Never thought it possible...

[Anti-Trend]

It's no assumption, I went out and bought a copy of Linux magazine with a free Suse Linux 9.3 DVD.

Well, Suse isn't a very good multimedia distro, and the YAST tool is vastly overrated, IMHO. I don't think it's fair to evaluate Linux by Suse. My advice is to try Mandriva 2006, go through our walkthroughs in the Linux section of the forums, and see how it sits with you. You will need an internet connection to get it going (at least at first), but I run Mandriva full-time on my desktop and I want for nothing at all. As a matter of fact, I find it to be a multitude more simple and elegant to operate and manage than Windows now that the initial learning curve is behind me. Again, it's your system and you can run whatever you want on it. But I think you may be pleasantly surprised by what you discover.

-AT

 

[megamaced]

I guess the reason I tried SuSe first was because of it's backing from Novell. I was keen to see what difference that would make. I was reasonably impressed with Yast, I think it's a step in the right direction, but it could be simplified.

Out of interest, do you prefer KDE or GNOME? From a personal point of view, I found GNOME simpler to use, but KDE to be more feature packed. My version of SuSe is better integrated with KDE, so it made sense to use that.

 

[Anti-Trend]

Out of interest, do you prefer KDE or GNOME? From a personal point of view, I found GNOME simpler to use, but KDE to be more feature packed. My version of SuSe is better integrated with KDE, so it made sense to use that.

I prefer KDE to Gnome, but I can get by with any of the available GUIs for Linux. For middle-weight desktops I find XFCE 4 to be an excellent environment. For light weight, I really like Fluxbox and WM. For a full-featured flagship GUI, I say KDE all the way for power users. One of KDE's strongest points is its flexibility. For instance, you could make it look and behave like Gnome, or Windows, or OS X, or something completely different. My setup could be described by the latter.



In contrast, Gnome is Gnome; not much you can do to tweak it. Besides this, KDE has more features and yet is faster and consumes less resources than Gnome. Arguably though Suse has a surprisingly unorganized implementation of KDE. Mandriva's for instance is much more polished, despite Mandriva being a very desktop-agnostic distro.

 

[megamaced]

I like the design of your desktop - I assume that's Mandriva you are running?

A Mandriva 2006 DVD was offered free on last month's Linux magazine. I am starting to get pissed I didn't buy it! Will Mandriva play media files 'straight out of the box'.
Does it include Yast, or an equivalent?

 

[Anti-Trend]

I like the design of your desktop - I assume that's Mandriva you are running?

Thank you. Yes, Mandriva 2006 with a custom kernel and tweaked KDE. It's great for games, multimedia and the heavy multitasking I do on a daily basis. :)

Mandriva 2006 DVD was offered free on last month's Linux magazine. I am starting to get pissed I didn't buy it! Will Mandriva play media files 'straight out of the box'.

Yes, it plays most media types right out-of-the-box. Mandriva is a very multimedia oriented distro and comes with every free-licensed multimedia codec available. Unfortunately many commonly used formats on the Internet today are proprietary, e.g. WMV, Quicktime, etc. Fortunately, even these are available in Mandriva Linux thanks to the PLF. You can get more info on how to install every multimedia library you could ever want in our article, "Getting the Most from Mandriva: Must-Have Multimedia Software."

Does it include Yast, or an equivalent?

Not YAST, but MCC - Mandriva Control Center. It is similar to YAST in functionality yet I find it superior in just about every way.



One of the things I really like about Mandriva is that it has many powerful & easy to use tools, like mcc and hardrake, yet it sacrifices none of the power and flexibility people have come to expect from Linux.

 

[sabashuali]

It's no assumption, I went out and bought a copy of Linux magazine with a free Suse Linux 9.3 DVD. My intention was to find out what all the fuss was really about! After all, I couldn't believe an operating system that was free would be any good. I ended up installing SuSe with the KDE GUI, although I also reinstalled it to try out GNOME as well.

I happen to think Linux is exceptionally stable, if a little slow compared to Windows. It takes longer to boot and some applications, especially Open Office, can take some time to load.
I think Linux has excellent hardware detection, which impressed me a lot. It detected things like my Hauppauge Nova T card, which Windows cannot do (although I couldn't get it to work in Linux).
Also, I feel Konqueror is the way forward for file browsing/internet browsing. I especially liked the fact it could preview almost any file, without having to open specific software.

