I'm In Love With Suse!

[threegee]

U can bun if you want tu, but after downloading several current Linux distros there's clearly one that's head and shoulders above the rest.

A superb install; no hardware problems; instant recognition of everything on this ancient netbook; access to huge application repos; and a really really good feeling environment, without clutter.

There are several Live CDs available to try SUSE without installing it permanently, in fact they encourage you to author your own live CD. You can, of course, also install to a hard drive from a live CD - just don't make the mistake of downloading and burning the full 4GB+ DVD, as the YaST thingie can grab all the extras you require in no time.

It only took an hour or so to convince me to do a full install. Only problem I had was that I installed it over the top of another Linux that had already been installed on top of Ubuntu. At that point previous incarnations of the Grub loader had been overwritten, and so the boot sequence had lost all track of Windys XP. Solution was to add Windys manually to the /boot/brub/menu.lst file and now I've got a multi-boot machine again. Didn't want to go anywhere near Microsoft's >fixmbr which has been disastrous in the past.

SUSE automatically mounts the Windows NTFS partitions as windows/C and windows/D, so there are no problems accessing existing data. If only Windows was as friendly towards ext3 and ext4 partitions! There's also built-in recognition of the Windows network.

Bluetooth is "simply there" too; I've never found it so easy to connect a Bluetooth mouse through a third party BT dongle before: you move the Bluetooth mouse, an O/S dialogue pops up telling you that it wants to access the machine, you hit the mouse's BT reset button, and so complete the permanent connection. No disks, no drivers, no even thinking about having to configure the dongle first - simples! A WiFi connection is established with the same ease.

http://www.opensuse.org/en/

SuSe is an 18 year-old fraulein from Nuremberg, and you won't regret taking her out!

[Mr Darn]

Having only just started tinkering with Linux Distro's, i have installed one on an old Win ME machine with good results.

As you say, it does install everything reasonably easily, and i have my father using it at the moment. Considering he has never used a computer before this, he's doing quite well on it, and it has everything he needs.

After this glowing recommendation, i think i may try this out, with a view to replace the other distro.

I'll let you know how my experience went.

[Monsta®]

i dont agree linux in all forms is complete bollicks ! i've had nothing but headaches with grub failures. not to mention a nightmare with ninja! i'll stick with windows 7

[Mr Darn]

Strange.. i'm having no trouble at all really...

Could it be that your machine is just too new right now?

I'm not sure though, i'm a complete novice when it comes to Linux.

[threegee]

i dont agree linux in all forms is complete bollicks ! i've had nothing but headaches with grub failures. not to mention a nightmare with ninja! i'll stick with windows 7

Too silly! The boot loader isn't really part of the o/s at all; it's just a way of getting to it; been and gone in a few seconds.

You can use any boot loader you want with any Linux - even Microsoft's lousy effort if you can figure the limited poxy documentation. If grub fails you either haven't got your hard drive partitioned properly; haven't told Grub about where the bootable partitions are properly; or you have bad hardware.

Grub is very flexible because to accommodate lots of o/s' and lots of different hardware and file systems it needs to be. This really isn't a problem to the average user because they get a simple menu, and a few seconds is all they ever see of it. But if you start playing on with partitioning and multiple o/s', and don't know what you are doing - well - you'd better find someone who does!

WTH is ninja?

There's no comparison between Linux and Windows XP on this machine, and I alternate between them regularly on the same hardware. At the moment if I boot XP it gobbles all available (1.25GB) of very expensive micro-SIMM RAM, takes an age to boot (and I've removed loads of crap and optimised the boot sequence), and IE goes away for ages and often becomes totaly unresponsive on heavy JavaScript pages. Running Linux - as I am at the moment - it is showing 370MB (30%) of that 1.25GB in use, with lots of stuff loaded, four active desktops, and listening to BBC iPlayer as I type. Also Firefox is really responsive and a pleasure to use. This is a 1GH/z ultra low voltage Pentium CPU that's now over six years old!

[Monsta®]

Too silly! The boot loader isn't really part of the o/s at all; it's just a way of getting to it; been and gone in a few seconds.

You can use any boot loader you want with any Linux - even Microsoft's lousy effort if you can figure the limited poxy documentation. If grub fails you either haven't got your hard drive partitioned properly; haven't told Grub about where the bootable partitions are properly; or you have bad hardware.

Grub is very flexible because to accommodate lots of o/s' and lots of different hardware and file systems it needs to be. This really isn't a problem to the average user because they get a simple menu, and a few seconds is all they ever see of it. But if you start playing on with partitioning and multiple o/s', and don't know what you are doing - well - you'd better find someone who does!

WTH is ninja?

There's no comparison between Linux and Windows XP on this machine, and I alternate between them regularly on the same hardware. At the moment if I boot XP it gobbles all available (1.25GB) of very expensive micro-SIMM RAM, takes an age to boot (and I've removed loads of crap and optimised the boot sequence), and IE goes away for ages and often becomes totaly unresponsive on heavy JavaScript pages. Running Linux - as I am at the moment - it is showing 370MB (30%) of that 1.25GB in use, with lots of stuff loaded, four active desktops, and listening to BBC iPlayer as I type. Also Firefox is really responsive and a pleasure to use. This is a 1GH/z ultra low voltage Pentium CPU that's now over six years old!

no you cant windows bootloader refuses to acknowledge linux or any other os other than m$ ! plus its a faf mucking on with boot loaders and grub is the standard one with linux!

oh and ninja is a security program for linux stops you being hacked by geeky linux users! but in my case it just stopped me installing or uninstalling!

three cheers for m$! and the programmer of remove wat!

[threegee]

I think maybe you are wrong here. Way back I seem to remember using Windoze loader to kick into Fedora. I can't see any reason why it wouldn't, seeing that you are simply transferring control in just the same way as it does to its own active partition. They'd have to be working hard at it to *stop* you doing this.

Anyway, it turns out it wasn't even necessary to manually edit the Grub configuration file, as I found a GUI to do this in YaST. Used it to make Suse the default o/s, and move Windoze XP down the list. And... it didn't complain about my manual daubings in the file either!

Now to use the Suse live-boot USB stick I just created to rescue a poor deluded Windows user who's registry has just gone TU! Let's see if Suse can restore it from a backup (yes - amazingly, there is a fairly recent backup!) without having to seek out a Windoze rescue disk. Or - like yer average Windows user - reformat and re-install with total data loss!

[Monsta®]

Now to use the Suse live-boot USB stick I just created to rescue a poor deluded Windows user who's registry has just gone TU! Let's see if Suse can restore it from a backup (yes - amazingly, there is a fairly recent backup!) without having to seek out a Windoze rescue disk. Or - like yer average Windows user - reformat and re-install with total data loss!

you can actually get similar products for windows!

heres a how to if your stuck! http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/features/backup-and-restore.aspx