then:

 

urpmi –auto-select –no-verify-rpm

 

Update went smooth. All updated files in my local directory that mirror the one from web sites were used first. Only problem, I had to update-menus –v to get back my menus.

 

SUSE

Well since I had most of the update files on a local network computer I had to use synaptic (apt4rpm). Could have used apt-get but I used the GUI. After update all was smooth. One note: I had to change my grub menu file manually (I read that I had to somewhere)

 

Software

Even with apt-get for SUSE, Mandrake just has more to choose from so far. This was based of adding all repositories listed in PcLinuxOnline.com for each Distro. I had found myself “googleing” to find some apps for SUSE that Mandrake has (smb4k, nano)

 

 

 

The more I work with MDK9.2 the more I personally preferred 9.1 with Texstar .rpms. I haven’t tried the 2.6 kernel with SUSE. 2.6 with Mandrake was easy and it worked. After my update on SUSE via synaptic I lost GNOME. When I boot to GNOME all I see is garbage. No icons and an unreadable menu. To put it simple – GNOME broke. This is probably an isolated case with me though. Thank god I use KDE.

 

The End Result:

  Im going to SUSE as my day-to-day Distro. I still plan in buying Mandrake10 when it comes out. Looking back the turning point for me started with the loss of Texstar. My personal opinion was that Mandrake was silly not to hire him to promote Mandrake to the home user.

 

I know others tried SUSE from this site. How did it turn out for you??

Speed? Pick a distro.

 

Sound? Funny, opposite for me. Sound sucked in suse, no matter what I did. For me mandrake, by far, has the best sound. Pick a distro.

 

rpm dependency solvers? Uhmmm...urpmi IS mandrake for which suse has nothing. Apt4rpm is just that...for rpm. Pick a distro.

 

Grub always has to be edited manually to be done rt/safely. Pick a distro.

 

Gnome is usually easy to fix on a bad upgrade. Just Ctrl>Alt>F1 and coorect the error. The same has happened to many with urpmi. So a pkg mgr or distro release can't be blamed. Pick a distro.

 

Texstar? Mandrake did offer him a position. He turned it down, for you. Trust me. You wouldn't have had all those 9.1 pkgs.

 

Note: SuSE9pro lasted 2 weeks on my machine. Mandrake still rules it and has for 2.5 years.

 

Glad you like it. Some will, some won't. Your sys does one thing, another does another. Welcome to the linux os.... Pick a distro :D

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I also got my copy of SuSE here and at first glance I loved it. However, the fact that I haven't been able to get a dvd to play burns me up :wall: I have just found a tutorial on installing mplayer from source ( http://suselinuxsupport.de/ ) so I'll report back. (actualy this will be a good learning experience for me as I tend to stick with rpms). Yast is alright, I like the way it will tell you about conflicts but I agree it makes rpm installs a two step process if you click the rpm package. I havent tried to install a rpm from a terminal. so not sure if Yast comes up then.

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The biggest problem I had with suse is installing anything that's not on the cds. It seems to totally screw up yast. Mandrake is much easier to add additional packages without hosing your system. Thank god for plf and contrib. Without them, mandrake would not be nearly as usable IMHO and yes I also miss texstar but I'm looking forward to his PCLinuxOS. The live cd looks tremendous. Once they get the hd install kinks worked out, it will have a place on my box. I think the release 5 should be out soon.

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Well just to let you know, I still didn't get mplayer to work (here at work) so I'm going back to Mandrake 9.2. I'm not that effeicent on linux anyways, but at least with mandy I have printed docs to help me out and this great site to help too. I'm just lucky to have a very cool IT guy that has allowed me to put any linux on my xp box. I'm still working on getting hime to try it, in fact I gave him my mandy discs, time to download new iso's....Hopefully before I leave here so I can get it up and running on my home box again tonight.

