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Which
version of Linux to go for? In my researches on the internet I
found a lot of support for SUSE Linux 10.0, released by Novell.
Its biggest selling point over other Linux systems is its programme
finder and compiler YaST. Each Linux software application is made
up of many sections of independently written programme. YaST finds
all these and compiles compatible sections. Unlike other Linux
systems YaST has a graphical user interface which should avoid
the need for command line instructions. During system set-up,
the user makes choices about the components of the system to be
installed like home office, multi-media, mobile computing. YaST
then goes away and sets it up. SUSE Linux has great strengths
in mobile computing where I found it almost instantly set up a
wi-fi link. It has auto updates like Windows and offers greater
security from internet infection by things like trojans, as the
boot file (open in Windows) has its own separate password. For
the more general home user it offers all the open source functions
like OpenOffice, FireFox web browser and Thunderbird email.
All of this is free, but for about £30 you can buy a professional
version from Novell which has the advantage of 90 day telephone
support from a help line. The alternative is Windows XP Media
Centre Edition for about £85, plus £12 for a DVD MPEG-2
and MP3 licence without which Windows will not play these formats.
I thought that with telephone support SUSE Linux 10.0 (10.0 for
short) would be worth a try.
My experience was not quite what Novell claimed. The first hurdle
was registering the system to get support. In Windows registration
is automatic once the code for the software is keyed in and the
computer is connected to the internet, although I have never tried
to use Windows telephone support. To get telephone help from Novell
you have to get a unique caller ID. To get the caller ID you have
to access the Novell web-site, and enter a code from the back
of the retail pack. The registration web-page is difficult to
find and the instructions for entering the pack code ambiguous.
I could not get it to accept the code I entered and found the
help line reluctant to assist with registration without a caller
ID! Once the retail pack code is accepted it then takes up to
4 hours for the database to issue a caller ID, which is published
on your own registration document on the web site. There is no
email to tell you it has been issued. The help line operates from
13.00 to 17.00 hrs Monday to Friday only. Try getting help for
the first time at 14.30 on a Friday!
I did need help to set up my screen. This is an 8 inch diagonal
touch-screen own-brand by LinITX. Normally 10.0 has so many drivers
within its system that additional drivers are unnecessary. This
does not apply to minority interests like my screen. Once the
system booted I could only get a command line interface. After
I got help using my caller ID, just a few command lines produced
the graphical user interface for setting up a screen, called SaX2.
This is very precise and got a quick result (no touch-screen required
at this development stage). After screen set-up with SaX2 the
system booted normally to a screen similar to Windows. With 10.0
there is a choice of two user interfaces; KDE which operates in
a similar way to Windows and is oriented towards office users
and GNOME which is like the Mac system. I chose GNOME as more
media players are available in this format.
Like
many other things in 10.0, media players are not quite what they
seem. My starting point was to find a 10.0 equivalent to Windows
Media Player. This has a powerful database which can display content
according to a range of fields like album, genre, composer, recording
artist, supporting artist, year recorded etc. The included media
players like Rhythmbox and Banshee are very crude by comparison,
and I found they displayed all the above information in a single
string based on album name. One of them had more fields than the
other but I couldn't figure out how to get it to read the separate
fields on the thousands of tracks I had already on my main system.
The next issue is player format, which is all to do with licensing.
The media players supplied with 10.0 would only play the Ogg Vorbis
format, an open-source compression format which claims to be technically
superior to MP3. They would not support MP3 or Windows wma. This
is not an issue if starting a digital collection from scratch
but no good for integrating with a big collection in other formats.
Help appeared to be on hand from the web, where there is commentary
about an advanced multi-media software engine called Gstreamer
to which designers can add a graphical front end. I found two
of these, Kaffeine by the Mozilla foundation and Xine. These can
play many formats but for the licensing reason are not included
with 10.0. You have to go and get them. The way to do this is
described in The Jem Report () which tells you how to use YaST
to connect to 3 web based sources. YaST then searches for new
material or updates for all the categories of software you have
chosen for installation. You have first to remove the 10.0 version
of Kaffeine and then load the unrestricted versions of Kaffeine
and Xine. You will then have the ability to play any format.
Indeed each player is designed to play any source of material,
audio, video, pre-recorded or streamed in any format including
MP3 and wma and they work. Xine has a juke-box front end which
I found too difficult to read on my small screen so I did no more
work with it. Kaffeine uses a web-browser front end which is easy
to read. However, at version 0.7 it is still in its early stages
of development. I tried to use it as a front end for a database
but it kept crashing and my knowledge of the underlying 10.0 and
Kaffeine software was insufficient to move forward.
My frustration mounted as another characteristic of 10.0 thwarted
progress. The system takes ages to boot compared with Windows.
I never timed it but subjectively it took between twice and three
times as long.
The final straw was trying to get the touch-screen to work. 10.0
included drivers for three touch-screen formats but mine was not
included. A CD with drivers for SUSE Liux 9.2 was included, which
I thought would be good enough, but YaST 10.0 could not read earlier
version drivers. The only way to install the driver was to wrap
up the code and install it using command line instructions. I
would have needed the Novell help line again.
I decided to take stock of my situation. I might eventually have
got the touch screen going. The killer was the underdeveloped
Kaffeine media player, so I decided reluctantly to ditch 10.0
and buy Windows Media Centre Edition, which works well.
So what are the good points about 10.0? There is no licence fee,
so any number of computers can be set up at no licence cost. For
a £30 fee for the commercial version, Novell offer 90 days
telephone support, but only with items they include in 10.0, and
the help line operates in very restricted hours. The operating
system and applications are included, are very secure, and need
no anti-virus software. YaST performs an on-line update of security
software releases by Novell and all applications daily. Wireless
networking goes on almost unseen. Office applications, email and
web browsers work very well. Mainstream hardware is catered for
by in-built drivers. For printing (untried) there are dedicated
drivers for an enormous range of Hewlett-Packard printers. There
is the potential in the Kaffeine media player to be very powerful,
but at version 0.7, these are early days.
There is still under development in 10.0 a new engine called Xen
which is not recommended for beginners. Xen is described as a
“virtual memory monitor (VMM) for x86-compatible computers
that enables you to run more than one virtual machine, each with
its own operating system, on a single physical system with excellent
performance”. This would run Windows applications like Media
Player and Photoshop, but require a Windows operating system.
The Xen website says “A port of Windows XP was developed
for an earlier version of Xen, but is not available for release
due to licence restrictions.”
10.0 offers many good features for the basic user, but those accustomed
to Windows Media Player and Photoshop should stick with Windows
for the time being.
Steve Orrell
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