The computer is a special fanless, low power Pentium 1,5 GHz, 1 GB, 32 GB SSD, 4 ethernet connections.
I did not try to install new drivers to Suse because the first impression was not very promissing. Suse 12.2 works fine without any special drivers, although the resolution is a little bit low for a 24" monitor. I have tested lately also other Linux distros and new Centos 6.0 did not install at all. Scientific Linux 6.1 works fine. I tried to install to it those new Intel drivers, but always some packages were missing. I installed some 3 packages, but when that was not enough, I gave up.
I do not find myself as a Linux expert. On the other hand I would like to know more, but it is somehow difficult to learn (I have read several books). The main reason is that there are no logic in the commands. One hardly can guess what the command he/she needs could be or what are the arguments. Sometimes, to help remembering a command, I have tried to find the logic behind, but in many cases there is none or it is something odd. Where does “less” come from, I found that “less” is “more” (a proverb), hmm, easy to remember, but what does it do. There are maybe tens if not hundreds of commands beginning ya = yet another … pwd is not for passwod.
My main job has been making programs for industry and commerce. First 15 years I programmed embedded systems and mainframes, mainly real-time operating systems, none, RMX, VMS, VAX-ELN some Unix… From the beginning of 90’ I have used mainly Windows and Delphi. Linux I have used only as a web and mail server. Couple of years ago I returned back to basics and started to use embedded systems with no OS or RTOS. This new Linux system will collect information from the embedded computers, UI for those will be an Android tablet.
If possible I make my programs so that all is in one hierarchy tree, installation, copy the tree. This is not usually possible in Windows, but there are good installation programs and if the package is made carefully it works.
As I told my experience with Linux is not very deep. I have installed different distros and those programs needed for web and mail servers. Opposite to Windows, installing something to Linux is mainly hard. Some years I installed Apache, PHP, Mysql and Typo3, that took days. Bigest problem was with versions. Some needed some version of PHP, the other one some other, same with Apache.
The installation is not straight forward, same goes for problem solving. There are in the books explanations of the Linux directory structure, but one cannot count on that the files are there they should be according to the specifications. When installing an application, the files hardly are in the same place in all distribution, and so not there, where they should be according to the instructions of the application. How many sbins are there?
Some years ago I decided to make my Linux system simplier. First I installed “native” Linux and then Apache, PHP, Mysql and Typo3, all into their own directories under opt. I do not recall any more, if I had to install something else than starting routines to other directories, but anyway it was easy to move the applications to other computers.
I do not like monopolies so I try to use also other systems than Windows. Linux is free (and Finnish), but taking into account the needed work costs it is a lot more expensive than Windows, pity.