That has recently changed.
"A newbie's take on Suse 9.2 Pro
By: D. Nixon
I have been an avid PC Enthusiast since the Commodore PET. I remembered the joy of typing, “load 'hangman',8,1 and waiting 4 minutes for my game to load on my C64. I remember my first PC, an ATT PC6300 complete with 640k RAM, twin 5.25” floppies and a kickin 20MB hard card. Man, those 4 color CGA graphics were and the mono Ad-Lib sound card were sweet.
Things have come a long way. We saw Amiga come and go, and that was one great system, way ahead of it's time. I purchased a Compaq 486 and later got a Pentium 60, both of them came with Windows 3.1 and 3.11FW respectively. That was my introduction to the GUI, and what has become my understanding of the computer world ever since. I went through probably 25 computers since then, all kinds of modded and overclocked rigs, installing and tweaking anything and everything that my paycheck(and mounting credit card balances) could accommodate. I considered myself an expert, and in many ways, I was.
But all of my experience with computers revolved around one environment; Windows.
Windows was more than an OS, it was the medium with which I interacted with my PC. I did not always know how to make my PC do something, but I knew what to tell Windows to do and it just happened... most of the time, anyway.
Around the late 1990's I was hearing about this “Linux thing”, and how it was free and was going to take out Windows and Bill Gates. I chalked it up to the rantings of some college kids who were too cheap to buy Windows and were probably anti-establishment cheeba-monkeys that just wanted to denounce the icon of capitalism that was Microsoft.
But after awhile, being the tinkerer that I am, I decided to try it out. The result? Disaster. I destroyed my partition and required an Fdisk, which of course I did not have a Win98 boot disk on hand, and it was a whole mess. I comforted myself by telling people what a ****py OS Linux was, and went on my way.
But I have a stubborn streak, and so I always came back to Linux as new versions came out. And each time, it was a little better, but it never worked out. It was too hard for me, the self-proclaimed “geek” and “computer expert”. And each time I grew more frustrated, claiming that “Linux is still not ready for prime-time”. I felt that it should just be more like Windows.
See, one cannot help comparing Linux to Windows. For the most part, Windows is “better”. It runs more software, it has superior driver support, and it is easier to use in most cases. But you trade that for less security, higher cost, and the lack of customization.
In any case, despite Linux's continued improvement, I was never able to get it working. I had tons of issues with my new hardware not being supported, and often there was no workaround. At one point, No Linux kernel at the time would even install with my Radeon 9700 Pro installed. Simply caused it to freeze at the first splash screen.
I would have issues where the SATA controller on my new motherboard's chipset was not compatable with the current Linux kernel. Other times, I would get Linux installed, but then the sound card was not compatable, or it took an act of Congress to get the ATI 3D drivers installed and configured. Nothing seemed simple. I wanted to just click SETUP.EXE and have it do what I wanted. I did not want to have to recompile my OS to get it to do what I felt was a common task.
My problem, is that I was thinking like a Windows user, and this ain't Windows.
So around the time of Mandrake 9.2, things were looking up, but I still had enough problems that I always went back to Windows. In Windows I could play all my games, run Photoshop, and not have to worry about driver support, playing CSS encrypted DVD's or whatever else I used my PC for.
Mandrake 10 Community was a giant leap forward, followed closely by Suse 9.1 Linux. Mandrake seemed to work better for me from a hardware point of view, but Suse looked much better and was easier to use. But both still felt short, not so much because of their own shortcomings, but mainly because of my ignorance and the lacking driver support from ATI and other hardware vendors. So once again, I wiped the drive and went back to WinXP Pro.
But I knew that things were about to reach the point where Linux became a viable option for people like me, we just had to be patient.
And then comes Suse 9.2 Professional. I read all the reviews and information I could find, because of all the distros I have tried over the years, Suse always impressed me the most. So I planned out my hardware to make sure it would work. I kept my year old i856 chipset board, and swapped out my Radeon 9800 Pro for a new Nvidia 6800GT.
And so I went to Fry's Electronics and plopped down $89 for Suse 9.2 Pro, making this the 4th copy of Suse that I have purchased. I took it home and added a 160GB drive just for Suse, keeping WinXP on an 80GB drive. I converted my 200GB drive to FAT32 to make it fully read/write compatible with both OS's, so that I could use it for storage.
I sat down and went through the simplistic and straight-forward install process, and within about an hour, I was logging in to my new OS.
