[CS-FSLUG] Playing With OpenSUSE 10.0 Beta 4

[Don Parris]

Since Novell launched OpenSUSE, I signed up for the announcements
list.  10.0 Beta 4 is available in 5 ISO images.  After a couple of
days of downloading via my BellSouth DSL-Lite connection, I finally
heaved OpenSUSE onto my Dell Latitude C610, replacing Ubuntu 5.04.

The Dell C610 configuration:
<> 1.2GHz Intel CPU
<> 256MB RAM
<> 18GB HDD

Although in beta stage, I'm thrilled about a few things:

<> My Kodak CX6200 camera actually works now - out of the box, no less.
<> My Handspring Visor works out of the box, though it took me a
minute to figure out I needed to use KPilot, instead of the Kontact
Sync thingy.

These two issues have been the biggest pain under SUSE, even though I
was able to get Ubuntu 4.x to handle both quite well.  So these were
the biggest advances for me & SUSE. A couple of further points:

<> USB flash/key drives are much more automated now.
<> OpenSUSE loads in just 55 secs (boot prompt to login prompt) - 5-7
secs slower than Ubuntu Hoary (5.04).  Using my laptop as a
workstation (as opposed to the general-purpose nature of my primary
box surely makes a difference.  The primary box will get promoted to
server status, while the laptop is likely to become my primary
workstation.

<> Power management seems to work fine - I've never put any OS on a
laptop before, or used Power Mgmt features, so take that with a grain
of salt.

<> The menu system is now unified (wasn't under 9.2), making the same
apps available in the same structure, regardless of what desktop
environment you run.

<> KDE (34 secs)/GNOME (???)/Blackbox (4-6 secs) all look nice, load
reasonably.  See below on GNOME.

<> OOo 2.0-Pre (1.9.125.1) loads fairly quickly.  In fact, without the
Quickstarter, OOo Writer loads in just 6 seconds.  The Quickstarter
applet cuts that in half, in case you're in a hurry.  I'm honestly not
sure how much more you can type in 6 seconds, but unless you're a
governor rushing to stop an execution, I think you'll be just fine. 
If you need to stop an execution, use the phone. ;-)  The supposed
Microsoft look isn't near as bad as I thought.  I may keep it.

-------------------
The glitches:

<> On initial boot, preparing for installation, a graphical screen
appears, then sits there for a bit seemingly doing nothing at all. 
Pressing the [Esc] key will reveal that it really is doing something. 
It just looks like it crashed before it got started.  The installation
was a breeze.

<> Evolution is apparently also beta, but acts more like a demo model,
since you can't actually create new contacts, new tasks - you can't
create a new anything near as I can tell.  It looks nice; doesn't do
much.  Trying to create a new something (forget now what it was) led
to a crash (Evolution only).

<> Changing themes around in GNOME, I chose the "QT" style in advanced
settings, and boy, that set the buzzers and errr messages off!  I
wound up using [Ctrl]+[Alt]+[Backspace] to get out of the session. 
Since then, I can't load GNOME without getting incessant Nautilus
Crash-restart-crash-restart... you get my drift.  That's since I had
to back out earlier.  I didn't even get to test Beagle yet!

<> Apparently, SUSE needs to get a more recent version of X.org, as
drop shadows are not supported under the version included with Beta 4.
 Of course, it may just be that I need to edit the settings, as
suggested.  But the error message suggests I need a more recent
version as well.

<> Evolution 2.0 doesn't export data - is that stupid, or what?  I had
stored most of my contacts in Evolution, under SUSE 9.2 Pro.  Now I
have no real way to get them out that I can see, to put them in any
other app. :-(

Bear in mind that all of this is serious beta.  GNOME worked well
until I got hold of it, and tried to change the look-n-feel.  I don't
know what I did wrong, but it was definitely wrong.  Otherwise, things
seem to work fairly smoothly.  Just don't go overboard tweaking
things, and you'll be alright.

Since I had such a fit trying to get Ubuntu Hoary fixed up with
Bellsouth DSL and a DSL modem, OpenSUSE 10.0 might just be my next
move.  It didn't take much to impress me, given that the two or three
biggest Linux glitches I've experienced are now resolved in an
out-of-the-box fashion.  But I am impressed.  The speed of
OpenOffice.org, the speed of OpenSUSE as a desktop, the improved
organization of the menu structure, and the pretty picture of the
lizzard may have just won my heart for another round of SUSE.

Don
-- 
DC Parris GNU Evangelist
http://matheteuo.org/
gnumathetes at gmail.com
"Hey man, whatever pickles your list!"