Hey everyone. I’ve been a linux user for about 4 years now so im pretty familiar with it. I use linux as my main OS and windows xp for some emulators and a couple other programs. I’ve tried Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Slackware, and suse a while back. Debian and Slackware are my favorite. Im currently using Debian.
I enjoy navigating my computer and manipulating files etc. through the terminal so openSUSE didnt really look too appealing as everything seems to be revolved around ease of use (aka GUI based). When i first tried suse i had a horrible time updating via the terminal, using general unix commands, and installing graphics drivers. And i absolutely refused to update my system/manipulate files through the gui. Its just so much easier/faster for me to type this stuff.
But what i have herd is that its great for multimedia which is perfect for me. Most of what i do is listening to music, watching movies, and occasionally graphical art stuff.
So is there a way to do all these things with openSUSE including being able to use the console the way i want? And what do you like about openSUSE. Id greatly appreciate any feedback.
SUSE now uses zypper and from the terminal it works extremely well. Here is the guide to using zypper: Zypper/Usage/11.1 - openSUSE
Multi-Media is something you have to add to openSUSE, some distros come with it already working. Linux Mint and PCLinuxOS I think both do come ready to go in this department, to mention just a couple.
Is it for you? You have to decide that yourself, I don’t really know you. The live cd will give you the feel but not the full flavour. But if your Computer works well with other distro’s like those you mention, you will likely find SUSE to be equal. Personally of course, I wouldn’t hesitate to praise SUSE, but it’s not necessarily right for everyone. But the needs you describe you have, are more than covered by openSUSE!
Hmm… Difficult to know. I like SUSE principally because of its reliability and helpful forums, but it has suffered performance issues in some benchmarks (my limited understanding being that it’s had something to do with choice of kernel configs more suited to servers) that may limit its use as a multimedia centre on certain hardware. That said, the benchmarks were a few years ago I think, and things may have changed, or you could if need be just use your own kernel - and the only thing I’ve actually noticed SUSE being slightly slow at is booting. Give it a go, what harm can it do?
If you like Slackware, there’s always Zenwalk. It’s a bit more media-orientated, but has the slackware base for configurability.
In case OP is still floating about, I tried Sabayon a couple of nights ago, and it seemed pretty well put together. It includes a copy of what was once X-box media centre, and has mixed package management (binary and Gentoo style source based), so once you’ve got the hang of it you can recompile all the packages you need to squeeze extra speed out of. Worth a look.
What I have learned about openSUSE is that it is a very stable, allows me to do whatever I need, is not overly technical in nature, but does allow me to “Look inside” if I want. It has the best KDE experince, and a very good Gnome experince. The Community is very good, as a example, if you ask a question, generally on say, Ubuntu you will get 10 answers, 3 will be correct, 6 will be mostly correct, and one will be wrong, while in OpenSUSE you might get one answer, but it is correct, with screenshots, as they go step by step on how to do something. Multimedia is easy to add, and once added, runs exceptionally well (Better then other distros, or vista.)
As a example, I just installed OpenSUSE on my desktop, and I have a very new NVidea card that was not out when openSUSE 11.1 came out. I googled and found the Howto, and it gave clear, step by step directions on using YAST to not only install it, but set it up on the auto updates, and with a few clicks, it installed, and I restart X and not only is it installed, it is already scaled to the ideal desktop settings.
And that does not even look at that SUSE has one of the best (if not best) professional looks in Linux. Which does not matter for the home hobbist, but in bussiness it is key.
