Suse Linux 9.1 Professional Edition

I'm not a Linux guru, just a newbie, but I was able to continue all of my home computer routine without any problem. I copied all, yes all, data files from Windows partition and kept working with them in Open Office. I still use Quicken on Windows (this is the only thing I do in Windows now), but as my experience will grow I'm sure I will be able to run Quicken on Linux using Wine project.

Well I must say I do not play games much, so I have no idea of how Linux handles them, and, frankly, I cannot care less.

I feel like I need to address some posters who are "outraged" by the fact that SuSE sells this product. Guys, you should present all sides of the story - nobody forces you to buy it, you can still download all this from the Internet. Go ahead, but you will not get installation support, that some users may need, you will not get a printed version of User's and Administrator's Guides (nice books). And the most important, there are actual people behind this product, who dedicate their time and effor to make it good, so why don't just say 'thanks' to them in the form of purchasing their product?

Another thing to mention is that Linux is not Windows, and it is not going to behave like Windows. Just get over it, learn something new. Yes, you can edit pictures, burn CDs, listen to the music, write, calculate, email, and perform another million things on Linux, you just need to use different commands and tools for all of it.

Since SuSE distribution allows all the above, I rate it 5. It is a good product and it works for me.


The best Linux distrubution.... bar none!   July 18, 2004
32 out of 33 found this review helpful

I have tried several distrubutions of Linux including Red Hat, Mandrake, Debian, Turbolinux, among others. However, I have to say hands down that Suse is the very best Linux distribution out there in this day and age (July 18, 2004).

The reasons...

1.) One of the easiest to install.
2.) Suse has focused on making the transistion easier with a system they call YAST which serves as an installation and administration tool that drastically simplifies the use of the OS.
3.) First Linux distribution to support 64 bit systems. (pro version)
4.) Clean interface thru and thru.
5.) Comes with thousands of programs that can be used free of charge including anything you might needs such as word processing, email, web browsing, etc...
6.) Suse has major corporate backers such as Novell and IBM. It should be around for a very long time in other words.
7.) Has a user base that is growing fast.

There are many other reasons I could list, but for the sake of space I will just say, buy it and try it.

One last note. Windows users should recognize that if they want to switch over to Linux... they need a transition period to do so. Why? Linux is not Windows. Linux is however an excellent OS. It has many benefits which Windows does not offer. One being its security. It has far fewer security vulnerabilities than Windows does. It has a huge user community that provide free support to one another... there is paid support also if you want that sort of thing. In other words, setup one machine with Suse Linux so you can learn the ins and outs of the OS. Don't expect to use it for your main machine for a couple of months at least. You have probably spent years on Windows and are used to its peculararites. Linux is similar in some ways to Windows and different in some ways. Some features will feel familiar and others will feel new... so set aside some time to learn the differences. The payoff is much less frustration since you are expecting to learn new things and be presented with some challenges. In the end you will end up with a great OS that is in many ways superior to Windows and offers a much less expensive offering of software, support, and security.


The New Suse...   May 14, 2004
G. Maxwell (Pennsylvania)
28 out of 35 found this review helpful

Well, Suse has come out with their next version. Most of the "new" features are things that you may not see per se. Suse has done a lot of tweaking under the hood so you have to read up on the distro to see the enhancements. Like the 2.6 kernel, or it's new hyperthreading technology. But enough babble...let's get to the heart of this thing.

Suse has a proprietary installer as well as several other proprietary components which make it a near impossibility that the distro will ever offer a free download again. You can download and install by ftp but that is something most people with a dial-up don't want to do--or can't do. As another reviwer pointed out, if you have new hardware, get the live CD first and see if your hardware can run Suse.

I installed version 9.1 on a machine that has a history of running Linux nearly perfectly. Every time I have installed Suse, there is some surprise that I have encountered. But I have managed to get it working and performing as a stable platform. For this, I give Suse 9.1 4 stars.

But I hesitate to say "It's the greatest" because of the problems that I have had with the distro every time. There is always some bug or "something" that doesn't work right with my equipment--which leads to my next point.

Every reviewer's rating is accurate based upon that individual's experience. And I can say with a great degree of certainty that those with poor reviews simply had a bad install or little hardware support--for the most part. (Goodness knows that there are a myriad of things that can happen during an install). And those with good reviews had a good experience. So keep this in mind when reading the reviews. Your mileage may vary.

It's based on your knowledge, your hardware, and your determination to get the system up and running. And if you have no hardware support, no amount of persistence or knowledge will change it.

So, overall, I rate this distro on par with the other versions but with the same "gotchas" that the other versions have had. And when Mandrake, Libranet and other distros run on the same machine just fine, it has to be the distro's fault.

The best thing to do is test the distro for yourself and if it doesn't work, get another distro--preferably Mandrake as it is comparable to Suse and has excellent hardware support.


It's okay   May 30, 2004
jonjon21 (D.C.)
22 out of 25 found this review helpful

Hey everyone. Been using linux for a while. I can say that this is a very nice distro. But...

