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How good is SuSE 9.0? Is it significantly better than 8.2? Have anybody used it? Is it worth a 3 GB download (5 cd's)?
If I upgrade my current system, will it preserv my data, or re-install everything from scratch?
supposedly, there was going to be big change from 8.2 to 9 (according to an interview i read between linux format magazine and the folk at suse), but a friend of mine upgraded (i assume with all his data and settings intact, though backups never hurt anybody), and it seems that the big changes have been all cosmetic rather than anything useful. that's not to say that he's dissappointed with SUSE 9 compared with SuSE 8.2, he just doesn't see what the fuss was all about. also, i think you need 800MB cds to burn the isos from the SUSE download. something worth checking, as 800MB cds aren't all that easy to come by...
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a few new drivers and other bells and whistles nothing to get in an uproar about but none of the recently released distros really had any remarkable changes for anygthing really radical i think most are waiting on the 2.6 kernel release
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I have 9.0 on one box and 8.2 on another. It's pretty hard to tell the difference. There's nothing that significant.
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I never liked SuSE much, their cds have non-free software on them, which doesn't suit my perpose of using a system which is entirely free... A SuSE system is FULL of bloat, fancy GUI configuration programs which actually only edit a few files in /etc, and make mistakes in doing that too! (I have experienced it)
I think Fedora is the most practical way of developing a system (those debian folks waste too much time maintaining packages for 3 different repositories).
What a real Sysadmin wants is a really clean and slick system, and he won't mind using the text editor... What a desktop user migrating from Windows wants is a simple installation program which doesn't try to be to smart, and clean, easy to *understand* interfaces for configuring the various apps. And what all want is the system to be completely Free Software.
Redhat/Fedora provide all of that.
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If you are a power user or more experienced user, the diff between 8.2 and 9.0 (comparing Pro with Pro or Personal with Personal) is not going to be much. If you are fairly new, it can make your life a lot easier on some respects.
The major differences are in hardware recognition, Winmodem "out-of-the-box" configuration, etc., and it does come with OOo 1.1 and KDE 3.1.4 and other newer packages. If you had 8.2 and you upgraded packages on your own, and know how to configure your hardware, etc. 9.0 won make much diff. (except maybe getting a hold of the 2.6 kernel that comes with it, not as default, but available for testing, playing etc., which you can download your own.)
Linux Format magazine issue 47 (December) had a good report on it.
Regards...
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Sorry, forgot to mention that one thing that MIGHT make people update from 6.x , 7.x, or 8.x to 9.0 is that it "officially" supports NTFS resizing.
I Windows-free, so I don't have to dual-boot, thus that is irrelevant to me, but is important to many users.
Regards...
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well, is these times of winXP, resizing a ntfs partition is a way to make room for a linux install, at all.
that's why it's important.
I still don't see how they can resize a ntfs fs but they can't write to it.
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I know why it is "important", for I have done it more times than I care to remember.
What I mean is that if you don need to resize NTFS beause you do not dual-boot (Win on diff box or no Win at all) or because you use Partition Magic to resize, then updating for that reason only would not be a need.
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What non-free software SuSE has? Well, here:
Applixware Demo Edition
Netscape
A Licenced copy of OSS sound drivers (they are not open source)
And some Bits and pieces from IBM
+ the configuration program YAST is also distributed under a license not compatible with the GNU GPL.This is the reason why you can't download SuSE ISO images, coz they have software which is not open source, and cannot be downloaded for free.
I would NEVER use a system like that...
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If waht you said was actually accurate as the reason why "This is the reason why you can't download SuSE ISO images, coz they have software which is not open source, and cannot be downloaded for free" , then you could not do an FTP install either! And yet, you can go to SuSE site and do an FTP installation anytime you want!
Nowhere on the GPL does it say, that to be "free software", the distro has to have it availbale for download as ISO, or have it available for download immediately after its release (as many users expect).
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The FTP install is not the same as the boxed set. I think Yast is the only thing non GPL in the FTP install. No Nvidia drivers JRE etc...
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What I'm trying to say is, that most other distros provide ISO images, SuSE doesn't because it contains software which comes from different sources, but is not open source... SuSE pays money too those vendors, and so cannot allow people to download that software for free (besides I'm not sure if the vendors would allow it).
As Ronald said, the ftp install contains only software which SuSE can provide for free (most of it is open source).Now why would some1 who cares about open source software use SuSE, when other alternatives are there? SuSE looks like just another company who doesn't want to give its users the freedom... They package things up in a nice box, Free software and non-free software, and say that their distro is better because they contain "Special Features, More drivers" etc.
Now the drivers that are not free, do not come with the linux kernel. If you change the SuSE kernel, those drivers (kernel modules) will not work with the new kernel, because they were compiled for the SuSE kernel.
SuSE plays perfectly "legal", but If I don't want to use microsoft products, then I wouldn't want to use SuSE either.
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