SuSE 8.1 vs RH 8.0?
Anyone compared SuSE 8.1 side by side with the new RH 8.0? Any observations as to strengths and weaknesses re. recognizing devices, handling less-common or older hardware, speed, setup/operating interface, etc. A friend just switched from SuSE 8.0 to RH 8.0 and says it was driven by the fact that RH happened to recognize a specific piece of hardware and that he just felt more comfortable with the RH interface. I am just getting used to the SuSE interface but have been frustrated with the inabaility to get SuSE to recognize several pieces of hardware here and at work, most notably USB mice. Has SuSE 8.1 resolved the USB problems? I paid for my 8.0 for the manual set and to support the effort, before I invest more money and time I need to know that it will not be wasted expecting too much. Thanks! doc -- Micro$soft-Free Computers: Desktop PC: Linux-SuSE 8.0 & StarOffice 6.0 Handheld PC/PDA: Sharp Zaurus 5000d w/Linux OS Better, faster, more secure, less costly, user upgradable. "And God said, let there be light ... " "I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands; one nation, UNDER GOD indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. "
USB support has been improved in the 2.4.19 kernel. If you are running SuSE 8.0, you are running 2.4.18 most likely, so even upgrading your kernel should improve your situation (i.e. you don't need to necessarily update your distributiobn). I don't have SuSE 8.1 so I can't say much about it. Ali On Saturday 05 October 2002 4:20 pm, doc wrote:
Anyone compared SuSE 8.1 side by side with the new RH 8.0?
Any observations as to strengths and weaknesses re. recognizing devices, handling less-common or older hardware, speed, setup/operating interface, etc.
A friend just switched from SuSE 8.0 to RH 8.0 and says it was driven by the fact that RH happened to recognize a specific piece of hardware and that he just felt more comfortable with the RH interface.
I am just getting used to the SuSE interface but have been frustrated with the inabaility to get SuSE to recognize several pieces of hardware here and at work, most notably USB mice.
Has SuSE 8.1 resolved the USB problems? I paid for my 8.0 for the manual set and to support the effort, before I invest more money and time I need to know that it will not be wasted expecting too much.
Thanks! doc
And, for your further information, RH-8.0 is delivered with linux-2.4.18. /Ch On Saturday 05 October 2002 23:31, Ali Naddaf wrote:
USB support has been improved in the 2.4.19 kernel. If you are running SuSE 8.0, you are running 2.4.18 most likely, so even upgrading your kernel should improve your situation (i.e. you don't need to necessarily update your distributiobn). I don't have SuSE 8.1 so I can't say much about it. Ali
On Saturday 05 October 2002 4:20 pm, doc wrote:
Anyone compared SuSE 8.1 side by side with the new RH 8.0?
On Sat, 2002-10-05 at 17:20, doc wrote:
Anyone compared SuSE 8.1 side by side with the new RH 8.0?
Any observations as to strengths and weaknesses re. recognizing devices, handling less-common or older hardware, speed, setup/operating interface, etc.
Well, I don't have SuSE 8.1 yet (in the USA) so I have to wait until it is available here for comparison. However, I just installed Red Hat 8.0 on another partition and I can give you some initial impressions... 1. PCMCIA and all hardware has updated wizards for configuration. My wireless orinoco was detected, installed, and working in about 2 minutes, including WEP encryption. It was the easiest wireless setup I've seen in any OS. 2. The default workstation install includes evolution 1.0.8, open office 1.0, and mozilla 1.01. Lots of useful programs are installed with a slight bias toward Gnome2 apps. Personally, I like the new bluecurve artwork and themes. Nice eye candy. 3. Brand new package installer that looks like a clone of the Ximian installer. This is a huge leap forward for Red Hat, it resolves dependencies, and makes it more competetive with the powerful YaST2. 4. One of the new wizards is an X display configuration program that looks like the Windows display properties dialog. It lets you change screen resolution, drivers, etc. A little easier to use than sax2, but it only handles the screen part of X, other applets handle the mouse and keyboard. 5. Nvidia drivers not available on the nvidia web site so I had to compile them from source. No problems. 6. They still use the OSS/Free sound drivers which are weak compared to ALSA. This is still a big plus for SuSE. However, when the next stable kernel is released, the field will be leveled for all distros since ALSA is in the 2.5 kernels from what I read. 7. No mp3 libs so I had to compile my own for xmms and grip. I haven't gotten to any of the server apps yet, but I know they include Apache 2.0 instead of 1.3x which is likely to break my PHP apps. Best Regards, Keith -- LPIC-2, MCSE, N+ Sing blue silver Got spam? Get spastic http://spastic.sourceforge.net
I have never been able to get usb stuff to work with suse after a kernel upgrade. they all work fine with the stock kernel (usb mice, keyboards, cameras, etc) and the same goes for pcmcia. finally i realized that if i compile the modules for usb/mice/keyboard/pcmcia stuff into the kernel, i need to turn off the usbmgr and hotplug support in /etc/rc.config and then they all work fine. as for redhat, i have been a suse user since the 5.x series and chose suse over redhat because i only had dialup at the time and i knew with suse i wouldnt have to download to many packages/add-ons. i am teaching a linux class this semester at a local college and we are using redhat. in my opinion, redhat is a good distro for a first timer and can be made a good distro for servers and anything else you want but i prefer suse and think its a better distro for "power" users. as for hardware recognition and installation, almost all linux distros are drop dead easy on this now. i would be willing to bet you could take the last release of any linux distro (not the ones that came out last week) and install on a standard desktop/laptop and have an easier time getting hardware configured than if you installed windows xp/2000/etc. On Sat, 2002-10-05 at 16:20, doc wrote:
Anyone compared SuSE 8.1 side by side with the new RH 8.0?
Any observations as to strengths and weaknesses re. recognizing devices, handling less-common or older hardware, speed, setup/operating interface, etc.
A friend just switched from SuSE 8.0 to RH 8.0 and says it was driven by the fact that RH happened to recognize a specific piece of hardware and that he just felt more comfortable with the RH interface.
I am just getting used to the SuSE interface but have been frustrated with the inabaility to get SuSE to recognize several pieces of hardware here and at work, most notably USB mice.
Has SuSE 8.1 resolved the USB problems? I paid for my 8.0 for the manual set and to support the effort, before I invest more money and time I need to know that it will not be wasted expecting too much.
Thanks! doc
--
Micro$soft-Free Computers: Desktop PC: Linux-SuSE 8.0 & StarOffice 6.0 Handheld PC/PDA: Sharp Zaurus 5000d w/Linux OS Better, faster, more secure, less costly, user upgradable.
"And God said, let there be light ... "
"I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands; one nation, UNDER GOD indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. "
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I recently installed a brand new machine with SuSE 8.0 but there was no DMA support for the 845 chipset so I compiled 2.4.19 + ac4 patches. Now I have DMA but the USB mouse no longer works - it is detected in YAST but does not work. My solution was to use PS2 mice but it would be nice to know how to fix the problem. -- Simon Oliver
participants (6)
-
Ali Naddaf -
Chad Whitten -
Christian Andersson -
doc -
Keith Winston -
Simon Oliver