steven n fettig's Jitterin' Thoughts

     While doing a lot of work on the new Darien-Wifi project, I have also spent a lot of time testing different OS's on the desktop. While extremely happy with OS X - and more so when I wander away and come back - I am still inclined to try different interfaces out of sheer curiosity. Since 1998, I have tried to install and use SuSe at least twice a year. Although happy with much of the RedHat ease of installation (and the fact that they had always offered ISO's for the CD set free to download - which SuSe does not), I always disliked the increasing similarities between Microsoft's OS products and RedHat's distribution of Linux. Too often, the subscription element of RedHat reminded me of the Microsoft update procedure. Although I am here to say that every mainstream and semi-mainstream OS has some sort of update service (OS X's can become as irritating as Window's) that will become annoying at one point or another, I simply don't care for Microsoft's nor RedHat's. Plus, RedHat eventually announced that they were dropping desktop support and going to focus on providing server distros. This year, I am on my third install of SuSe and am impressed. The standard KDE interface is pleasant and it is fairly responsive on everything from my PIII SpeedStep Sony Vaio SRX99 to a P 4 2.5 Ghz Compaq/HP desktop. I wouldn't dare try it on an older PII machine (I can't imagine the gui would be very responsive), although there may be tweaks out there to overcome some of the issues one would have with a slower machine. There are many aspects of power management that I haven't taken the time to get working on the Vaio, but SuSe does work. YaST takes a bit of getting used to, but it has been more intuitive for me to use than RedHat's install tool and package manager. This is not to say one is necessarily better than the other – the install process and application installation process on OS X is by far the easiest and most intuitive for those just starting out on a computer – I think YaST does a better job of telling you what you have installed and what you have for options. On top of that, YaST helps manage many other configuration items on your machine. Now that I have been using it for a while on a desktop (with a big screen), I see how I might have better dealt with problems I had on the Vaio. If you simply want to use your computer for web browsing, emails and word processing, there is no reason why I wouldn't recommend you try it.
     Although I find SuSe very praiseworthy, I would caution those who are not power users who like to tinker a lot. Get a Windows or Mac machine. With Windows your biggest trade-off is security holes and virus threats. But, as with any machine, if you maintain what you have and are careful, you can go through life without virus and security run-ins. If you want a machine that is simple to use, is unlikely to be a virus or security threat target and allows for quite a bit of modification, go with a Mac. SuSe is something I would feel comfortable setting up for my parents behind a hardware firewall/router. I would sleep at night knowing it is unlikely they would inadvertently infect their computer with a virus. It would also give me peace of mind regarding stability. How often does your Linux or Mac crash? Outside of those who really like to muck with the interface and install all kinds of apps that modify the gui and underlying system, it is a rare occurrence for those [Mac and Linux] users who really use our machines as tools. For those of you who are power users, I have heard complaints that SuSe locks you into their way of doing things. I don't know how to respond. The one delightful item that I found while installing the system (on the computer I am using to type this) is that I had a choice between Apache 1.x and 2.x. I lamented over the Apache 2.x issue some time ago with RedHat and was happy to see that I had a choice this time around. I still won't put Apache 2.x on any of my production machines – and I don't know many who would.
     Between the good looks of the interface and the ease at which I was able to accomplish all that I needed (so far), I am impressed. My 2 cents...