What Version Of Suse

Hi I am new to Linux (I have been using Ubuntu for 14 days only) and very new to Suse, my brother recommended I try out Suse as he felt it was a better distribution than ubuntu.

I tried out the Gnome i386 Live CD download last night, and apart from the fact it did not seems to be able to get my sound card working (Ubuntu did first time) it looked good.

But when I spoke to my brother he said he needed 10 CD's to download Suse! but I can only find a single 4.2Gb DVD Iso called "Open Suse". What is the difference? and what is the best supported version of Suse? Is it different to the commercial strength Suse? If so where do I download commercial strength Suse from?

If I install the 4.2Gb ISO and find out later that there IS a commercial strength version d Suse can I install it over the top of Open Suse?

I ave also partitioned my drive as per the requirements of Ubuntu eg 1 500Mg Swap File and 1 main partition. Will Suse reformat my drive for me when it installs so allowing me to partition the drive in a manner that Suse prefers?

Sorry for so many questions

Ah your brother is out of date and can't count either. In the past, it used to come on 5 or 6 CDs (depending on whether you count the non-OSS CD) as well as a DVD. Now you only need the one DVD for the architecture of your choice (i586 or x86_64). But note that some rarely used packages will still be in the repositories. Don't worry about that, when it asks if you want to subscribe to repositories, say yes, and you will have access to everything.

However if you want to pay to get the nice feeling that you are supporting OpenSUSE, you can buy a box set. You also get a nice printed manual which will either keep you awake in bed or send you to sleep quickly.

As for partitioning, let OpenSUSE suggest the plan. You probably will want a separate /home from /, unless you have very little disk space. And you don't have to make the partitions ahead of time, the installer will formulate a plan and ask you to approve before doing it.

I tried out the Gnome i386 Live CD download last night, and apart from the fact it did not seems to be able to get my sound card working (Ubuntu did first time) it looked good.[/b]

Reference your sound, this should be easy to sort when you finally settle on the openSUSE version that you want to use. There is an openSUSE audio troubleshooting guide here, to help users whose sound initially does not work on openSUSE:
http://en.opensuse.org/AudioTroubleshooting

Ah your brother is out of date and can't count either. In the past, it used to come on 5 or 6 CDs (depending on whether you count the non-OSS CD) as well as a DVD. Now you only need the one DVD for the architecture of your choice (i586 or x86_64). But note that some rarely used packages will still be in the repositories. Don't worry about that, when it asks if you want to subscribe to repositories, say yes, and you will have access to everything.

However if you want to pay to get the nice feeling that you are supporting OpenSUSE, you can buy a box set. You also get a nice printed manual which will either keep you awake in bed or send you to sleep quickly.

As for partitioning, let OpenSUSE suggest the plan. You probably will want a separate /home from /, unless you have very little disk space. And you don't have to make the partitions ahead of time, the installer will formulate a plan and ask you to approve before doing it.
[/b]

Hi Ken
Thank you for your help

Reference your sound, this should be easy to sort when you finally settle on the openSUSE version that you want to use. There is an openSUSE audio troubleshooting guide here, to help users whose sound initially does not work on openSUSE:
http://en.opensuse.org/AudioTroubleshooting
[/b]

Hi oldcpu Thanks for the help I think i am going to go with the openSUSE DVD iso I downloaded last night, as I feel I will get all the help I need from the SUSE community, and it seems from what I am reading that open SUSE is more comprehensive in terms of Software and updates, as it is the feeder product for the SLED products. Thanks to all of you for your freely given help and advice I relay appreciate it.

Nitro,

You will discover that downloading the openSUSE 10.3 DVD is your best choice. The DVD gives you access to a very robust selection of packages already on the DVD. Then, you can pick and choose which ones you wish to install.

For some reading material, you may wish to check out http://en.opensuse.org/Concepts , http://www.novell.com/documentation/...103/index.html , http://opensuse-community.org/Restricted_Formats/10.3 , and http://en.opensuse.org/Getting_Started_with_openSUSE for a small sampling of info you might need for your first test drive. Good luck!

Hi rivenought,
I am going to go on the route you suggest I am realy looking forward to getting going
Thanks for the reply