Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Watch out Windows, there's a new kid in town!
Very nice alternative to Windows and very easy to configure. If you've tried to install other Linux products, this one is the best....by far. Once you install all of the updates and the additional software, you will love this OS. It has the look and feel of WindowBlinds, without a registry to worry about. At one time I was interested in getting all of the Microsoft certifications, but due to the new methods of Microsoft, I decided to look for another Operating System. Those of you that have XP know what I'm talking about. And Bill Gates has more plans that will steer people away from Microsoft. There will soon be a combination of three Linux companies called United Linux. SuSE is one of those companies. I think they are also aware of people steering away from Windows. I have a feeling Linux will start becoming pretty popular, and this version is a good start for those of you new to Linux. This comes with THREE installation CD's, TWO manuals, 60 day installation support. This is a real bargain. It blows Red Hat away!!
Rating: - Great Version of Linux - with some minor issues
This is the first version of Linux I've been able to install and have it work correctly. Since I am experienced with computers, it's difficult for me to say how easy this will be for a novice to use. The KDE desktop is very similar to Windows 95/98 - with some nice additions. It comes with most of the software you'll ever need for a personal PC - internet software (Kinternet, Kmail, Konqueror, Netscape), productivity (StarOffice 5.2, GNUcash, Korganizer, Adobe Acrobat Reader), and games. There's much more than I listed above. AOL and Yahoo offer Linux versions of their messenger software on their web sites. The version of Netscape included allows you to check AOL email accounts and includes AOL's Instant Messenger in its interface. There is no access to the main AOL service. I am using a different ISP so I don't know if AOL might have a PPP dial-up. I doubt it. It automaticly installed KDE and WindowMaker as desktop options. Gnome is included. SuSE Linux automatically added desktop icons for my Windows drives which was very nice. An older version of Caldera's OpenLinux did not do that for me. Installation was almost as easy as installing Windows 98. If partitions have to be resized, the installation software will allow you to take care of that. (I had 3GB of space that I could never get Partition Magic to add to my Windows FAT32 partition so Linux grabbed that space.) It is unable to resize NTFS partitions at this time. Be sure to read the warning at the beginning of the installation instructions. My TV tuner (very old ATI All-In-Wonder) and my sound card (Turtle Beach Montego II) were the only hardware I could not configure to work properly. I knew my TV tuner might not work, but I was surprised by the sound card. Other products from these companies will work. Just be sure to check the compatibility lists on SuSE's web site. There are web sites with some solutions for many hardware issues including both of mine. They are not always for novices though. This is one advantage of open source. There are individuals working on drivers that the manufacturers don't write themselves. I did have one major problem with the boot manager, but I got the solution from the SuSE web site within a few minutes. (Microsoft rarely has the answers I need, or it takes me an hour to find them.) If you plan to use both Linux and Windows on one system, I'd recommend going to the SuSE web site's support area and do a search using "boot manager" - without quotes. At the time I'm writing this, only one article came up. What happened was the boot manager selected the wrong partition to boot Windows from. This might have to be corrected on your installation. Even though the article mentioned Linux and Windows being on separate drives, they are on the same physical drive in my system. The article still had the correct fix for me. Overall, I've found my problems easy to correct with this version of Linux. Linux is a wonderful OS, and this is the best version I've found so far. You need to decide what your needs are and make sure this version of Linux will support what you need. Even with my problems, I still love this package.
Rating: - Incredible - A truly fine operating system...
I've been interested in Linux for sometime but didn't feel like I had the time to install and learn an entire operating system - then my computer decided to go the blue screen of death three times a day. Finally, frustrated beyond belief, I decided to try SuSE Linux. I'd researched the various distributions and decided that SuSE was the one for me. I like the fact that while they had games on their system they weren't completely family/game oriented like some of the 'game player' linux distributions. At the same time they weren't all business like RedHat (nothing against RedHat, they just seem to be aiming for business users only). In the various reviews SuSE was highly thought of so I chose their distribution. Once I got the programs - I held off for a week - still a little nervous about the new operating system. I shouldn't have hesitated at all. SuSE takes you through the entire installation process without a problem. The entire process only took a little over an hour. I can now choose with operating system to boot to (Windows ME or Linux) but I have to say I'm spending more and more time in Linux. The system is a little more complicated than Windows but at the same time you have so much more freedom to do whatever you want on your system (screens, colors, setups, etc). And it hasn't crashed once (and I've made some really, really stupid mistakes worthy of crashing). You can also read all your Windows files from Linux to make exhanging files with other people easier. The package comes with everything you need for your system - games, office programs, utilities and it also updates itself in the click of a mouse. There wasn't even a problem connecting my DSL to the system. The only downside is I'm not to crazy about the default web browser - Konquerer but I decided to try Opera (a free download) and it's unbelievably fast. The package comes with 60 days installation support but other than checking a couple of how-to articles I never needed it. If you want to try a rock solid OS that won't let you down - just try SuSE Linux. One final note - if you're running Windows XP you need to get Partition Magic (or something similar) and convert your file systm from NTFS to Fat32 or the installation won't work. The first machine I worked on was Windows ME but a friend and I set it up on another machine using Windows XP and with the help of Partition Magic we didn't have a problem.
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