Fine, then again I rarely have any issues anyway - most likely due to buying brand hardware rather than the cheapest possible I can get my hands on.
since linux is free, wouldn’t it make sense logically to use the cheapest hardware possible?
RichardET wrote:
> since linux is free, wouldn’t it make sense logically to use the
> cheapest hardware possible?
only if you place no value on your own time or stability and
dependability…anyway, “linux is free” does not means it is without
cost or value to the user…
i value my time (at a lot of money per hour), therefore i purchase
hardware i know is not made for a dumbed down Redmond consumer
environment where the norm is use a year or so and throw away to get
something newer and more powerful (to keep up with the register and
program bloat and virus checking DRAG and the ensuing, predictable and
well known slow down)!!
on that superior hardware i load a superior, yet lower initial and
sustained cost operating system which is free as in FREEDOM to decide
when to upgrade, when and what to install, etc etc etc etc…
on the other hand if you wanna put yours on the cheapest possible
hardware you can find, you are FREE to do so…
–
palladium
Just did a dual-boot install of openSUSE 11.2 Gnome on my primary laptop. So far, so good.
Other than the webcam not working and accidentally running the full update instead of quickly doing the Broadcom b43 drivers so I could go back to the comfy chair to finish up, things have been working fine.
Since the graphics card is Intel, I get the whole “wobbly windows” working out-of-the-box.
The last system I installed openSUSE has ATI for graphics, but the WiFi is Intel so THAT works out of the box. So it’s either wireless or graphics (if all else being equal).
Now I just need to get used to the openSUSE’s way of doing things.
Forget the speakers, the innards look pretty hot - so hot that calling it “low budget” amounts to a troll! LOL! You gotta deal, dude.
It’s worked great for me. I don’t really know what this means, since, altho I’ve tried, what, half a dozen distros over the last year, and almost that many version upgrades, this is my first year really using Linux. And, it has been the steep part of the learning curve. OpenSuSE has worked well for me, both 11.1 and 11.2. Issues have been relatively easy to resolve, without pulling out my hair, and without eating too much time.
I came from trying to run KDE4 in PCLinuxOS The difference is enormous in every thing from boot times to stability.
There is more setup required but it is well worth it.
I considered installing 11.2 on 6 PCs (4 desktops and 2 laptops) and ended up only installing 11.2 on 4 Desktops , keeping 4 out of 4 on 11.2 (ie no need to roll back to 11.1):
- 64-bit Intel Core i7 920 w/6GB (Asus P6T Deluxe V2 motherboard) w/ PCI-e nVidia GeForce GTX260 graphics [age-9 months] now updated to KDE-4.3.4. No KDE4 problems. Works great! I prefer over KDE3 on this PC for apps I use. With Ext4 most apps seem to run slightly faster. 11.2 is better than 11.1 and all previous openSUSE versions.
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- 32-bit AMD Sempon-2600 w/1GB (Epox EP-8K7A motherboard) w/AGP ATI RV280 (Radeon-9200Pro) graphics [age-4.5 years] with KDE-4.3.4. No KDE4 problems. Works great. I prefer over KDE3 on this PC for apps I use. Some openSource ATI driver problems (“radeon” driver) in that special desktop effects under 11.2 do not work quite as good as under 11.1 also with “radeon” driver). Have latest mesa and xorg running from xorg repository. But scanner worked better under 11.2 than 11.1. Also, PC runs faster in boot under 11.2 and possibly due to EXT4 most apps seem to run faster. Hence its sort of a 50-50 as to whether 11.2 is better or worse than 11.1.
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- 32-bit AMD Athlon-2800 w/2GB (Asus A7N8X Deluxe motherboard) w/ PCI nVidia GeForce 8400GS graphics [age-5.5 years] with KDE-4.3.4. No KDE4 problems. Works great! I prefer over KDE3 for apps I use. PC boots faster with 11.2. With Ext4 most apps seem to run slightly faster. 11.2 is better than 11.1 and all previous openSUSE versions.
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- 32-bit AMD Athlon-1100 w/1GB (MSI KT3 Ultra motherboard) w/AGP nVidia GeForce FX5200 graphics [age 9-years] with KDE-4.3.4 on one partition. No KDE4 problems. Works great! I prefer over KDE3 for apps I use. PC boots faster with 11.2. With Ext4 most apps seem to run slightly faster. 11.2 is better than 11.1 and all previous openSUSE versions.
