Derek Fountain wrote:
No, it's not a troll. You're the only preson so far who has disagreed with me. Compared to RHL etc, SuSE-6.4 might be great. I've no intention of looking at other distros. But compared to SuSE-6.3, which is where I've just come from, 6.4 has loads of problems. I'm struggling to get it working with my laptop, and downloaded tens of megabytes of patches in the process. Lots of people are complaining about all sorts of stuff. This distro is going nowhere near my main workstation and servers, and it's only on my laptop because I need the later kernel, alsa and pcmcia stuff.
SuSE is still the best distro in terms of what you get for the money, but this one has clearly been rushed out without enough testing. That's the sort of thing Microsoft do, and it's sad to see my favourite Linux vendor doing the same thing.
Derek, I was trying to figure out if 6.4 was more problemmatic than other versions of SuSE I've used. It's impossible for me to objectively assess this. I am trying to do far more with it than I used to. I have it running as my primary workstation/development box at work. I have three of my home systems running 6.4, and have done a lot more with them than I used to. I've hit a few bugs. I believe 6.4 may have more bugs on the surface. That is, the Netscape problem, or the path issue in the startkde, for example, are more obvious to the average user than, say, a tcsh bug in the Informix configuration script. One thing about 6.4 that is probably true is that the SuSE folks are really looking toward the next 'level' of SuSE. By that I mean XFree86 v4 with SaX2. They are also working on Yast2 which is surely a distraction from getting all the components in the current level perfect. I will admit sound was a problem for me. Then again, ALSA is brand spanking new, and I spent a lot of time with it before I went back to OSS. I can't complain about download time anymore. I now have DSL, which, BTW worked right away in 6.4. I've only had 6.4 for a month or so, and most of the problems I've had are corrected in patches. At least I don't have to screw with some stupid service pack CD that comes out once a year and must be completely reinstalled every time I make a change to the system. I know it can be frustrating to spend countless hours trying to configure things especially when you find out it's not your fault they don't work. Take a look at the SuSE distribution. There are 6 CDs full of software. SuSE is a ~300 person company. To me it is incredible they can produce this with the excellent quality they do. I have always worked with SuSE under the assumption that there will be problems. It is my job to find them, report them, and if I know how, tell them how to fix them. Yeah, I've done a bit of grumbling about 6.4, but I think it's important to remembr the folks at SuSE are human, they make mistakes, and they have feelings. If you are too hard on them, you may reduce their motivation to continue the outstanding performance they consistently deliver. I guess what I'm trying to say is, if you have problems, by all means, let people know. If you get frustrated, a bit of venting is inevitible, but running around using the "M" word doesn't do anybody a bit of good. Steve -- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/