Product Reviews

SuSE's new company motto is 'Simply Change', a message directed at users of ageing versions of Microsoft Windows. Speculation is rife as to whether Microsoft's sudden decision to continue supporting older Windows versions is a direct result of such pressure and, with a Linux distribution like this, it is easy to see why Bill Gates might worry.

SuSE Linux 9.0 comes in two versions, Professional and Personal, which costs £40 including VAT. The main differences lie in the server functions contained within the Professional edition. This includes software for all the usual Linux server types including Apache, Samba, DNS, DHCP, NIS and NFS. It also bundles the KDevelop environment along with all the usual development tools and compilers, so it pays to decide exactly what you want your installation to do before choosing which edition best fits your needs. Curiously, SuSE installs neither the cc or gcc compilers by default in either the Professional or Personal edition, so as with other distributions you should take care to inspect the packages selected at OS installation time to reduce the amount of frustrating extra work required later.

The recommended minimum hardware is none too taxing, though anything before a Pentium is unsupported. Graphical installation requires at least 64MB RAM and full-blown installations require 3GB of disk space for the Personal edition and 6GB for the Professional. Drivers for common graphics cards are bundled and the installation process managed to recognise our ageing nVidia card properly and set the maximum resolution (unlike Red Hat 9). Both new SuSE editions recognise Sound Blaster and Terratec sound cards, though ISA plug-and-play cards still need configuring manually. Winmodem users can rejoice that SuSE now recognises numerous different types for the first time.

In the past there have been a few minor issues with SuSE's ability to install itself side-by-side on the same disk as Windows. These problems are now fixed and the claim is that SuSE will now install properly next to any Windows installation, given enough space. The installation process resizes your existing Windows partition to make room for itself and we encountered no subsequent problems in selecting and booting into XP, despite multiple trial SuSE installations. Our only complaint is that the standard time

environmentally friendly

So, once it is installed, what do you get for your money? There are no big surprises, with a standard, optimised Linux 2.4.21 kernel retro-fitted with the scheduler and Advanced Linux Sound Architecture of a version 2.6 kernel. The distribution comes bundled with two desktop environments: KDE 3.1.4 and Gnome 2.2. Most Linux distributions score over Windows in terms of bundled productivity software and SuSE 9.0 is no exception. OpenOffice 1.1, the free version of StarOffice 7 from Sun Microsystems with the ability to export in PDF format, is included with both the Professional and Personal editions, and SuSE says that these are optimised versions, designed for maximum compatibility with their Microsoft Office equivalents.

As with other distributions, SuSE 9.0 comes with a pile of decent games of all types, including strategy, 3D shooters, racing games, a good pool simulation and a 'cyberpunk adventure game' called Beneath a Steel Sky.

As you'd expect with a Linux distribution designed to cohabit a Windows disk, the Windows drives are available directly from the desktop in the form of hard drive icons and as paths (/windows/C, for instance). This saves time and effort in using Linux programs on Windows data, but writing to previous NTFS partitions is not supported because of a lack of metadata journaling. Windows also remains unaware of the SuSE installation, although this is only a small problem. As you are likely to be installing SuSE to migrate from Windows 98, it's likely that the only backwards-compatibility you'll need is access to data on your FAT32 Windows partition anyway.

One feature that might upset security-conscious users of other Linux distributions is the ability to log a user in automatically at boot time, as with Windows. This is the default, but we can't help feeling that it is a security problem waiting to happen in a multi-desktop environment.

take control

In SuSE Linux, the Yet Another Setup Tool (YaST) Control Centre tool is the place where most configuration work takes place. This now contains modules enabling it to configure far more of the system including (in the Professional edition) the available servers (mail, Samba, DNS, DHCP services and so on). A nice feature is YaST's new, tighter integration with the KDE desktop's Control Panel for ease of use and consistency over more of the operating system than ever before.

If you were wondering what to do with that old Windows 95 or 98 PC after upgrading to Windows XP, then this may be the distribution for you. SuSE 9.0 sits well with existing Windows installations and, now that Red Hat has stopped supporting the desktop, looks like an obvious choice for the Linux-curious home user. Simple installation and lots of bundled software make it a good fit for the professional user, too.