SuSE Linux 9 Review

[Redmondian]

Source: NewsForge

SuSE Linux 9, the latest release from Nuremberg, Germany-based SuSE Linux, was released at the end of last month. I put SuSE Linux Professional through its paces, and found it to be the most user-friendly Linux distribution on the market. It's not a "must" update for users of previous versions, but it does have some nice perks.

The differences between Linux distributions have been getting bigger in recent years, in terms of which packages are included and where files are located. SuSE 9 closes the gap in certain areas by complying with standards such as the File System Hierarchy Standard (FHS) and the Linux Standard Base (LSB).

Installation of SuSE 9 is very simple. The installer is almost the same as it has been in the last few releases, making it easy for those who have used SuSE before or who are upgrading

from a prior version. For those who have not installed SuSE Linux before the installer asks a minimal amount of questions and assumes the rest. You can change certain settings before you start the installation; I added more packages to the basic selection that the installer had chosen.

One of the new installer features is the ability to resize NTFS partitions, the file system most Microsoft Windows machines use as a default. Once you are happy with all your settings, from languages to the boot loader, the installer begins its work. It took around 45 minutes to copy all the packages I selected, including KDE, multimedia, games, and basic development and networking tools, from the DVD (or 5 CDs if your computer doesn't have a DVD drive); had I gone for a more basic installation it would have taken less time.

The first time you reboot you see a nice SuSE loading screen which takes you on to set up your hardware and user accounts. In total, the installation took just over an hour. Almost all of my hardware was detected and set up, apart from my printer which was detected but not supported. All of my existing data and Windows installation remained intact.