Out of the box, Suse is way above anyone else, rivaling MacOSX for sheer eye-candy and layout. Everything was slick and well thought out. I easily used YAST to set up my Nvidia drivers, and to my astonishment they worked! I played some MP3 files without any issues! I could see and access all of my installed drives. I loaded up some Excel files from work and had no compatibility problems.
Now, I did have some issues installing some games and getting onto my Windows network, but they were all pretty simple once I just decided to sit down and research things, and talk to other Linux users.
And I just forced myself to stick with it. When I ran into a problem, I went to the forums and Google and worked my way through it. It took some time(about 4 days), but I know that if I had to wipe my HD and start over, I could get this rig back up and running in a fraction of the time.
I have a fairly high-end gaming rig, and right now, Suse is pretty much doing everything that I was able to do in WinXP Pro, with the exception of a small number of games and an application or two that I have yet to tinker with and get working.
I have several popular game titles like UT2003, UT2004, Doom3, Soldier of Fortune 2, Medal of Honor, Painkiller and others, all running 98% as fast as they did under Windows XP. This blew me away!
In general, it is as fast as WinXP, at least it feels that way. There is not a really god way for me to benchmark it and get an apples to apples comaprison.
The GUI is nicer than Windows. I had to purchase StyleXP and play around with Windows to reskin it and make it look almost as nice as Suse comes out of the box. I know that function matters more than eye-candy, but if I have to stare at this screen for so many hours a day, I want it to look nice!
Stability is rock solid, but to be honest, I always founf WinXP to be pretty solid. What I like is that I have more control over the system, and I don't have to bog it down with all sorts of firewalls and anti-virus software just to keep the system intact.
You get a variety of web browsers, including Firefox, which has to be the best browser on the market, all ready to go when you first log in.
I have just about any application that I could want, ranging from spreadsheets to music and video editors, to a Photoshop equivalant called GIMP 2.0.
Right now, where Linux falls a little short, is in the file and printer sharing area. In Windows you just click on Sharing and share this item and it does it. Not quite as easy here, SAMBA can be a pain to a Linux newbie, but once I figure it out, I am sure it will seem simple. And of course, a new version of SAMBA could easily make the process easier, it is only a matter of time.
Suse has done a great job of bridging the gap between Windows familiarity and the Linux platform. It is enough like Windows on the surface to allow someone to sit down and start using it right away. As you get further under the hood and the structural differences start popping up, the system is friendly enough that it doesn't scare you away. And as soon as you solve your first problem, you realize that it wasn't half as hard as you thought it would be, and that in turn gives you the confidence to tackle the next problem.
Linux is not for everyone. Wintel boxes are not for everyone. But for most people, they could use a Mac, or a Linux box or Windows XP. It is just a matter of taking the time to learn how to use it. Many people use Windows, and so most of them just stick with what they know.
I cannot say how impressed I am with Suse. Their product, their amazing documentation, and their growing on line community is making this a product that frankly, if I were Microsoft, I would be a little concerned about. With Novell pushing this into the mainstream, there is some serious muscle now backing Suse.
But I don't think that Suse or Linux in general has to topple Microsoft. I work for a Fortune 100 company doing sales, and I personally believe in the “abundance mentality”. I don't see the market as a finite resource and that you have to gobble everyone else up. There is plenty of business, and plenty of money for everyone to make, and I believe that that attitude leads to success more than any other.
Suse has an amazing product on their hands. For a basic user that just runs an older machine for word processing and internet access, Suse is ever bit as easy as WinXP, without all of the security holes and vulnerabilities that a basic user might not know how to handle. But that they can accommodate a user like me, with pretty high end hardware who wants to play the latest 3D games, this says that Suse has made phenomenal strides in the past year or two.
Their product is fast, friendly, and looks awesome, although you can certainly tweak it and customize it with ease should you desire to. You don't have to use the command prompt very often, as Suse has done a great job with YAST, their control center and update manager.
Let's not forget that with Suse, they throw in a ton of free software that would cost you hundreds or thousands of dollars if you were running Windows. Suse has a lot to offer just about anyone, and they do it with style.
I will leave you with this, and take it for what it's worth, as I am still a Linux newbie:
The biggest problem with migrating to Linux, is that you not only have to learn a new platform, you have to also break many years of the habits of a different platform, and that can at first seem daunting.
But the real truth, is that Linux is not harder to learn.
If you took two people that had never used a PC before and put one in front of Windows XP and one in front of Suse, the learning curve would be almost identical.
If Suse can work for me, it can work for almost anyone.
My current OS desktop:
D.Nixon "