I don't have internet at home, so I couldn't connect my Linux distro to the internet. This was a problem when I needed additional components such as mp3 codecs.
I brought home the lame mp3 codecs in a .tar file, and I just couldn't get them to work! As I said, people don't want to spend time compiling something like that, they want a simple executable file that does it for them. Linux is well known for poor multimedia support (out of the box, so to speak). I couldn't get Amorak to play my mp3s, although I managed to get Kaffeine to play them in the end.
As I said in another post, I couldn't install nVidia drivers at all. They just wouldn't work whatever I tried.

I'm always open to alternative software, and I think Linux is a step in the right direction. I am sure if I had time to learn the ins and outs of Linux, I would use it on a full time basis. Problem is, like many others, I don't have time to learn.
I am not disatisfied with Windows enough to warrant a change. For sure, Windows has bugs and viruses, but I bet if and when Linux becomes more mainstream, viruses will follow as well.

People don't like change, they will stick to what they know despite that fact it may be crap - just like Internet Explorer.
I was brought up using a Macintosh and I used to swear by it! I started using Windows because I thought it was better.

This takes me back to my post about windows and linux... AT would remember.
The point is, If you want to stick with Windows, power to you.
Linux users are not a bunch of Jehova witnesses standing on street corners screaming down megaphones. Linux users found their home and they are very cosy and happy there. They know what they left behind so they do not bother looking back asking themselvs whether they made the right choice. If they hit a wall, they will go over it, around it or normaly smash it down and go ahead.
Linux is not windows and expecting it to do what windows does is down right silly. No point in making another OS exactly the same.
Yes, Linux can take some time to set-up but it really depends on the distro. I use mandriva mainly because I was suggested it. I also tried Ubuntu but found Mandriva wholesome and a very easy step, away from Windows. Yes there are some things that do not work straight out of the box but you are missing the main point:
Isn't it worth a bit of work (you are not exactly busting a gut seyting things up are you?) to set-up a robust, safer, FREE OS? If this isn't worth a few hours of one's precious time I do not know what is. I use Mandriva 99% of the time. I no longer have a real need to use Windows. But that is me. I am getting cosyer by the day....
By the way Amrok plays MP3 straight out of the box. In Mandriva abyway.
And here is a bit of a story for Christmas... LOL :confused: :
When Moses was leading the hebrews through the desert, to deliver them out of Egypt to be a free nation in the land of Israel, they said: "Why did you take us out of Egypt, where we were slaves but well fed......". This is not the words of the gospel but very damn near......

 

[megamaced]

Yes, it plays most media types right out-of-the-box. Mandriva is a very multimedia oriented distro and comes with every free-licensed multimedia codec available.

Thats a bonus. I was refering mainly to mp3 - can you play mp3's striaght away? If so, why do distro's like Suse not include support straight away, while others do?

Fortunately, even these are available in Mandriva Linux thanks to the PLF.

What's PLF?

One of the things I really like about Mandriva is that it has many powerful & easy to use tools, like mcc and hardrake

Whats Hardrake?

 

[Anti-Trend]

When Moses was leading the hebrews through the desert, to deliver them out of Egypt to be a free nation in the land of Israel, they said: "Why did you take us out of Egypt, where we were slaves but well fed......". This is not the words of the gospel but very damn near......

Wow sabashuali, excellent point. I never thought of it that way until now. "We wanna go back to Egypt! We were slaves there, and they did kill our precious children and oppress us at every turn. But at least we had leeks to eat by the Nile!" ...All the while they are travelling towards the land of milk and honey. :P

 

[Impotence]

I happen to think Linux is exceptionally stable, if a little slow compared to Windows. It takes longer to boot and some applications, especially Open Office, can take some time to load.

I actually found that a Linux live CD was keeping up with windoze (it was a little slower, but it was running off a CD [instead of a hdd])

I brought home the lame mp3 codec’s in a .tar file, and I just couldn't get them to work!

As I said in another post, I couldn't install nVidia drivers at all. They just wouldn't work whatever I tried.

Installing software is a REAL pain in the :swear: until you know how to do it :P it all makes sense after awhile though (and I actually prefer it)

Problem is, like many others, I don't have time to learn.
I am not disatisfied with Windows enough to warrant a change. For sure, Windows has bugs and viruses, but I bet if and when Linux becomes more mainstream, viruses will follow as well.

ahh, learning..... think of the first time you used a computer, did you know what to do? know that u have been using windoze for *a length of time* your confident with it, changing to Linux is just a little confusing at first as your completely new to it.... its almost like starting again (but you know how to use the mouse etc etc etc)

Viruses might follow, but I recon that they will be sorted out by automatic updates (i.e. a anti-virus integrated into the kernel).... updates for Linux are released VERY quickly (and they sort themselves out, you only need to click ok :P)

People don't like change, they will stick to what they know despite that fact it may be crap - just like Internet Explorer.

people will always hate change, but hopefully as a lot of people are using ff and opera (etc) now they will recommended it to others, and they wont be so afraid of 'change'

 

[Anti-Trend]

Thats a bonus. I was refering mainly to mp3 - can you play mp3's striaght away? If so, why do distro's like Suse not include support straight away, while others do?

