SUSE 10.0
Sunday 18th December 2005
Categories: Reviews, GNU/Linux, FLOSS
General Use
Before you log in, you have the choice of GNOME, KDE and a few, more lightweight choices. Although GNOME isn't neglected, KDE feels as though it has gotten more attention, and is better integrated into SUSE.
Coming on five CDs, SUSE contains a large range of packages, with all the usual suspects - OpenOffice.org, the GIMP, Kopete, Apache, and so on. SUSE 10.0 was released a couple of months ago, so the packages are generally up to date.
Once you're logged in, both KDE and GNOME act much as would you expect, except for one part: configuration. Here SUSE adds something of their own: YaST. From here, you can change just about all the different options for SUSE, from adding users to installing extra software. Overall, it works perfectly fine, although it isn't a huge improvement over the utilities that come with a normal GNOME or KDE installation. Having said that, YaST does save you looking through the various menus for one particular tool, and presents you with all the options in a user friendly manner.
Speaking of installing extra software, YaST does this in much the same fashion as during the installation - it resolves the dependencies without complaint and asks you to feed it the CDs. YaST also lets you update the packages from the internet. One thing I would have liked is a notification whenever there are updates available. Although this can be turned on, many people would probably leave it off by default, making them vulnerable to the latest security threats. This may not be particularly important to some people, but, what with new viruses and exploits being found every day, keeping up to date is more important than ever.
Last minute edit: there is a little utility that appears on the panel that is supposed to automatically check for updates, but it never once checked for updates for me - I had to turn it on myself. Therefore, I will keep in my comments about the online updates not being turned on by default. While it may work for some people, I can only talk from my own personal experience.
Other tasks are similarly easy. For example, to add a new user, simply select Security and Users from the left hand side, and the User Management button in the main window. From there, you can add, edit or delete the existing users, along with a drop down list of 'expert options', such as password encryption and defaults for new users. Using LVM in the System section allows you to add and change mount points for other partitions, as well as adding logical volumes.
Around the desktop, whether in GNOME or KDE, SUSE definitely doesn't feel as nippy as Ubuntu or Debian, but it isn't particularly sluggish either. On anything bought in the last couple of years, SUSE should run fine. Installation of my printer was as easy as any other distribution - all you need to know is what port the printer is connected to, and the model, and you should be fine.
The internet worked perfectly out of the box. However, the firewall did not. While having a firewall installed by default is a good idea, I had to disable it to be able to see any other machines on the network, which detracts from its usefulness. Once the firewall was off, accessing files from other computers, whether a Windows or Debian machine, was faultless. With networked printers, SUSE seemed to suffer from the same problem as other Linux distributions - that is, you need a working driver to be able to use the networked printer. No driver, no printing.
Conclusion
Overall, SUSE is definitely a decent distribution. YaST is what is commonly associated with SUSE, and it serves its purpose extremely well. However, YaST alone is not enough to make an entire distribution good. As said, SUSE doesn't feel as nippy as other distributions, such as Ubuntu or Fedora Core. Unlike those two distributions, the auto update is not turned on by default, which could leave some users unaware and vulnerable.
On the other hand, SUSE 10.0 does have an excellent installation and YaST in its favour. It is very polished, and should be easy for any person, almost regardless of computer competency, to use and maintain. Apart from one nasty incident in GNOME, where just about everything crashed, it is also stable and reliable. The five CDs contain a huge range of packages, which should have something to please everyone.
Perhaps a more important question might be: how does SUSE fare against other distributions? Against Fedora Core 4, SUSE benefits from the more recent applications and easier installation. User friendliness is quite similar, with SUSE perhaps just edging out in front thanks to YaST. They both have a wide range of applications that are easily installed from the CDs, with Fedora weighing in at four CDs. I think SUSE is the better of the two - they are much the same, and both very polished, but SUSE is just that bit more user friendly.
It is much harder to say whether it is any better than Ubuntu 5.10. Ubuntu has the advantage of apt, which makes package installation and updates a breeze. SUSE does seem a bit more polished, but they are both stable and reliable. Again, Ubuntu has the advantage of updates, while SUSE has YaST. While Ubuntu is still easy to use, SUSE is more so thanks to YaST. If I had to choose one distribution, I would go for Ubuntu, but that's probably because of my bias towards Debian and apt. If user friendliness and ease of use are paramount, then I can think of no better distribution than SUSE 10.0.