So, what do you do if you decide you no longer want to deal with the pain and suffering that Microsoft Windows doles out? There are a few options, some more expensive than others. One of the first options that springs to mind is purchasing a Mac. I own a PowerBook G4 and I absolutely love it. However, some people may find that they don’t want to spend $1,000+ to replace their fairly new computer with a Mac. That leaves you with another choice: Linux.

Linux is an open source operating system based off of Unix. Mac OS X is, in turn based off of FreeBSD which is a Unix variety. This is most of the reason why it’s more “secure” than Microsoft Windows. Linux is free. As in “free beer”. It’s very secure and you can usually run it on minimal hardware requirements, so updating a 4 year old computer can make it like new. It can, however, be very hairy to the unexperienced user. There’s a lot of customisation involved in making it “pretty” and finding compatible drivers for your hardware can be an absolute nightmare.

Ubuntu and Kubuntu have been two of the largest Linux distributions touting themselves as a “desktop Linux” lately. They’re designed to make an install very easy for beginners. Their GUI (the pretty stuff you see) is set up to resemble a familiar “face” like Windows. Today, I installed a different desktop Linux. I installed OpenSUSE on one of my computers.

OpenSUSE was recommended to me by a friend who had been previously using Ubuntu. He had some problems with drivers (as most people who install any type of Linux may), and decided to start over with something new. So, he downloaded and installed OpenSUSE. He really liked it and passed along a DVD to me to give it a try.

I’ve had a long history of trying to make Linux work on a variety of computers for me. I’ve tried and used RedHat, FreeBSD, Mandrake, Mandriva, Slackware, Gentoo, Ubuntu and even a few variety of live Knoppix CDs. Each had their problems, whether it be with an install, not finding drivers, etc. I was bracing myself to have problems with installing OpenSUSE. To my surprise, I didn’t have a single problem.

I installed it on a 20GB hard drive that I had sitting around. I put it in a 1.0 AMD Thunderbird/256 MB DDRAM machine with nVidia GeForce 32MB video card and Creative Audacity audio card. Not the fastest, newest thing that you could pick up. I placed the DVD in and let it go. OpenSUSE 10’s installer partitions your hard drive very simple and easy. It let’s you look over your configuration and let’s you tweak it as you see fit.

Installation took less than 45 minutes to complete. I was able to configure everything during the install. It found my video card, my audio card, my Apple 17″ Studio Display (by name), my USB mouse, my network card, and it even probed for (but couldn’t find because I didn’t have) a bluetooth device and a wireless network card. It downloaded and installed system updates for me before the first “login” so that the system was up to date. It even installed Firefox and the Open Office Suite.
While I haven’t spent too much time with it, I’m very impressed by the initial impression OpenSUSE 10 has given me. I cannot wait to spend more time with it. It seems like it may be better than Ubuntu (to me) and it pre-installed just about every application it thought I might need on a desktop machine.

At this point, I’d totally recommend anyone looking to move from Microsoft Windows before the big Vista push to give OpenSUSE a try. I think you’ll like it. It’s “pretty” enough to be useful for the every day user, but has the power for those who need more out of their computer. It’s made me want to find a cheap laptop so I can put it on there.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 28th, 2007 at 0:23 and is filed under Hacks & Tech Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.