Suse 9

[dmccarney]

I just picked up my spiffy new IBM R51 Thinkpad from my college today.

It came loaded with Suse 9.1 and Windows XP Pro. I haven't had much of a chance to play with Suse but so far it seems very very well polished. "Yast" seems like a great tool from what I've gotten to try with it, personally I think Ubuntu would do well to include some kind of user friendly control-panel.

Has anyone else used Suse? I've mostly just used Ubuntu and have been happy enough with it to not want to change. I didn't have a choice of distro to be on the laptop by default but I'd imagine I could change if need be.

[aysiu]

I just picked up my spiffy new IBM R51 Thinkpad from my college today.

It came loaded with Suse 9.1 and Windows XP Pro. I haven't had much of a chance to play with Suse but so far it seems very very well polished. "Yast" seems like a great tool from what I've gotten to try with it, personally I think Ubuntu would do well to include some kind of user friendly control-panel.

Has anyone else used Suse? I've mostly just used Ubuntu and have been happy enough with it to not want to change. I didn't have a choice of distro to be on the laptop by default but I'd imagine I could change if need be.

What exactly makes a control panel "user friendly"? I have system preferences and system administration--that's all I need. A lot of people are very satisfied with SuSE. Play around with it. See how you like it. I prefer apt-get/Synaptic to any other package manager.

[dmccarney]

**Disclaimer: I've used YAST for about 20 minutes to perform tiny changes so far***

I found that what made this seem user friendly was the way it was laid out and orginized. Things were very easy to follow and each task was broken up into smaller tasks to prevent confusion.

I do have to agree with you on one thing, synaptic is alot better from my first couple installs in term of usablity than Yast's built-in package manager, IMHO.

[manicka]

I have system preferences and system administration--that's all I need.

Agreed. I actually find these two menus much easier to use than Yast.
The all in one approach of Yast is a bit messy, IMHO.

[byen]

bottom line... suse is a good user friendly distro...and just like any other distro it has its drawbacks too... but in the end... its easy to use and pretty decent. I have Ubuntu and would stick to Ubuntu....Thats because I think its pretty slick, very customizable and I prefer the apt-get feature.
But coming back to your Qn..yes...ive used it and it is a pretty good distro.Try it out... as someone said before... not all distros are for all people....some like a few.. some dont.... but I can say Suse is one of the more liked distro in the market (after Ubuntu ofcourse).

[drizek]

Agreed. I actually find these two menus much easier to use than Yast.
The all in one approach of Yast is a bit messy, IMHO.
but far superior to the gnome tools.

and what college has suse preinstalled on their laptops? i wanna go there. :)

[poofyhairguy]

Has anyone else used Suse? I've mostly just used Ubuntu and have been happy enough with it to not want to change. I didn't have a choice of distro to be on the laptop by default but I'd imagine I could change if need be.

SuSe is pretty good. By far my second favorite. It looks very clean, and SUSE develops a LOT of thing in Linuxland that I like. I keep giving it a chance, but everytime the problem all RPM distros have (lack of a single software repo with 14000+ packages) drives me away.

[Knome_fan]

Just wanted to point out that you can also use apt and hence synaptic with Suse, if you prefer it.

Introduction to apt4rpm:
http://linux01.gwdg.de/apt4rpm/
example source list (don't just use it, make sure to take a look at it before):
http://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/suse/apt/SuSE/9.1-i386/examples/
Browse the repositories:
http://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/suse/apt/SuSE/9.1-i386/
Nice article on the subject:
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6672

Have fun and of course, use at your own risk! :grin:

[Brunellus]

Just wanted to point out that you can also use apt and hence synaptic with Suse, if you prefer it.

Introduction to apt4rpm:
http://linux01.gwdg.de/apt4rpm/
example source list (don't just use it, make sure to take a look at it before):
http://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/suse/apt/SuSE/9.1-i386/examples/
Browse the repositories:
http://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/suse/apt/SuSE/9.1-i386/
Nice article on the subject:
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6672

Have fun and of course, use at your own risk! :grin:
I did this before I knew how to manage sources.list, mixed a bunch of bad repos, and hopelessly broke my system.

User error, I know. But ubuntu made it so much easier--and since apt is officially supported, lots of documentation & experience is there for the asking.

[macgyver2]

I just picked up my spiffy new IBM R51 Thinkpad from my college today.
What college is that? I'm impressed that they handed out a dual-boot machine as default.

[dmccarney]

Not by default, only to Comp Sci. students.

[briancurtin]

why SuSE 9.1? why not 9.3, or at a stretch, 10.0?

[sophtpaw]

I just picked up my spiffy new IBM R51 Thinkpad from my college today.

It came loaded with Suse 9.1 and Windows XP Pro. I haven't had much of a chance to play with Suse but so far it seems very very well polished. "Yast" seems like a great tool from what I've gotten to try with it, personally I think Ubuntu would do well to include some kind of user friendly control-panel.

Has anyone else used Suse? I've mostly just used Ubuntu and have been happy enough with it to not want to change. I didn't have a choice of distro to be on the laptop by default but I'd imagine I could change if need be.

My friend; delete SUSE right now and install Ubuntu quickly! - before it is too late :)

SuSE 9.1 (as it was written then) was my first distro when landing on the shores of Linux and i thought it was the bomb - like a devout person i could hardly be persuaded to look elsewhere i was simply amazed after Windows to know that there was an alternative!
The fact i experienced dependecy-hell i thought was just a small part of the sacrifice to make for a great os. Everytime i wanted to install something i'd have to google all over for one library after another before the ground was prepared for my original package ](*,)
Then a friend told me about Ubuntu (you know who you are - i'm ever grateful) I didn't think it could get better. I had landed on the shores of Linux and thought this was it; there was a whole other world to discover!

apt-get (synaptic) is our friend! it is unparalleled and unbeatable for ease and simplicity and efficacy(in the authors opinion)
I still miss the gecko sometimes. Infact i sneaked back to SuSE in the middle of the night, but quickly hurried back. It really was too much work. It's the Debian way all the way!

-
sophtpaw