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On Sunday 28 April 2002 13:22, Philipp Thomas wrote:
Al Sutton <al@alsutton.com> [ Sun, 28 Apr 2002 12:42:36 +0100]:
and so I've decided to switch back to the freely downloadable edition of RedHat 7.2.
If you're happy with that, so be it.
1) SuSE 8.0 doesn't recognise my IOMega ZIP CD (which is about two years old), whereas RedHat has done for a number of months.
I don't know what's special about the ZIP CD. How is it connected to the computer?
This was due to an incompatibility between the USB controller and I beleive SuSE Linux, although I am not 100% sure. The drive worked on the controller user RH 7.2, but required moving to another USB controller (the one on the mother board as opposed to an addition card) in order to work with SuSE 8.0.
This makes me nervous as to which other devices are supported within the Linux kernel, but not in SuSE.
What do you mean by not supported? That the hardware scan doesn't find the devices? That you can't configure the device via YaST2?
Things like lm_sensors work on SuSE Linux yet you can't configure them via YaST2.
My concern is that a number of products are advertised as "Working with RedHat", I had always seen this as pretty much interchangeable with "Working with Linux", but I'm now not so confident. I fully accept problem MAY be down to the USB controller becoming faulty in the last 4 weeks (since I had RH7.2 installed), but it seemed strange that I was able to burn a CD under RH7.2 before installing SuSE 7.3, and haven't been able to use it since installing 7.3 or upgrading to 8.0.
2) SuSE 8.0's support for wireless PCMCIA networking is appauling, and I can't justify it's use on laptops on this basis. RedHat's configuration interface treats wireless networking as just another ethernet device if you want to do simple interface.
Care to expand? I might then be able to reply.
I have a SMC 2632W wireless LAN PCMCIA card. Under RH 7.2 I configured it as eth0 when it was plugged in, and it was treated under as a normal ethernet device. Under SuSE 8.0 I have been unable to get it work (I posted the error message to the suse-line-e list earlier today), and the only information I've found is in the unofficial FAQ (at ) is definatley not the procedure I want to have to perform on each laptop that needs to use wireless networking.
4) I am unable to download a CD image to do installation from, which means I'm at the mercy of my CD's not being lost, and if they are I have to buy a new set.
Oh, you're unable to make images from the CDs you bought? Funny that you're able to use images to install from. Really, this argument is ridiculous.
Are you saying that all of the CDs & the DVD in SuSE 8 are free from copyright issues (Including the ones in th pay directory). If this is true what does the extra money go towards when I buy the professional edition over the personal edition?
5) To install NFS server support I have to install a set of packages which YaST complains may cause problems with each other.
This simply isn't true! Please tell me where you think YaST2 complained.
If this is untrue can you explain where the following error message comes from when I select Software -> Install/Remove Software under YaST2; Package nfs-utils interferes with: nfs-server, This is usually not a serious problem, but if you experience undesired behavior, you might need to remove packages manually.
6) SuSE complains if I try perform an installation from CD and then try to install packages from the DVD. Aren't they the same, and if not why not?
They used to differ slightly in contents as there's a bit more space on the DVD. But even if YaST2 complains, you're able to continue working, so what's the hassle?
The hassle is the apparent error message which doesn't tell me if it's OK to procced or not. If it doesn't cause a problem why am I warned? You may call it a minor issue, but it's irritating when you need to install multiple machines, and then have a NFS available central repository made form the DVD which other packages are installed from. If some machines only have the CD it means you get the error message, which is concerning to users.
My final opinion of the product is that it's unfinished and therefore not suitable for use in productions systems.
Funny that companies like Oracle or SAP certify SuSE Linux then, wouldn't you think?
Have they cerified SuSE 8.0? If so then it may fit their needs, but as the subject of this Email states, these views are MY opinion of SuSE 8.0 operating to MY needs.
I'm of the opinion that if it's not integrated into SuSE's tools then SuSE probably don't want you to use it.
That's making it too simple. As we don't have limitless resources, neither in time nor developers, we have to make priorities. So things were many will profit are implemented earlier then those where only few will profit.
But I'm looking for a system my support people can use with the minimum of time spent fixing a problem. I don't want to get into them hacking config files just to get someones Wireless lan card working, or being called every time a user wants to install some new software over the network from the central server becuase they have a warning message about the version on the server being different from the version on their machine when it's not.
Philipp
PS: I've written to you both directly and via the list because I wanted to make sure you get my reply. But please only answer privately *or* via the list, not both.
Understood, the reply has gone to the list in order to allow others to put forward their viewpoints. Many thanks for your reply. Al.