Yes, you can play MP3s straight out of the box on Mandriva. Why not Suse or Red Hat? Good question.

What's PLF?

Penguin Liberation Front. :) A group of developers that provide packages for Mandriva which are patented or otherwise against Mandriva's corperate policy regarding the inclusion of certain software in the stock distro (mainly for legal reasons). Here's PLF's self-description:

PLF is a packaging project dedicated to distributing software that cannot be included in Linux distributions for various reasons:

* software patents, prohibiting the use of abtract algorithms regardless of implementation
* corporate interest protection laws, such as DMCA in USA, and EUCD soon in Europa
* privacy restriction laws, such as strong cryptography prohibition in many countries

A lot of excellent free software falls under one of these different threats, and thus becomes illegal in various parts of the world. This actually restricts their distribution worlwide, making their use at least impractical, if not impossible, unless for experts. We don't resign to this situation however, and we provide first-class packages for all these endangered software. Wherever you are, there is always a PLF mirror near.

Whats Hardrake?

Hardware configuration tool for Mandriva. It's actually seamlessly accessible through MCC, like Mandriva's other configurational tools, so I don't know why I mentioned it specifically. :) All of the various configurational components in the MCC are individually accessible seperate from MCC itself; MCC simply provides a simple and unified platfrom from which to configure your whole PC.

 

[Anti-Trend]

Viruses might follow, but I recon that they will be sorted out by automatic updates (i.e. a anti-virus integrated into the kernel).... updates for Linux are released VERY quickly (and they sort themselves out, you only need to click ok :P)

Virii does not exist for Linux nor indeed any UNIX due to their modular and compartmentalized architecture. Windows on the other hand has very little compartmentalization or user privilege seperation, which is why it is so incredibly vulnerable to malware. In other words, virii exists in its current form due to an architectural shortcoming of Windows, not OSes in general.

 

[megamaced]

Yes, Linux can take some time to set-up but it really depends on the distro. Yes there are some things that do not work straight out of the box but you are missing the main point:
Isn't it worth a bit of work (you are not exactly busting a gut seyting things up are you?) to set-up a robust, safer, FREE OS?

Yes, of course it's worth it. But this is my point about Linux not being ready for the big time: Can you see your average Mr and Mrs Johnson who live down the road at No.3 wanting to do that?

By the way Amrok plays MP3 straight out of the box. In Mandriva abyway.

I think this is just down to the lack of mp3 support in SuSe

Does Madriva 2006 come in different flavours: For example, SuSe comes in Professional, 64-Bit etc. Is the version I can download of Mandriva likely to be the same that was free on the magazine. BTW, does Mandriva come with all the usual suspects such as Open Office and GIMP?

 

[Addis]

Yes, of course it's worth it. But this is my point about Linux not being ready for the big time: Can you see your average Mr and Mrs Johnson who live down the road at No.3 wanting to do that?

Why not. Mandriva is very easy to set up, the whole installation is through a nice GUI. Can you see Mr and Mrs Johnson who live down the road at No.3 wanting to reinstall windows through a harsh command line based installation and then having to worry about all these virii that are spreading? then they have techs telling them to have antivirus software thats up to date, and a firewall and make sure that they do regular spyware scans (which also need to be up to date)

Mandriva is easy to set up to get working. It takes some work to get it how you exactly want it, but all the features are there. Its up to you how you want it configured. Software installations are a lot easier IMO. Using the GUI installation method, you just choose what software you want to install, and it will search media/download and install it without any further questions.

I think this is just down to the lack of mp3 support in SuSe

Does Madriva 2006 come in different flavours: For example, SuSe comes in Professional, 64-Bit etc. Is the version I can download of Mandriva likely to be the same that was free on the magazine. BTW, does Mandriva come with all the usual suspects such as Open Office and GIMP?

Mandriva has OpenOffice and GIMP and a load of other tools. Whether you want them is up to you, at installation you simply check a box for the apps you want. It comes with Firefox as standard, and hardware detection is very good.

People might think Linux is harder to set up, but thats just because they got used to the windows way. If you did not know how to use windows at all, wouldn't it be a lot harder to get used to? All those error messages, crashes and malware.

 

[Anti-Trend]

Yes, of course it's worth it. But this is my point about Linux not being ready for the big time: Can you see your average Mr and Mrs Johnson who live down the road at No.3 wanting to do that?