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Also installed Gnome-2.2.8 on another partition on this PC. Very nice but Gnome audio implementation not as good as that of KDE4.
I still have 2 laptops where I could put 11.2 on (they are both running 11.1), but I have decided to stay with 11.1:
- 64-bit Dell Studio 1537, Intel P8400 w/4GB, w/ATI Radeon 3450HD graphics [age-1 year] with KDE-4.3.4 on openSUSE-11.1. KDE4 works great (better than KDE3) on this laptop for the apps used. openSUSE-11.2 Live CD suggested openGL radeonHD driver may be worse on 11.2 and compilation of proprietary driver on liveCD did not work suggesting possible problems there. Hence stayed with 11.1.
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*] 32-bit Fujitsu-Simens Amilo 7400M w/1.256 GB w/Intel 1.5 celeron, and Intel i855 graphics (?) [age-5 years] with KDE-4.3.4 on openSUSE-11.1. KDE4 works great (better than KDE3) on this laptop for the apps used. openSUSE-11.2 Live CD had basic boot problems, where work around (ACPI=OFF) had side effects wrt power management that was not comfortable with. Plus the Intel graphic driver for 11.2 did not see to work as well as that for 11.1 with that boot code. Hence stayed with 11.1.
I have used Ubuntu for the past 3 years, but now I find it sluggish a sort of linux equivalent to Windoze, however all I had to do was to install something and it worked. openSUSE 11.2 runs faster, both KDE & Gnome are slicker, but I have spent all week getting just a few things to work like Lamp & Sun Virtual box, finally got VB working last night, but in doing so it has mucked up evolution, and now that cannot access the address book, files are there and as far as I can see so are the right permissions. So now have to use 3 programmes (KMail) (Kaddress) & (Korganizer)instead of one.
I may well have to go back to Ubuntu as openSUSE like most other distro’s I’ve tried, cannot be bothered to make something that works properly.
Like many things, openSUSE comes easier with familiarity. I’ve been using openSUSE since 2001, so its pretty much second nature to me.
Still, I’m a big believer in using what works for me (which is why it would be hard for me to leave an openSUSE that I am so familiar with), and if Ubuntu works better for you then IMHO thats the place for you to be.
I do note this is your first post on our openSUSE support forum and its possible if you post in one of our support subforums (as opposed to under this “Surveys/Polls” subforum) asking for help to sort those problems, you will find someone who will give you a solution.
IMHO we have a good community for providing support.
I still on occasion have problems with Linux, despite many years on it.
And I rarely spend more than 10 to 15 minutes on a problem. I simply can not be bothered. My time is too valuable to me. Instead I will post for help, either in our moderator lounge (where we help each other out) or on a public forum thread, where various openSUSE contributors to our forum help. Time is too precious to waste banging one’s head trying to solve by one’s self.
Best wishes in your efforts, where ever you end up in Linux.
I have been using Ubuntu for years now but the latest version has really let me down - I can’t get my HP printer to work on it and it suddenly freezes with no apparent reason!
Also my digital camera won’t work and my sound card only puts out distorted sound - I spent several hours with the guys in the forums trying to fix the issues but they were of no help like most of the users there - I wish Canonical would start looking at the quality of the distro because it’s completely unacceptable that I’m wasting my precious hours into trying to make something that should just work work!
I’m going to have to go back to Windows because Ubuntu really sucks nowadays 
–
Yeah, it’s that easy to troll.
Only if you qualify that to “cheapest verified compatible hardware”. For example there are seldom problems with using older peripherals that have been working for ages.
Whether it makes overall sense depends on your budget and free time. You might make openSUSE to install perfectly on a 500MHz CPU system but you might get very frustrated with the response time. Then again, you could make a thin or slim system of it.
My attitude is to ignore those people, and leave them to do whatever they like anyway. Chances are they will have problems on any system with that sense of entitlement.
Dell latitude D810: - 2gig / ram ati radeon x600 graphics / 100gig drive
kde - machine has been unstable during kde desktop sessions:
cannot get desktop effects to work correctly - ati radeon x600
machine locks up from time to time for no apparent reason
gnome - machine has been stable during gnome desktop sessions
cannot get desktop effects to work correctly - ati radeon x600
I’ve had my Gnome session freeze up the computer (except for the mouse) 2 times now.