 

Like BVC, I think it's up to the individual, some people have good luck, some bad. I didn't really have bad luck, I just prefer Mandrake and that more than just mplayer failing for me, is making me go back.

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I have been usind Suse for a week now. First was really impression about a clean and nice look.

It also did configure all the hadware (sound and modem) that Mandrake had problems with.

 

Now after a week I use my Mandrake again. I have been playing and testing ~8 different ditros in last half a year, but still I think nothing beats Mandrake, together with urpmi and the MCC.

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From bvc

Speed? Pick a distro.

 

Ha! This is from the "Distro Ho" :P

 

I like SUSE a lot. But I KNOW that Mandrake is home for me. I have tried a few Distros here and there. The only other one I liked for every day use was SUSE9.0. Things do change :cheesy:

 

Like I said, I plan on buying MDK10.0 when it comes out. To be honest I still boot to MDK everyday to figure out how something is done just to go back to SUSE and fix a problem. :lol2:

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From bvc
Speed? Pick a distro.

 

Ha! This is from the "Distro Ho" :P

hardly...in 2.5 years

 

Mandrake-8.1 to 10

LFS-4.0

Slackware-9.0

Libranet-2.8

RH9

Debian3

Fedora-95-test - Core 1

SuSE9pro

Gentoo

 

Not much longer than your list, huh?

 

I was simply saying that speed isn't a distro issue or distro specific. The same speed can be obtained regardless of the distro you use. The kernel is the kernel. It's just depends on it's config and optimizations in the config files at startup and in X.

 

LFS was the fasted to me at final install and not because of CFLAGS but because it was when I switched to reiserfs from ext2 (yuk), and because of what was started a boot. It could easily have been bogged down like mandrake/suse/rh/fedora after they're installed. Services at boot is the main reason for a percieved increase in speed for Debian, Slack, and Gentoo. Comparing distros is like comparing a stock chevy camaro to a stock pontiac firebird. Just a diff name on it with a few cosmetic diff's. They can both be sup'd up and modified, or stripped even further. At the core, they are the same, and their end can also be the same.

 

Throughout the above post, that's all I was suggesting by "pick a distro". Linux is Linux. SuSE seems to me to be a great distro for someone that just wants to install and use. It becomes a major pain if you want to step outside the suse way of doing things. Heh, Debian's the same way so that's not an insult, just not what I want. Great that you do, or that you're willing to make things work. Have Fun!

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You are correct bvc.

 

I am sorry, I got you confussed with cyberjackle with the "Distro Ho". I ment no offense in any of my posts. :thumbs:

 

What I am finding out also was the "procs". In SUSE I was in the 70 - 80's but in MDK I was over 100. I realized I forgot to go into the "services" tab of MCC and take away all the bs stuff I dont need.

 

You are right I have tried a few

 

Mandrake 6, 8-9.2

Yoper

JAMD

Gentoo

Redhat9

Fedora Core1

Slackware9 (for about 2 days)

 

What you may have noticed in this list is a Deb Distro. Due to this forum I may try one:

ftp://mandrake-forum.org/pub/Debian/Net_install/

 

Great thing about mandrakeusers.org is its a Mandrake forum but others are welcome.

:cheesy:

 

And the flames are not to hard and fast :lol2: :P

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To add some other stuff.

 

True as stated above a Distro is a Distro. I was only trying to point out some differences between the two no matter how small. As corrected, some things may appear different but it is only because of personal setup of the Distro.

 

One difference I did find that was not subject to my input was automatic hardware detection and setup. Now this was just me on my machine that I can speak for, but as stated about I was impressed with acpi and my winmodem setup at first boot.

 

I tried to explain what I thought about each Distros "installer". I had forgotton to mention that I thought urpmi was the best installer/dependency application. I have read articles (some recent) saying they hatted the "dependency hell" of .rpm. If you just "rpm -Uvh" you may be in for a long night. Stuff like yast, apt-get, and urpmi have solved those issues for their Distro. :cheesy:

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