My mouthshut user id is the topic of most email messages I receive from this site. I think it is high time I came out of the closet and shared the truth with everybody. I have to do it some day after all. So here goes my confession. I ... um ... uhm ... use cough Suse cough Linux. I am sorry, but I had no choice. I am a poor student, and I haven’t sold my soul to Satan in exchange for the rights to run pirated software. [Well, not yet, and by mutual agreement, I can’t disclose contents of any ongoing negotiations with him.]
Presently, I use Suse Linux 9.1, the latest offering from Suse (I mean the company, not me!) for personal computers. They sell two different editions -- personal and professional, the former being a stripped down version of the latter. Like many other linux distributions, there is also a provision to install over the Internet for free. This free edition is advertised to be exactly similar to the professional edition, except for a few software that cannot be distributed free because of license restrictions. Attractive as it is, this is not the preferred installation method unless (i) you have a fast, reliable connection to the Internet, and (ii) you (or someone helping you) are very familiar with linux. [For example, if you think DHCP, modules etc., are all cleverly disguised swear words, you are advised to go for the CD installation method.]
INSTALLATION:
This review is about the professional edition. I am not aware as to how much of it remains true in the personal edition. Installing (Suse) linux is not the most straightforward of tasks you will do on your computer, and it may even get trickier if you want to install it alongside some edition of the Windows operating system. Thankfully, Suse linux comes with the most helpful installation guides to ease the task. I suggest reading through it quickly once before the installation, and to keep a copy handy during the installation. Installation can take as much as two hours depending on the computer hardware and your choices during the installation. Don’t worry, you only have to interact with it for the first few minutes. After that, if you use the DVDs for installation, you can go catch the latest movie in town, while your machine dutifully installs Suse 9.1 onto itself. [By the way, Amrita and Isha look gorgeous, if you care for suggestions!] However, if you are stuck using the CDs for installation, you may have to check back once in a while to change CDs during the process.
After the first reboot, you will be asked a few more questions as it configures the hardware in your computer. Suse linux finds and configures most hardware, though some modems and graphics cards may cause problems. I personally did not have problems at this stage.
LIFE ON SUSE LINUX 9.1:
Finally, after a reboot, you will be greeted with one of the prettiest computer screens you’ve seen. What you see is the K Desktop Environment (KDE for short), which in my completely unbiased (sic) view is about as pretty a computer desktop can ever get. A word about desktop environments is in order here. It is nothing but the software that you interact with all the time in your computer to start new applications, close existing ones etc., and is also responsible for the appearance of your initial screen and background. The two most used environments in linux are KDE and Gnome, and Suse by default uses KDE. [Just in case you wish to use Gnome, you’ll have to ask the installer to install it from the CD as Suse does not install the Gnome environment in a default installation.] It is also helpful to note that many applications are written so as to blend in with the look and feel of one or the other of these two environments. Even though all applications may be used interchangeably on any of the desktop environments, the caveat is that they feel noticeably different when used in alien environments.
One software you should get familiar with right away is the Suse Control Center, called YaST. YaST is Suse linux’s unique sales point amongst linux distributions, and deservedly so. Quite similar to the Windows Control Center, it lets you install new software, upgrade existing software, and (re)configure all (recognized) hardware in your PC. While the interface is not exactly intuitive, it isn’t too hard to use either, and here again Suse’s excellent documentation, in the form of User and Admin guides, comes to the rescue. Apart from YaST, there is another tool called ’Susewatcher’ which serves a purpose similar to that of the Windows Update tool in Windows XP. Started automatically everytime you start your computer, this tool helps keep your system up-to-date with the latest and greatest software bugfixes and updates from Suse.
KILLER APP:
With that we move on to the killer application. No, Suse linux does not let you download people off the Internet. At least I am not aware if it does, and believe me you, I’ve been looking. Until the dawn of that golden era of communication, email is and will always be the killer application of any computer. I personally use ’Kontact’, which is pretty similar to the Windows application ’Outlook’, and blends in nicely with the desktop environment KDE. It is about as easy (or difficult) to use as Outlook, and does its job (reading and sending email) well. And like Outlook, Kontact also allows you to schedule appointments and reminders, organize to-do lists, read Internet news and such. I must mention that there is another software called ’Evolution’ which does the same function and sits pretty with the Gnome environment. Of course, you can use ’Evolution’ on a KDE system as well, if you so prefer. Close on the heels to email are chat applications, and with ’Kopete’ you can chat with your friends on any of Yahoo Messenger, MSN, or AOL. But I am not aware of any application on linux that lets you video chat.
OTHER APPLICATIONS:
The next most sought after application is usually the word processor, and the software ’OpenOffice.org Writer’ is Suse linux’s Microsoft Word replacement for zero cost. Here again, it does everything its Windows equivalent can, and does it well. You can even exchange such documents with Windows users.
Then comes of course, the procrastinator’s best friend, the web browser. Firefox (and its big brother Mozilla) is what I use, and is considered to be even better than Internet Explorer among experts.
The CD player ’KsCD’ plays audio CDs, while the application ’XMMS’ plays every other audio file known to a computer. ’K3b’ lets you burn CDs and DVDs. Using ’Gimp’ you can do everything that ’Adobe Photoshop’ can do to your pictures, while ’Digikam’ can create albums from the images on your digital camera. The singlemost vexing point in all of Suse linux, however, is playing DVDs. The default installation cannot play most DVDs (because of legal restrictions), and you’ll have to know quite a bit about linux to be able to install a useful codec for the DVD player ’Kaffeine’.
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS:
Suse linux 9.1 is a very useable alternative operating system for your PC. A very pleasing user interface, excellent documentation, and the plethora of high quality free software to do anything you want are all its strong points. Let me be clear. Buying these installation CDs costs money, and a lot of it too. In fact, the Suse linux 9.1 professional edition costs about 65 GBP here in England. However, that’s the only cost you’d ever pay for a Suse linux system. In particular, you do not have to pay separately for each and every individual software you want.
On the down side, support for the latest action-based PC games is mostly non-existent, and there is no