[Lancaster] First impressions of SuSE v10.1

[Ken Hough]

I've just updated from SuSE v9.1 to v10.1. This occupies 5 CDs plus an 
addon CD. First impressions are very favourable indeed. As usual with 
SuSE, installation was a doddle.

Why did I take so long to move from v9.1? Because that worked so well.

Am I glad that I updated? YES! There are lots of improvements and 
additions. Those which I've been particularly struck by so far are:

KDE v3.5.1  --- seems to start up quicker than earlier versions.

KStars v1.2.0 (part of Kdeedu package) --- with the addition of a newly 
developed INDI driver for EQ6 (not supplied by SuSE), I have remotely 
controled my astronomical telescope/mount while looking at a planetarium 
view of the sky. Fantastic!

Gimp v2.2.10 --- more polished than earlier versions. Also included by 
default are 'dcraw' and 'ufraw' to handle RAW files from digital 
cameras. 'ufraw' provides a very good UI. This addition alone would have 
been enough for me to move to SuSE v10.1.

And there's lot's more still to explore.

I did have a look at Fedora Core 5, but still (perhaps not too 
surprisingly) prefer Suse v10.1. The only reservation that I have with 
modern SuSE is that it does really need a sensibly fast PC. It runs well 
enough on my 800MHz laptop with 384MB of RAM and of course very well on 
an Athlon 2200 box. The limiting factor is YAST.

YAST is IMHO the best and most complete installation and managment tool 
available and makes for an easy life, but does need a bit of horsepower 
to run at practical speeds.

This message is not intended to restart a distro war, just to serve as 
an initial review.
 
Ken Hough