Suse Linux 8.1 Professional Edition

About 2 years ago, I was assigned to install and compare most of the available Linux distros in preparation for starting the move to Linux. At that time, SUSE 7.2 was head and shoulders above the other distros in several areas, such as ease and flexibility of installation, newbie accessibility (except for Mandrake), available apps, and robustness. Despite RedHat's ubiquity in the US (RedHat is US-made, SUSE is German), and the appeal of Debian's DIY style (RedHat and Debian were the two major contenders), we standardized on SUSE. With the exception of our pursuit for canned training, we haven't regretted it. RedHat is BY FAR the best when it comes to making training and certification programs available, and their website simply blows away SUSE's when it comes to usability. When comparing actual distributions however, RedHat appears to always be a step or two behind SUSE.

They're both good and well-established distros, and you won't go wrong with either. We prefer SUSE. Try several flavors before settling down with one, but SUSE definitely belongs in anybody's shortlist.


excellent with caveats   October 25, 2002
William W. Keenan (Lawrence, KS USA)
12 out of 13 found this review helpful

I have installed this distribution on 3 servers, a workstation, and a laptop so far. It is the usual very complete set of programs and options from SuSE. All hardware was recognized and easily configured, and the default KDE desktop was pleasing. However, as with Version 8.0, There were installation flaws that should be noted. First, if installing from DVD, check the website for special instructions. Second, if you have both a DVD and a CDRW drive, you will need to pass some boot parameters (load some modules)so that the DVD is recoginized as an ide device, otherwise it will show up as a scsii device. Also, CUPS is now the standard print protocol, not LPR, so you might have to configure both. And, of course, after installation, immediately download the patches with YOU.


Wow.. better than ever...   October 24, 2002
Todd C. Spears (Valley Village, CA United States)
10 out of 10 found this review helpful

I was so impressed by SuSE Linux 8.0 that I immediate went purchased 8.1 to take advantage of the numerous improvements over 8.0 - and I wasn't disappointed in the least. I couldn't believe how easy the installation was a few clicks and the new Linux partition is set up and you have a dual boot system running both Windows and SuSE Linux 8.1.

SuSE had made numerous improvements to the distribution including improved interface and smoother software integration with the various packages included. You can now choose from either Gnome or KDE as your desktop (I prefer KDE and you can still use most of the Gnome toys from KDE). The default browser, Konquerer, has been vastly improved but the system also comes with Mozilla and Opera. This is my first experience with Mozilla and it's great. Another big improvement is the inclusion of Evolution - a open source contact manager/calendar/email program similar to Outlook but without bugs and complicated setup and OpenOffice a complete office suite that's compatible with Microsoft office. Other toys included are numerous games, a windows emulator (so you can run most windows programs), a print manager, fax program, etc.

Over all I would have to say that this version is a great leap forward in the competition for the desktop - you get an enormous amount of software and unrivaled stability for an incredibly reasonable price. I couldn't recommend it more.


A wonderful Linux distribution.   October 5, 2002
Chad (Gretna, Nebraska)
9 out of 9 found this review helpful

A wonderful Linux distribution. Very intuitive and user-friendly installation. Great hardware support.

Here's a partial list of the packages included in SuSE Linux 8.1:

Linux Kernel 2.4.19
KDE 3.0.3
OpenOffice 1.0.1
Mozilla 1.0.1
GCC 3.2
Apache 2.0.40
PHP 4.2.2
Samba 2.2.5