Hey all,

I agree with parts of what is being said here and disagree on others. For me Suse 10.0 worked really well - the only issue was that KNetwork manager would do weird things with my wireless and eth. connections, a couple of reboots resolved it(!)

Now with 10.1 Wifi and Networking is great!! My issue is that YAST, for some reason in 10.1 it is pants (that is the polite way of saying it.) I cant delete ftp and http sources that I have added, I just get an error saying "rug failed to delete a ZYPP service" and then telling me that it cannot find the address.

Have you guys got any ideas on this one?

As it is at the moment I am not going to go back to 10.0, but I can understand why some of you will be doing.

Hi Fragos. I'm assuming your comments were addressed to me.

To be fair, in this case it was Microsoft's builtin support that came to the rescue. I resorted to SAMBA and the winserver after failing to get the UNIX interface to work (which worked fine with 10.0). SAMBA has also come a long way and works extremely well now. I regularly use it to interface with my work notebook.

You are correct that MS is proprietary to a fault, which is why I turned to Linux in the first place. Linux has progressed to where I use Windows only rarely and at work (as if the latter gives me a choice). I like Linux, I like the way it can be configured and allows me to setup a system to my specifications rather than forcing me to do it "the Microsoft way." I started this thread in frustration, but hope that SUSE et al take any complaints that reach them constructively.

My 2 bits on the interface discussion: KDE hands down. How can you complain that the interface is bland/childish/whatever? KDE is what you make it, and if you show any half-literate Linux user a KDE interface on one computer, they can re-created it on another.

Linux doesn't shoot itself in the foot. close to 99% of the hardware designed for windows works with Windows (what do you expect ?) but a large proportion of the PC hardware, delivered without linux compatibility in mind, works with Linux. 99% would be strange actually. So Linux is doing as well as it can.

I would add (to dukeinlondon's comment) that Linux or at least OSS has an overwhelming advantage over Winders - you at least know, or can determine, if the software you are loading (to work with your hardware) is calling home and/or loading rootkits, or virii.

Cheers

Both of you guys are right, but you are taking the comments out of context. The problems being discussed here are with hardware with Linux support (e.g., Nvidia and ATI video cards and brother printers) and problems existing with 10.1 but not experienced with 10.1.

Sorry, I know I said it earlier, but at some point the "you don't support us" excuse has to be ignored and distros have to take responsibility for their product. When "upgrades" create incompatabilities that didn't previously exist, the distro is responsible, not the hardware, absent a reasoned excuse. Not some canned cliched excuse generically blaming "lack of support."

Sorry for typos:

"existing with 10.1 but not experienced with 10.1."

should read

"existing with 10.1 but not experienced with 10.0."

To that I wholeheartedly agree. Commercial linux distros shoot themselves in the foot in more than one way. Actually, the main problem with linux is distro's behaviour and their complete lack of herd instinct.

They could cooperate on packaging, licensing things like mp3 and other codecs, getting some crucial apps ported or wine supported(a lot cheaper if you share the cost), marketing and PR, new opensource projects sponsoring etc, etc, etc.... in brief do everything that the community projects won't address because it's not their problem.

I would add that this contrast sharply with the opensource way, where a lot of cooperation, idea and code sharing make the competition between projects like Amarok and Banshee really fruitful.

Instead, they mess around with everyone's patience. Suse is OK though but I will give Kubuntu a spin when I have a minute.

Amen to that. If you are making money off a product, you have a responsibility to customers.

Your comments regarding distro behavior are spot on. I never thought of it quite like that, but your comments that distro behavior in the way they support the linux effort (never mind hardware) is contrary to the ethos of open source is correct. Distros have been instrumental in bringing Linux this far however. Have they served their purpose? Is there a better format for the development of Linux?

Ok so umm..back to the original topic...i agree that suse 10.1 isnt as user friendly as 10.0 was...ehh thats to be expected. Yeah..zen-updater dosent update..yast2 turned into a snail...and other issues...but guess what..itll eventually be resolved. and im sure 10.2 will be better. and if not..then maybe 10.3 .its an ongoin battle..and guess what..were wining

It hasn't been fun bringing Suse 10.1 to a useable state. As a long time user of Suse, I cannot recommend 10.1. Unfortunately, Suse/Novell have attempted to integrate KDE and Gnome into desktop nirvana, and it is a very poor implementation. I cannot understand why this marriage is necessary and why some feel the need to defend it.

The biggest deal--the package management system is severely broken. This is regrettable. I've spent the last 3 days exploring options and have landed on Kubuntu. Kubuntu has a reasonably pure KDE implementation and it works. Package management in Kubuntu is superior and all else performs as expected.

New users should look to other distros. Experienced users shouldn't waste their time getting 10.1 to a usable state when there are better options available 'off the shelf'.

I downloaded last week...
my laptop's wireless does not work..
has been a week..

then now..I will try 10.0..if it works then 10.1 is SUCKS...ok..?

The package manager in suse 10.1 is pretty messed up. I can't believe they released it like that.

Install Smartpm..works flawlessly.

It seems to me, that - in the 11th hour - 10.1 was tweaked and then rushed to distribution. My floppy drive, which worked in 10.0, can not be mounted in 10.1...not a real issue for me but a nuisance none the less. However, my HP scanjet 4100c, which worked well in 10.0, does not work in 10.1. Mainly, due to Suse's new USB detection changes. 10.1 can not detect the scanner...and that is a serious step backwards from 10.0 and a real P.I.T.A! The new package updater came broken and this seems to be having an effect with Yast2. This release had a lot of ambitous upgrades and changes from 10.0; perhaps, too many to be accomodated in a single release. Yes, as other posters' have noted, release 10.3 will probably "fix" the issues, unfortunately, one does not expect - nor should one accept - such sophmoric mistakes and oversights from one of premier Linux distributions.

I'm a long time SuSE user since 9.1. My comments about 10.1 have been much more generous than many others. However, I've become so frustrated trying to find an updater work around that I installed Ubuntu 6.06 AMD64. The broken 10.1 is in another partition. I may or may not touch it again except to install something over it.

Interesting interview with Andreas Jaeger, the 10.1 project manager::

http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?is...0529#interview