Suse 9.2 goes mobile with Bluetooth and power management

By Matt Whipp

Posted on 7 Oct 2004 at 11:08

Novell has announced version 9.2 of its standalone Suse Linux product.

The update includes complete manuals, 90-day installation support, both 32-bit and 64-bit versions (including Intel's EMT architecture) and around 3,500 packages.

The notable additions to 9.2 include Bluetooth support with recognition and configuration tools in the YaST system and improved recognition of Wi-Fi hardware and networks, including Intel's Centrino chipsets.

More focus on mobile computing is in the form of management tools to make it easier to take advantage of the power saving capabilities inherent in the 2.6 kernel, such as ACPI and suspend-to-disk features.

As an enthusiast's product, Suse 9.2 uses the latest 2.6.8 Linux kernel, along with the latest GCC 3.3.4 and glibc 2.3.3 components and libraries, plus developer environments including KDevelop, Eclipse and the platform agnostic MONO.

Other packages include the KDE 3.3 and Gnome 2.6 desktops, OpenOffice 1.1.3, Evolution 2.0 and the Gimp 2 image editing suite.

Brian Green, Novell's EMEA director for Linux told us that the standalone product benefited the company in a multitude of ways. Not only does it remain a revenue-generating product - whose market has been greatly extended through Novell's global reach, but improving recognition of Linux by retailers mean it is getting more prominence on the high street such as PC World. Which in turn, means the Novell and SUSE brands achieve better recognition.

But perhaps most importantly, it is the enthusiasts that often generate the momentum to push for Linux in their workplaces, and coupled with growing Linux expertise, this fosters the kind of local support that is vital to convince SMEs to move to Open Source.