Hi,
While I'm not trying to start distro wars, either, I'd like to get my .02
in-- I like SuSE.
The first Red Hat I used was 3.x. I upgraded to 4.2, and then I
installed 6.0 briefy on a machine I was using for a web server (it
now runs SuSE 6.3). I use SuSE as the exclusive OS on my
machine at work. I don't care that much for Red Hat, as I find that
it's not as secure out-of-the-box (more work for me), not as stable,
and many apps take a good bit of tweaking to get working.
I started using SuSE at 5.2 and now use it exclusively (well,
except for FreeBSD and 'doze :( ). I've never used Debian and
have used and configured Slack a bit. I installed Corel, but it is a
piece of sh*t. Sometime I'll probably get into Debian, but I don't
have time right now, so I can't honestly speak positively or
negatively of it.
A small SuSE installation is bigger than most, and the installation
isn't as granular as others. This can be good or bad, depending on
your level of expertise and the use of the machine. While this
could be a problem with servers (due to security considerations), I
opt for a bit of bloat because of its many other features.
First, all their stuff pretty much works properly out of the box
(strong plus point for newbies). Also, kde is the default window
manager. While I like the potential of gnome, I don't care much for
enlightenment, as it's a resource hog and I still consider it too
unstable for production use. kde is also a hog, but it's stable.
Personally, I use Windowmaker and use both gnome and kde apps
with it.
I really like YaST, the SuSE admin tool and the install is pretty
painless. The graphical install isn't quite there yet-- it works but
you have very little control over the install. I admit that a comfort
factor comes into play here. I administer Netware and YaST has
the same basic look and feel of Netware admin tools.
SuSE seems to have better out-of-the-box security than any other
distro-- almost as good as FreeBSD. It also comes with a
comprehensive set of security tools. You still need to edit
/etc/inetd.conf by hand to turn stuff off. It also has a firewall script
and harden-suse script. I used this and with very little work built a
machine that you couldn't even *ping*, but it would still surf the
web, send email, and receive e-mail using fetchmail. This has
obvious uses if you have a home DSL connection and only one
machine.
SuSE also comes with 6 CDs, which means you've got just about
anything you need without having to download, including way-cool
stuff like Reiser Filesystem support and Beowolf. This is a big plus
if bandwidth is an issue. They also have built a number their own X-
servers for cards XFree doesn't support.
As for X, SuSE has six employees that work (paid for by SuSE) a
great deal on the XFree86 project. As you might expect, this
means that SuSE seems to work a bit better with X than others.
Also, (a BIG plus for a newbie) the SuSE manual is the best I've
seen, even though it still has a number of translation from the
German problems.
I don't care much for SuSE's "custom" kernel, and always opt for a
Linus kernel, usually patching it with Openwall.
Anyway, it's just my .02, and I've got go to class.
Cheers,
Dennis
"Custard pies are a sort of esperanto: a universal language."
--Noel Godin
