ok i just downloaded the Suse LiveCD 9.1 ISO but the killer question - is it worth it?

I''m not a big fan of Fedora. Basically, I just never liked Red Hat for a number of reasons. Sure, it''s easy to get up and running, but the problem is, it doesn''t let you do a lot of things. You have to bend over backwards to get a music player that''ll play MP3s with it for one thing, not to mention it doesn''t ship with a NTFS-readable kernel by default. Just a couple things that actually make it annoying for a first time linux user.

SUSE, however, is the best RPM-based linux distro ever. I wholeheartedly recommend it. If you''re up for a bit more of a challenge, however, I''d recommend Debian, Gentoo, and Slackware (if you go with Slackware, check out College Linux - it''s a derivative of Slack that is MUCH easier for a first-timer to get up and running).

http://chaos.webhop.org

ZipSlack

ZipSlack is a special edition of Slackware Linux that can be installed onto any FAT (or FAT32) filesystem with about 100 MB of free space. It uses the UMSDOS filesystem and contains most of the programs you will need. This means that you do not need to repartition your hard disk if you already have DOS or Windows installed. ZipSlack installs into a directory on your DOS filesystem. It can also be installed to and booted from a Zip disk.
This distribution is ideal for people who don''t have a lot of hard disk space, do not have a fast Internet connection to download the entire distribution, or who want a Linux distribution they can carry around on a Zip disk.

I have used zipslack before (years ago, admittedly), and I wouldn''t recommend it, unless you have a machine with no nic or cdrom and need to use zip media.

Anyway, you _can_ run linux on fat32, but it sucks. Fat32 is slow, subject to fragmentation, and has no journaling capability. Using a ext3 or Reiser partition for linux will get you much better performance. Windows will not be able to read your linux partition, but you will still be able to read/write your windows files form linux. Just use a Fat32 folder as your ''shared'' area, this will work just fine.

P.S. If you play quake you can also symlink your quake3 data dir and run it under linux from your fat32 partition, so you don''t need two copies installed.

Good luck

why not just format to ext2 and use a program to read from the partitian? That''s why I''ve done for the longest time..

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Original post by grazer
I have used zipslack before (years ago, admittedly), and I wouldn''t recommend it, unless you have a machine with no nic or cdrom

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What''s the problem with nic and cdrom? I''ve installed zipslack on my dad''s machine to test some things and got everything up and running just as if it where the standard slackware distro. No problems with nic and cdrom. (and I honestly can''t see a reason why those devices shouldn''t work on zipslack).

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Original post by Strife
I''m not a big fan of Fedora. Basically, I just never liked Red Hat for a number of reasons. Sure, it''s easy to get up and running, but the problem is, it doesn''t let you do a lot of things. You have to bend over backwards to get a music player that''ll play MP3s with it for one thing, not to mention it doesn''t ship with a NTFS-readable kernel by default. Just a couple things that actually make it annoying for a first time linux user.

SUSE, however, is the best RPM-based linux distro ever. I wholeheartedly recommend it. If you''re up for a bit more of a challenge, however, I''d recommend Debian, Gentoo, and Slackware (if you go with Slackware, check out College Linux - it''s a derivative of Slack that is MUCH easier for a first-timer to get up and running).

http://chaos.webhop.org

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Yeah I think Suse will be a pleasant suprise for anyone that has or has not tried linux. I''ve been using redhat since it came out and even in the last version was it 9? during setup you still had to manually create mount points for your windows partitions if you wanted them automatically mounted in redhat. Suse does this for you pretty much automatically. Also one day i accidently clicked on a windows executable on one of my windows drives from Suse and it actually ran! It totally blew me away but I guess it''s somehow configured to run them if it can using Wine which by the way I never got around to figuring how to install in redhat.
But yeah Suse live is worth it just to see if suse is for you or not that''s the whole point isn''t it?
p.s. Also my first 64bit game I ever ran was under Suse UT 2004 and it''s wicked fast.

Two words: slackware & dropline

Oh yeah, one more thing. For anyone new to linux looking into doing development on the system--you must try out Redhat''s Sourcenav (it''s an IDE for programming--it should work on any distro). Personally I think it''s the best IDE for linux. I''ve tried KDevelop and Anjuta and while Anjuta is not half bad, I think there''s a lot of extra crap there that can complicate the process. If you just need an IDE and are not looking for a program to assist in GUI creation for say Qt or Xlib, Motif, or something along those lines, you really should check out Sourcenav. While it''s not a miracle, I think it''s better than anything else out there.

take it easy.

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Original post by morx
dropline

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Is it really better than gnome? Or it''s just Gnome with new apps?
Gnome is to heavy for my taste. That''s why I stick to KDE''s uglyness.