Your average Mr. and Mrs. Johnson aren't going to know how to install and configure Windows, either. Even if they do, they will likely be reinstalling in no time due to malware infection. That or suffering with it, unwittingly inflicting the entire Internet with the filthy payload their PC is carrying.

Theoretics aside, I've actually found that Linux is easier for people to use on a dialy basis than Windows, as long as the system was deployed already configured for their needs. With several of my clients, I offered Linux as a cost-saving alternative to Windows. Should they desire to run Windows, I would be happy to help them purchase a Windows license and replace Linux, no charge for labor. As of now, they've been up for about two years with no Windows at all. I could have made more money by setting them up with Windows -- especially on support. But they are obviously better off with Linux, and I sleep well at night.

Does Madriva 2006 come in different flavours: For example, SuSe comes in Professional, 64-Bit etc. Is the version I can download of Mandriva likely to be the same that was free on the magazine. BTW, does Mandriva come with all the usual suspects such as Open Office and GIMP?

Yes, Mandriva has a few flavors. There is Mandriva Corperate, which is their enterprise server distro. Long support cycle, slightly older & better tested software, commercial tech support. Then there's Powerpack, the retail version of the Mandriva desktop, and few variations on that. Finally there's the free Community version. Community is identical to Powerpack except that no proprietary binaries, such as nvidia drivers and java, are included with the distro -- one must add them themselves. I am indifferent to whether I utilize community or powerpack, as I choose to install my own drivers manually anyway. All versions of Mandriva come in both i586 and x86-64 flavors, and there is an unofficial PPC build as well.

And of course, it comes with all of the usual OSS goodies you will find on most other distros, perhaps more. If you were to follow the Mandriva walkthrough I referenced earlier in the thread, you'd find that once you'd set up your software repositories you'd have the ability to install thousands of programs packaged for Mandriva with only a single click. In Windows, you would need to hunt a program down on the Internet, download it and any other software it requires to function and finally install it. Then later, if a new version is released, you'd have to repeat the process again, since Microsoft Update only handles the automatic updates of core Microsoft software. In Linux, you simply choose the program you want from a nice list and put a checkmark next to the ones you want installed. The OS automatically takes care of the dependancies the programs require, downloads & installs the applications. From the point of installation onward, all software installed on a Linux system will be automatically updated right alongside the rest of the OS.

 

[megamaced]

Okay, i'm sold! Maybe I just got off to the wrong start by using SuSe. It would be impossible for me to download Mandriva (no internet connection at home - don't want to spend hours in an internet cafe). I think I shall wait for the next free DVD offered by linux magazine.

I've just had a look at the magazine's website, and this month, the free DVD just happens to be SuSe Linux 10 :crash:

 

[Anti-Trend]

...I think I shall wait for the next free DVD offered by linux magazine...

I'm glad you're willing to try it, as it's a good motto to try new things and never stop learning and growing. :) There is also an alternative to the newstand, being online Linux CD vendors. They will sell you a Mandriva DVD or CD set for a few bucks and ship it to you, no bandwidth required. I don't know who to recommend in Europe, but in the US I really like www.cheapbytes.com. Ghetto-looking website, but they have great service and speedy shipping.

P.S. - I recommend you look through (and possibly print out) that Mandriva walkthrough I referenced earlier and if possible use it to set up your distro online, update it and install the software you desire on perhaps a friend's connection. Otherwise it may be very frustrating for you to install software until you aquire a decent network connection. :(

 

[megamaced]

Next months issue will have a DVD of Ubuntu 5.10. What is this distro like? Is it multimedia rich?

 

[Anti-Trend]

Next months issue will have a DVD of Ubuntu 5.10. What is this distro like? Is it multimedia rich?

Meh, it's alright. I have some fundamental design qualms with Ubuntu, and it's kind of difficult to get any really powerful functionality out of it from a power user perspective. But overall it's OK, probably better than Suse for multimedia but worse than Suse for server operation, etc.

 

[megamaced]

I can't see Madriva appearing on the cover again for quite some time - at least until the next major release.

I think i'd rather go with SuSe over Ubuntu, simply because I am more familiar with it.

Let's say I go out and buy the magazine with SuSe Linux 10, are you familiar enough with it to help me with the basics? I will need help getting my Hauppauge card to work and installing the nVidia drivers. Also, I will need to download and install some kind of mp3 codec and get it to work in one of the media players.

 

[Big B]

Actually, the XMMS media player should be able to play MP3's right off the bat. It's been awhile since I tinkered with Linux, but I do remember that being there.