Suse 11 is here, finally linux is ready to take on windows!

[Prowl]

Well lets begin, you all now I play/dable with lunix a bit and after some issues with suse 10.3 I jumped into kbuntu ( kde unbuntu ) for a while but now with Suse 11 I'm back and only boot into windows to play games ( until we lobby enough companies to port stuff to linux. ).

Ok lets start installing Suse 11. first I chose the x64 version and downloaded the whole dvd install. Suse is novells "flavour" of linux, Typical of suse and redhat ( another flavour ) is that these are kitchen sink installs, you can get everything including the kitchen sink installed from one dvd, including enough to set up enterprise level web servers, a ras/nas streaming services or just a plain user level desktop. Suse opens a very friendly gui based installer and asks just a few obvious questions, just like xp or vista would for the install. Unlike windows tho you do need to know just a bit about drive partitioning and that linux/unix uses at least 3 partitions for a normal setup. First is the swap ( IE like windows page memory ), then /root which is the system partition, then /home or /usr wehre the data gets stored. Linux does it like this as seperating the system from the page memory from the file store helps reliability, even on the dame physical drive. That and if you used different drives for /root and /user a speed difference as well. Ok well back to the gui installer, a newbie can easily just click next right through and get a standard auto install which will work. The only issue I have with the default setup is that it always assumes you want to share a windows drive and it always wants to share your boot drive, but thats easily changed. You also have to choose your flavour of desktop, Gnome or KDE. I would say newbies choose KDE for windows like look and ease, chose KDE 3.5.9 and not 4!! Kde 4 is basically still beta and unstable ( for linux users unstable = windows vista like ). You get to choose your software packages to install, I say just dump it all ( with in reason ) but others may like a slimmer install. Once again newbies can just click next and answer the basic questions right thru. The install took 35 min on my 2.8 E6600, not to bad just about the same as vista really but you get more!

More how? well by default you get enough extras to have the average user up and running right out of the box ( or website ) opening word docs, making power points, surfing the web and playing mp3s. Most regular hardware installs by default, most good brand mobo and plugin card makers have linux drivers on their product cd's so anything that isn't auto detect will work with a manual driver install but suse, as always is a bit weak on wifi and multimedia support. This is no different than windows as you need to add dvd player software and codecs but unlike windows where nero or power dvd comes on your dvd drive's support cd, with suse you need to download it first. This is due to the open source nature of linux, novell may have some agreements with microsoft and amd but everything that is inside suse is free and has no copyright restrictions. Well adding the software is not hard either, one just has to add some sources and know what to look for. I will add the repos ( repositories in linux world, ftp or http sites with stuff to download ) later on to show you what to get and where.

One thing about suse 11 I noticed ( as with 10.3 ) is that it is VERY fast! Suse was known for being the slow clunky linux ( like redhat ). This made ubuntu popular as it was small and light weight but now since 10.3 things are different, Suse is as fast and as easy to some extent, Yast is like control panel and unlike ubuntu suse has far more powerful config tools built in, one just has to know how to use them.

.........

more later .

[TriniXaeno]

sounds good, I've been a fan of mandriva, ubuntu and fedora but never really mucked about with suse.

Maybe it's about time I did.

rofl @ ready to take on windows tag line. If it can't run games native, then it won't replace my windows box.

[Prowl]

Time for part 2.

Linux's main obsticle for replacing windows is software. Not the run of the mill word etc but games and specialty apps, like photoshop or sony vegas etc for video/photo editing what have you. While there are similar apps ( and GAMES! ) for linux and one can emulate a windows environment using wine etc this involves having to install windows to some extent on another partition or drive. So many users will simply say why bother and just go  with windows in any case. I can say with experince tha emulating windows and playing games in linux is close to, but not the same as just using windows. The installation issues are there so it will take some one Pc and windows litterate to begin with, something 90% of general users out there are not. For enterprise level or general home users who just surf, use word and excel linx in suse 11, fedora 9, ubuntu etc is a much better option than windows. For anything more right now until more companies start supporting, or porting to linux your kinda right.

As it is now, adobe has flash, reader and real player has v 10 for linux. Full java ( obviously ) support. ID software has linux versions of all their games, I hear rumors of others comming along, or at least makign sure their games work with wine so all is not lost as yet. I know photoshop and veas works under wine but for me a lightroom program will be nice for linux native. I know once companies see linux as a market and not a threat things will change, until then you can also dual boot

[Crixx_Creww]

yeah ive been playing with every distro i can get my hands on in vms.
admittedly its time to move up to atleast a dual core for all the playing iam doing. so ive scaled back my operations till my upgrade.

lol @ hyping up putting the page file on another partition, like omg its teh newest idea evers!! windowzz usorz dont know nothings bout that stuff lol

[Prowl]

Crix byte me:P

BTW after a lil more research it looks like really and truely only games are the issue with Linux, I have found that there is a linux version to just about everything out there ( not specific app vs app but function v app ) that is needed. Many smaller companies are making it buisness to have linux and mac versions of stuff to and if it can run on a mac, porting to linux is very easy. ( hint hint apple and adobe!!! ).

BTW Crixx, jump on suse, you don't need a dual core for it.

[Nephilim]

i believe he was talking bout needing a dual core to run it in a vm

lol @ byte me