I also cannot run video with desktop effects turned on.
Other than that, I guess it’s “ok”.
All except sound works out of the box on my Zepto 6224W.
I’ve mostly used Ubuntu, Fedora and Arch before. What I can’t understand are all different recomendations about enabeling or not enabeling repositories. It seems like there are all recomendations from “Don’t eanble anything” to “Just enable all you want”.
Post and start a separate thread, and myself or someone else will try to help you with your sound.
Thats because people are people.
I do not think you will find ONE person who recommends “don’t enable anything”. I probably have the strongest opinion on this, and I always recommend enabling 4 repositories, of which 3 are enabled by default (OSS, Non-OSS, Update) and the 4th (Packman) is the largest 3rd party repository available and its addition will greatly enhance your openSUSE experience.
The problem with adding more repositories is they typically are NOT as stable as those with OSS, Non-OSS, and Update, and the applications on other repositories may or may not have been built with OSS, Non-OSS and Update as a baseline. The spec files for the rpms of the othe repositories, and the dependency checks contained there in may not have been built to an exacting standard. Which means that installing applications from other repositories could result in breakage that could be difficult to track down.
Now such breakage tracking down is relatively easy for advanced users, moderately to very difficult for average users, and impossible for new users, and it leads to claims of openSUSE instability by users who have no clue as to what they are doing, or who simply do not believe what I typed above.
Hence the safest course is to restrict one to those 4 repositories (OSS, Non-OSS, Update and Packman) and then if one needs to install an application from another repository (and indeed there may be occasions where that is the case), then: (1) add the other repository (2) install the needed application and (3) disable the other repository.
Its actually simple, and IMHO it leads to the BEST openSUSE experience for new and average users. I consider myself in the average user category.
It has worked perfectly for me with the exeption of a vfat mounting problem that was resolved in the hardware forum. My reason for switching was that I was unable to set up Monodevelop with boo support on my Debian system and it worked perfectly from openSUSE.
I started with 11.1 on the Thinkpad X60s last May and struggled a little to get everything set up as I wanted - all because I was completely new to Linux. But after a few weeks it worked great. Over the Christmas holidays, I then replaced 11.1 with 11.2 on the Thinkpad and was surprised that I still had quite a bit of trouble getting things set up. The main basic things worked out of the box but it was the more specific things like screen resolutions when docking, invisible mouse cursor after changing the external screen resolution, I find the trackpoint (the pointing nipple) requires much more force to move the cursor than in 11.1 so had to create a script to change it’s sensitivity and speed. There are many other similarly minor things caused me to take a couple of weeks to really get the machine to where I wanted it. So for me I found quite a few regressions in 11.2.
I also installed 11.2 on a amd64 desktop and that went much smoother although there were some weird things happening during the install process where the PC would just hang. But after a couple of attempts it worked and it’s all working fine now.
Overall I’m happy with 11.2 and am now waiting for KDE4.4 to be released so I can finally get all the Fn keys on the Thinkpad working. Apparently <QT4.6 didn’t see some of the Fn key combinations as they were out of range.
But overall 'm now happy with 11.2.
I just installed it last night on my desktop machine (HP Compaq DC7100). The new look of GNOME is magnificent.
However, there were some minor problems that I experienced.
- while configuring my desktop appearances Sonar icon theme has disappeared. Cannot set it any more.
I still have the Sonar window decorations and colors, only the icons are unavailable.
(not so important, I can live without it) - after consuming all available updates, GRUB screen has changed. Lots of ice and snow, and two penguins are walking around.
(I don’t like this new GRUB look, it irritates me a lot) - my internal (built-in) PC speaker is not working. With openSUSE 11.0 the sound is coming out, but with 11.2 it is mute.
(I would like to get this fixed, I hate headsets, also not enough space on my desk for an external speaker set)
Besides a few minor annoyances, the overall impression is very positive. Good job!
This weekend I’ll migrate my VirtualBox VM’s, Evolution mailboxes and Firefox bookmarks to my new home. And if that all succeeds I’ll be very happy Linux user.