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Jason Brooks' excellent SuSE Linux 9.3 evaluation ...
There is only a handful of times that I have disagreed with Jason Brooks in his Linux article. He seems to understand Fedora better now, and his comments have been accurate in more recent months (I think people got on him about Fedora Extras not being a new effort ;-).
His latest SuSE Linux 9.3 evaluation was accurate and on-the-money IMHO:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1790700,00.asp
If Novell-SuSE continues to release 100% redistributable versions of SuSE Linux
in "evaluation" DVD format, sans some non-Novell/SuSE product bundles, I think
I might be switching. Despite Brooks' comments that:
"Unlike SuSE Linux Professional 9.3, which costs $100 for a full version or
$60 to upgrade, both Fedora and Debian are free."
The DVD "evaluation" seems to be a 1:1 package (other than the non-Novell/SuSE bundle).
And Fedora Core 4 is looking like an "unknown quantity" to me with the switch to GCC 4
"pre-mature" IMHO (unless there is some "great reason" I haven't found out about yet).
SuSE Linux 9.3 really shines given the following comments from Brooks:
- "when it comes to combining leading-edge Linux and open-source software, Version 9.3 is the most polished and complete Linux distribution eWEEK Labs has tested."
- "SuSE Linux Professional 9.3 ships with software from the ndiswrapper project that allows the use of Windows wireless NIC drivers on Linux"
- "we were happy to find that the hibernate mode worked without a hitch, even picking up our WLAN (wireless LAN) connection on resume."
And as I've dove into Java over the last year, I'm seriously considering going "full-bore" into .NET (both Mono/GTK# as well as to get my MCAD/MCSD). And the integration with Mono is impressive just as a user:
- "SuSE Linux Professional 9.3 is perhaps most impressive as a platform on which developers ... can evaluate new technologies. Version 9.3 leads the Linux distribution pack in its support for Mono"
- "the distribution ships with a full implementation of Mono, the open-source implementation of Microsoft's .Net software development framework"
- "Beagle works more or less like Google Desktop. Beagle doesn't search through as many types of files as Google's desktop search tool does. However, employing Beagle, we could search for information throughout our home directory, including Evolution mail messages, OpenOffice.org and Microsoft Office documents, and from our browser history."
Especially considering this _very_accurate_ statement on Fedora (despite the fact that people think I'm a Red Hat/Fedora "cronie"):
- "Fedora is the vanguard distribution for Red Hat Enterprise Linux and is always up-to-date, but the fact that Red Hat hasn't yet gotten serious about delivering a slick desktop operating system shows in Fedora, which requires tweaking to bring it into optimal desktop running condition."
I have repeatedly stated that Google and Novell are bringing the Desktop to the masses. Red Hat is a great, GPL-centric company that probably does the most for enterprise computing -- and their Fedora Core releases _are_ very reliable. But they have to "get on the ball" with the desktop and management. Heck, Novell even includes Xen into the SuSE mix, and not just for its "Enterprise" products. And the lack of FC-RHEL mapping, when SuSE-Novell is so straight-forward, is just a nice touch.
Now Brooks does point out some of the obvious considerations of note:
- "a six-month release schedule and a short availability term for system updates and security fixes"
- "Although SuSE's more commercial nature is reflected in fewer community resources than Debian and Fedora have, including the number of third-party software repositories available"
Of course #1 isn't unheard of with Fedora Core either, although Novell has traditionally promised/provided up to 2 years of fixes much like Red Hat and/or Fedora Legacy. As far as the latter comment goes, Novell has already been openly commenting that they wish to build a Fedora-like project so they have something like Fedora Extras. So it's clear that Novell is interested in addressing this detail. Although it should be noted that SuSE already ships a lot of apps as standard (although Fedora Core is not small anymore at 4 CDs either).
I think when I buy a SerialATA drive for my MicroATX/Small-Form-Factor A64-3200+/1GB/6800GT-256MB system, I'm going to put the SuSE Linux 9.3 "Eval" x86-64 DVD on it. I'm currently waiting for the 300-320GB drives to be the "best bang for the buck" (160-200GB is currently, and 250-300GB is a premium per GB as of right now).
--
Bryan J. Smith mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org
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