Hi: My wife and I are considering trying the FTP installation of Suse 8.2 to evaluate it. Is this wise, or would it be better to get a CD version? If I get the cheap version, I can download and install packages from the pro version too, right? I want my Linux desktop OS to do the following, and to have the following versions of software: 1. OpenOffice 1.0.3.1 I think 8.2 has only 1.0.2. How can I upgrade it to 1.0.3.1 without breaking functionality? I mean, they have OpenOffice integrated into the menus, and sometimes things get screwy when you remove the Suse OO.org package and install from the OpenOffice.org vanilla binary installation package, which is likely what I will want to do. Can I expect any troubles? Should I use the vanilla or is there a Suse update package to 1.0.3.1? 2. Mozilla 1.3.1 with working Java, Javascript, Flash, and Realmedia plugins. What can I expect here? I see it comes with 1.2.1. So I will be wanting to upgrade to 1.3.1 by installing the package from mozilla.org. Should I use the vanilla or is there an update package to 1.3.1? 3. Mplayer with Windows media codecs that work, or Xine with the ability to play Windows media. My wife watches Thai TV in W.M format. Right now she uses VMware, but we want to get it to work on Linux. We have gotten mplayer to work on the command line on my machine, but on hers the sound is broke, and anyway these were compiled sources from the mplayer HQ, not from Suse. We couldn't get anything to work right with Suse 8.1 Will 8.2 work correctly out of the box (or from an FTP install), or will I have headaches trying to set up the vanilla mplayer 0.9 from the mplayer project? 4. There is also an mplayer plugin for Mozilla or Netscape. Has anyone gotten this to work in Suse 8.2? 5. We will want to install MS free True Type fonts, and a bunch of Thai fonts. This has always been an ordeal in the past, with some encodings not being set right when I used GUI tools like KDE font installer, so I had to do it by hand, which got things working right. How is font installation in the newest Suse8.2/KDE 3.1? 6. VMware Express. Since several versions ago it has been necessary to download and run an additional script to get VMware Express working with Suse. Is this still needed? Is it straightforward? That's enough for now, thanks for input. Good day! -- _____________________ Christopher R. Carlen crobc@earthlink.net Suse 8.1 Linux 2.4.19