Suse Linux 9.0 Professional Edition

Even logged in as the administrator with windows it will still prevent you from performing a huge variety of tasks, but with Suse you can log in as "root" (linux's version of administrator) and do whatever you deem necessary, then log back in under your normal profile...

its a win-win situation at less than half the cost of the current version of windows xp.. (not to mention the incredible variety of applications that come with suse, which I might add are almost entirely free!) I know some other distrobutions of linux are free (almost all of them in fact) but I've found suse to be more user-friendly (especially since I myself am switching over from being a long-time windows user)

If you're asking yourself "does he sell this product seperately or something" nope.. I'm the network admin for a small company and I do a lot of tech support, I've simply found this operating system to be better than all those I've tried before...


SuSE Linux 9.0 becomming the Windows alternative   October 31, 2003
Bill Kindle (OHIO)
31 out of 39 found this review helpful

They really did a great job on SuSE Linux 9.0. The hardware compatiblity is tremendous, along with the hardware it auto detects. Has support for winmodems which is no lie, it picked up the one on my laptop(previous versions did not)and even recognized properly my display adapter(Radeon Mobility 345IGP)and even caught my printer correctly(HP PSC 1210v). I am amazed this time and definately considering switching! It is more secure, stable, and more configurable than Windows possibly ever will be depending on if longhorn really does fix all or most of those previous problems. It has better networking capabilities this time around too. GUI seems to look "cleaner" than previous builds also. If you don't want to spend thousands on a mac(even though they are superior machines)but still want the in between that kind of takes the best of both worlds, then download or buy SuSE Linux 9.0, it's the best version ever!


Excellent - but with a few areas for improvement   October 30, 2003
28 out of 30 found this review helpful

I switched from RH 9.0 to SuSE 9.0 Pro because of a few concerns/frustrations with Redhat. (1) Difficulty with configuring access to the Windows network at my workplace, (2) RH's failure to recognize my new box's graphics card (Radeon 9200), (3) Redhat's shift in emphasis/philosophy away from developing and supporting directly Linux for the "average user".

So far SuSE 9.0 is doing well on the above concerns plus many others. YaST is overall an excellent way to control bootloader configuration, important for someone like me who messes with several OSes. (RH does not make it so easy.) Or network access/configuration. And many other issues. I am browing our Windows network with no problems. And SuSE 9.0 has supposedly added excellent support for accessing numerous dialup ISP's - a feature I admit I have not had cause to try yet. (Our family uses Netzero, which normally one cannot access under Linux.)

Installation was not as easy/smooth as Redhat. Choosing software packages is a bit clumsy the way YaST is set up - I had to search for Evolution, Mozilla, GAIM and then "check" them for installation. I prefer Redhat's partitioning - although I admit SuSE does give more control. (Primary or extended? Ah!) My new Athlon box had trouble reading the software packages on the DVD - had to use the regular CD's, which defeats the whole point. And I am still having trouble getting it to work on my DELL Inspiron 8200 laptop, my main machine - so far SuSE boots to a blank screen. That's not very helpful and pretty much hoses the reason I bought it.

That having been said, SuSE is still excellent. It seems much faster than pokey RH 9.0, much much better selection of software packages (Pingus!!! OpenOffice.org 1.1! KDE 3.1! and so on!), hardware detection/compatibility is stronger (whither Fedora?!?). Redhat (now Fedora) can learn some lessons - but frankly the reverse is also true. At least I didn't get a blank screen when using RH 9.0 on my laptop.


Suse Linux   October 30, 2003
S. Smith (santa rosa, ca USA)
25 out of 33 found this review helpful

I have been using Linux in general and Suse in particular for several years now. Ive used Suse 7.1, 7.2, 8.1, 8.1 and 8.2. Using computers is part of my profession and also my hobby. I have two workstations -- one is my media center and the other is for development and I also own two laptops. Suse has always been a good solid implementation of Linux and has improved every with every release. It comes with good graphics software, email, browser, office software that will do everything that MicroSoft Office does and is mostly compatible with Microsoft, desktop (KDE and Gnome) and several financial packages. It had everything needed to record my vinyl to CD. And if you're interested, you can take it apart to see how it works.

Not for everyone. If you consider yourself an advanced user and want to learn how a computer works, this is for you.

By the way -- I've never had a problem with a worm or a virus.

All of my machines are set up dual-boot (Windows 98, 95, ME and XP). This was easy to do and allowed me to go back and forth between where I wanted to go and what I knew. Right now two machines are on and both are in Linux.


Solid, complete linux for the power user and linux geeks   November 23, 2003
FERNANDO CASSIA (Buenos Aires, Argentina)
22 out of 25 found this review helpful

SuSE 9.0 Pro is everything every knowledgeable linux user could want. And this is precisely its main disadvantage, as converting new users from Windows with this distro is going to be a bit difficult due to the learning courve.

The documentation and the OS in general follows the original trend of using linux acronyms instead of "plain english" in several critical places that leave the begginer confused. For example: why the need to label the Video Configuration editing program "sax2"?. If you tell a windows user just beggining with Windows "You just need to run Sax2" do you imagine the look on his face?.

Don't get me wrong, SuSE 9.0 pro is a great linux for the linux connoisseur. If you are "into" Linux and you are looking for the best distro (specially after the news that Red Hat is leaving the retail space and end-user market), get SuSE 9.0 pro. Installing it from the dual-side DVD-ROM is a pleasure!. This is a good excuse to get a dvd-rom drive if you don't have one already.

Instead, if you are trying to convert someone from Windows to Linux, you will have better results by introducing him/her to something like LindowsOS 4.0.

The only "bad point" I give SuSE 9.0 pro is that the default config is too "kde-centric". For instance the default browser is Konqueror with is highly annoying (for example you try to bookmark a web page using the familiar ctrl-d and you get a Duplicate browser window opened). Once you switch to Mozilla 1.4 as the default browser, everything gets useable again.

I think one of the first things Novell should do with this product is to remove the reliance on half-baked KDE utils and use the "best of breed" tools for every area. (For example: why include KDEMail at all, with decent email clients already in the package in the form of Mozilla Mail and Ximian?).

OpenOffice 1.1 is okay, yet I would like to see them including the full StarOffice 7 suite from Sun, instead of the "free" opensource version.
A cd-burning and dvd-burning program is included!.