[wellylug] Is SUSE a desktop distro? (AARRGGHH!)

Wood Brent pcreso at pcreso.com
Fri Sep 24 19:09:56 NZST 2004


--- Ian Sterling <xyverz at gmail.com> wrote:

> Brent, I hate to say it, but your experience with the nvidia stuff
> wasn't too different than mine.  Although mine was the graphics.  I
> used both the nvidia installer and the suse nvidia installer and
> neither worked.  Well, the nvidia script said it worked but next time
> I tried booting, the graphics was hoarked.  And SuSe was so damned
> different that it was bloody impossible to me to fix without spending
> hours and hours working on.  I decided to say fsck it and put FC2 back
> on said box.

As I mentioned elsewhere, it was the step backwards from what Linux is
currently able to do that was so depressing. All the gains in useability &
simplicity to install were just gone.

I've used several LiveCD's on the box with better hardware detection. So my
question is why release it in such a state as a polished desktop Linux? They
could do so much better, like most others (right Jethro? :-)

> 
> I will say this about my impressions for SuSE 9.1 Pro though - If I
> was a computer n00b (no OS experiences at all), I might just actually
> like it.  For the new user who's not played with linux before and has
> standard hardware, the gui version of YAST might actually seem
> intuitive.

I'm much more used to Mandrake, so there is a level of familiarity there
engendering bias, but I think the Drakconf tools are more user friendly than
YAST. Not just hardware, but package management, etc as well. The general
config proccess during install & post install seems better laid out & with more
helpful info for novices. But I freely admit my bias :-)

> 
> But for this seasoned veteran (*laugh*), it's nothing if not utterly
> confusing.

Everything was there, but it accepted input, created a new device, no errors
etc, but totally failed. Every other (Linux) distro I've ever looked at
generally tells you if something has failed in a config gui, doesn't just
pretend all is well & let you continue.

I also don't see the need for such a non-standard setup. It is quite different,
& I can't see any value in the differences, just difficulties &
incompatabilities.

However, Simon has risen to the challenge with an offer of help, so I'll
persevere for a while & see how it goes.....


Spotcha!!

  Brent




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