To all the Windows users considering the switch, I have some advice. Windows users are provided the comfort of reliable hardware support and everything "just working". This is so because almost all of the hardware vendors are providing full support for it. Many vendors have not jumped on the linux bandwagon and those that are doing so, are being very slow about it (prime example: ATI).

I have experimented with many distros and found SuSE 9.0 Pro to be one of the best ever, IMHO. It was fairly newbie friendly, good hardware detection, a little flexible, and pretty to boot. So I decided to give 9.1 a try...

...Well, I am typing this on my Windows box. I am having a bit of trouble installing 9.1 on my dual opteron box with my highpoint rocketraid 404 controller and 4 x 120GB Western Digital HDs. I have spent the last day and a half trying to get it installed the way I want it, with no success. I have identified what appears to be a bug with the HPT374 chipset as it cannot seem to read the early blocks of the hard drive on the first channel of the rocketraid controller. Consequently, that section of the hard drive cannot be assigned a mount point. I have not figured out exactly how much of the hard drive is unusable in this predicament.

Moments like this are not at all uncommon among the gazillion linux distros out there, including the other "commercial" distros. No matter how "user friendly" a distro may claim to be, you will most certainly have to use a bit of nerd elbow grease to get things going in some fashion or another.

I did install it to one of my hard drives just to lay my eyes on it. And let me say that it is FAST! Sexy looking too. Although, my Sound Blaster Audigy strangely was not configured correctly. I checked ALSA, and it was installed, but still no sound device. Strange. Will investigate more.

And, of course, no 3d acceleration yet, because I have an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro and many problems have arisen surrounding SuSE 9.1 and ATI's drivers and UT2004 (which is all I care to play). I will have to wait until ATI finally produces some quality drivers (if ever), but I will keep the faith as I will never switch to nvidia. ATI just rules.

For the windows power users (which I still am one of), I have come to find that linux may not be your bag. Hardware IDE RAID is almost nonexistent in the 2.6.x kernel (if not completely unsupported), so software raid is usually your only option, which is completely unacceptable for most windows power users. I enjoyed my two hardware RAID arrays with windows XP, as I had some seriously fast transfer rates and low cpu utilization, I have yet to see performance like that with linux' softare RAID solution.

Also, ATI owners are going to have a tough time with linux, as per my driver comments above, just to get 3d acceleration going and playing your favorite UT or Counterstrike or Splinter Cell. You have to be a friggin' pseudo programmer to get the drivers working... and then you gotta cross your fingers in hopes that your game will even run with the winex or crossover office emulator included in many commercial distros. And like I have experienced, if it does run, spotty performance. I have had to hit the forums countless times to get my card going, and once that does get going, geting my games to run.

Now, most of this is not linux' fault. It is mostly the vendors at which to point the blame. But this does not matter to most of you windows users who are curious about linux and want to try it. Not when you've got several hard drives, a RAID controller to use them with, a $400 video card, a massive third party cooler for that video card to overclock it with, dual processors, and really fast CAS2 RAM. You don't want to hear that. You just want something to just work. You just want to fire up UT2004 knowing that it will run, you just want to render something in Photoshop with all the speed and glory that dual processors and two hardware RAID arrays can provide, and you know what, I don't blame you.

So, windows converts be prepared, as linux is no smooth ride in my book. I am still dedicated to learning more and using it. But I will always have my windows box to do all the gaming and more productive tasks, for now.

I guess the point I am trying to get across to the fellow windows users is: make sure you research SuSE 9.1's and linux's compatibility with your current hardware. This will require reading all the reviews available on it and a serious stretch on the forums pertaining to it. It will probably save you a lot of time and headache, and if bad enough, money.

So, to all those who are considering the switch, please take my words to heart. If you choose to make the move, just know what you are getting into. Good luck.


TOP LINUX DISTRO, BUT GET THE PERSONAL EDITION, IT SUFFICES.   July 29, 2004
Shashank Tripathi (Gadabout)
20 out of 20 found this review helpful

I love Suse, I liberally evangelize it, and despite the trivial grouses of some reviewers (namely, Mozilla not being the default the browser or Gnome not being the default desktop, both of which are easily and freely resolved issues) I believe SuSE is the best Linux distro on the market, the benchmark to beat.

But I'd like to point out that the "Personal" edition of the OS does all you probably need it to do. If you have a high-speed connection, the personal version is also absolutely FREE to download.

Take a look at www.suse.com/us/private/products/suse_linux/pers/pers_prof.html (or google for "SuSE 9.1 personal professional comparison" in case this site filters the URL in my review) and you'll see why the Professional version is not worth the price of admission. It includes some micro-minor software that is easily skippable. (E.g., do you really need GnuCash and Mr.Project?)

That said, if you're in the market for trying out a Linux, you simply cannot go wrong with SuSE; it is the most easily configurable, the best supported, the best documented, and above all, the most easily usable OS in the Linux world.