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 - WARNING - Not for novices...I was a reasonably happy SUSE 8.0 user, YOU did a nice job (when it was able to connect...) of downloading and updating the kernel for the NVIDIA drivers... Hearing that SUSE will no longer support the NVIDIA kernel driver with 8.2, I thought it would be time to upgrade... WRONG!! The installation was a compete mess... Upgrade turned into "wipe-out-everything-and-start-all-over" and THAT didn't even work... Wasted about 3 days on this... and another half a day getting "back" to where I was on 8.0 I'm OK now, but feel left out of KDE 3.1 Rating: - Complete rubbish. Save your time and your money.After attempting to install SuSE Linux 8.1 Personal Edition, I was trying to determine what is more worthless: this distribution of Linux or all those AOL CDs I keep getting in the mail. It's a close call, but it's one you're going to have to make too if you buy this software. Red Hat 9.0 recognizes my display, video card, sound card, modem, printer and all other hardware and installs them correctly. SuSE Linux 8.1 Personal Edition only identifies my video card and even that is being generous because it does not set the proper display settings leading to a very dark and foreboding screen. Like others that have posted here, I was hoping to use SuSE StarOffice 6.0 with SuSE Linux 8.1 Personal Edition. The other interesting thing is that SuSE claims to have over ten years of experience with Linux - maybe so, but it sure doesn't show up in this product. I had high hopes for this install but they crashed and burned in the process. Maybe someday SuSE Linux Personal Edition software will be ready for prime time. In the meantime, however, Red Hat Linux 9.0 rules the desktop. Rating:  - It Works, but go for 8.2I use this. I first installed 8.0. That was a disappointment. It ran very slowly on my system--AMD_K62@350MHz, 256M SDRAM. By contrast, the Win98 I'd switched from seemed lightning-quick. 8.1 runs in-your-face faster, and is acceptable. While Windows-like in many ways, there is a learning curve. I do not regret the switch. I found to my surprise that I've not missed a single MS app, but use OpenOffice 1.0.2 for nearly everything. (OpenOffice 1.0.1 is too slow and too buggy on Linux, though acceptable on Win98. OO 1.0.2 is much faster) Know why you are switching from Win. If it's for speed, forget it. Switch for philosophy, for spite, or to avoid having to get permission every time you reinstall your OS. This distro & version have proven acceptable for me. It recognized most of my hardware, even my Brother HL-1240 printers that supposedly don't work under this distro. Only my scanner and CD burner are no-shows. (That may be fixed with 8.2) In setup I did have trouble with monitor/video settings. Play with the setting indicating which monitor is being used. I do recommend getting the manual on OpenOffice along with this distro. Also buy a good book on Linux, as the documentation which comes with it is very skimpy. Allocate some time for learning, and run Win on another partition until you get comfortable with each app you port over. However, I regret neither the switch nor the choice of distro. --Xenophon-- Rating: - The best OS in the worldThis is one of the best OS i never worked with. One thing that amazed me is the fact that it did recogize all my hardwares. I didn't even need to search for the drivers for my sound card and cable modem. If you're looking for a fast secure OS. You are in the right place. Rating: - think twice and consider other optionsI upgraded to SuSE 8.1 from SuSE 7.3. My impression from this release is: 1. It is still Linux. It is still more stable, more secure and much more affordable than MS Windows. From the other hand, as all Linux systems, there is a big lack of drivers. We have to keep our Windows 2000 just in order to work with a scanners and to have a photo printing quality. 2. SuSE 8.1 is a regression from SuSE 7.3. SuSE definitely goes to the Windows direction: much more blue color on a screen and much more bugs in a code. The bugs are in Yast2 and in configuration files, which make it very difficult or just impossible to install new software, that worked smoothly at SuSE 7.3. 3. The "basic" free support is a nonsense. It does not cover such problems as printer (that I have to re-configure after each reboot) and such questions as 'Why I cannot install SuSE Linux Pro-Office by using the instructions from SuSE Web Site'. It seams that SuSE not only wants you to help them with the testing, but also to pay for finding their bugs. I doubt though that extended support would be any better. Recommendations: 1. If you are new to Linux - consider other providers. 2. Don't buy CDs, try FTP installation. If you will need help, you will probably need to pay anyway, so why do it twice? 3. Star Office 6.0 (SuSE Linux Pro-Office) for 25$ is a nice deal and works fine - but you have to count on yourself and Sun support in the case of any troubles.
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