This article describes my experiences when I tried the KDE install CD, now the KDE Live CD is released which has install option and most of my problems reported in this article are resolved by the Live CD.
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SUSE 10.3 was released and I had to try it. All geared up, I started downloading the torrent of the KDE version. I realized that it was not just me who was eager to download and try, but a whole lot of other people were also downloading the same torrent. I had 736 people as seeds and more than one thousand as peers. That's some numbers, SUSE definitely has a big fan following. The 700 MB iso took some 4-5 hours of download time on my 256 mbps connection and I was all set to install.
I already had Linux Mint on my system, so instead of bothering to burn a CD, I just followed the excellent tutorial on SUSE site to install from hard disk. I thought that hard disk install would be the fastest as accessing files from hard disk is much faster that that from CD, unfortunately SUSE install was determined to prove me wrong. When I booted from the SUSE iso, the first thing that hit me was that the install CD was just an install CD. Come on, in today's world where we have beautiful Live CD's which also function as install CD, why does SUSE still has just a plain install CD. Look at install CD's from PCLinuxOS, Ubuntu and Linux Mint, they all double up as Live CD + install CD. This option makes the computer usable even when the install is going on, apparently SUSE does not believe in this.
When I test a distro, I always accept the default options -- i.e just keep pressing next till the install is over, except for hard disk partitions. In my Mint install, I just had two partitions the root (/) partition and /home partition. I had copied the SUSE iso on the /home partition and booted from it. During partitioning the SUSE partitioner never allowed me to designate my existing /home partition to be mounted as /home because the current iso was present on that. I had no other option but to have my SUSE home on the root partition itself. Not a big issue, I can fix it when the install is over.
Next the installer asked me if I wanted to configure my networking, Cool ! why not. The installer got the settings from DHCP and went ahead with configuring online repositories. All well, or was it really well ? Installer gave me an option to confirm the install and I did. On the install screen I saw some download going on, why download when I have the install media on hard disk ? However, the download rate was too fast and I realized that even getting files from hard disk is termed as download. Still OK, suddenly the download rate dropped to snail pace. I then switched to virtual terminals from 1 to 6 but did not see any indication that any files are actually being downloaded from Internet. Back to the GUI installer, I saw that SUSE will install around 2GB from the hard disk and around 600MB from the online OSS and non-OSS repositories. Now SUSE 10.3 was released just days back, so there is no chance of 600MB updates, hence why install from Internet and make things slow.
Unfortunately it was too late by now, the install had started and it was going to take its time. I had also formated my Mint root partition and with it went the grub, so I cannot even restart the install. The download took a sweet 6 hours and I was watching TV to while away my time. This 6 hours also highlighted the need for a Live CD, at least I would have used the desktop. Maybe taken some screenshots or even written this blog from the Live CD itself, no such luck for me.
Further Shocks :
During the install I noticed that the java version being installed was 1.5, why install an old version when java 1.6 is already released and this is a spanking new version of SUSE.
At the end of six long hours, the installer asked me to reboot, reboot now when I can see on the left side menu that many things including setting a root password is remaining ?? Anyhow, I had no choice but to reboot. After the reboot, the installer continued the remaining tasks to having the root password and further configurations. This reminded me of another six years old desktop OS, which does a reboot during install -- Windows XP. However, that's a six or seven years old OS.
Here on for every configuration, I had to click a button. SUSE does not believe in minimal intervention from users. I think in total I pressed more than 15 click during the install.
Conclusion:
This article is purely from the point of view of initial install and does not cover the usage. I know still I have to add the packman repository and install the video codecs etc.
I think this the the worst install experience I had in last one year. I was spoiled by the likes of PCLinuxOS, Ubuntu, Granular and Mint Linux. I feel that even the text mode install of Arch Linux presented a better experience than SUSE.
I know that usage wise SUSE is one of the best, but SUSE developers have to understand that installing the OS is the first part of the total experience.
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39 comments:
If you don't want stuff to be downloaded during setup, you have to use install DVD (not CD)
I think you are quite right, the install process is antiquated, even fedora has managed to aget a LiveCD preinstall. Its whats needed in todays Linux market, we want to make sure things work, before we install.
And if you are going to rely on the DVD, thats fine.. I agree, however even the DVD is going to need to download from the net to apply updates over time?
I like it because it maximizes the ability to configure it. It's being able to personalize your system to what you like.
Wow,
PCLinuxOS, Ubuntu etc offer a single CD install and they do not mandate a download during install. Why is it that they can put in all the required software + a LiveCD, but SUSE cannot ?
SUSE has backing of Novell which has much more years of industry experience than PCLOS or Ubuntu, don't you think that SUSE can do better.
David,
Well said, actually I missed this term in my review - SUSE install is indeed antiquated.
Wow, it's a shame you had so much trouble. Please keep in mind, OpenSUSE is geared towards a slightly different user than PCLOS or Mint. While I like, have used, and recommend both of those (PCLOS in particular) for entry-level users, I still prefer OpenSUSE for all my systems - work and at home.
You'll be hard pressed to find a more capable installer than YAST, but that capability comes with a bit more complexity. I feel it's worth it.
I agree with you, a LiveCD install would be great. But I wouldn't want it at the expense of fewer packages on the CD release. I believe a LiveDVD install would be preferable to losing packages from the 1 disc CD install.
I've installed OpenSUSE 10.3 on 4 machines so far. 1 fresh install, 2 upgrades from 10.2, and 1 multi-boot. Fortunately I haven't had anything near the trouble you've experienced, and am very happy with this release so far. I hope you won't give up on it just yet.
It is not necessary to download anything from the internet during installation. If you only want to use the CD medium uncheck the "Use online repositories" checkbox. It needs to be selected by default so netinstalls will "just work", and CD users can still have a complete experience with flash, java etc if they have an internet connection during install.
A live-cd with installer will be released in a week or so. (There is one for RC-1) This allows installing from the desktop as in some other distributions. It is significantly less flexible than the normal installer though. And using a livecd does not show whether things will work, in fact things are far less likely to work on a livecd.
Codec installation from packman you should find significantly easier than in previous versions. If you attempt to play an mp3 in e.g. amarok if you don't have fluendo's support installed (I think it will be if you included media from the online repositories) Then you would be linked to http://software.opensuse.org/codecs
The "community information" there will get you the fullest support, and will no longer require knowing how to add the packman repository etc.
gregm and anonymous,
Thanks for the important information and sharing your experience. Especially for the codecs stuff. I believe that LiceCD with installer will make things much better for people like me and not make computer unusable during install.
Like I said in the article, I just did next -> next till the install finished, maybe that's the reason I faced some issues.
Give up on SUSE, no way..
I know its great to use it and has very good community to back it up. Also 10.3 has some good ideas like the so called "1-Click install". I have used it for just one day but find it very responsive. If I do not face any stability issues, I am going to keep it for long.
David,
Thank you again.
I have posted this on Digg and fsdaily and have kept the title as
SUSE 10.3 antiquated install.
I hope you do not mind my stealing the word antiquated :)
That is just pure bollocks.
OpenSuses installer is the best there is, at least that is for me who does want to have some choices to what and where and how to install, instead of just clickking "next" like a mindless Windows-zombie.
The installer certainly takes a while, but after the install, the system is set up with all online repose including non-oss repos (including if I remember correct packman) and all installed packages (and thus the whole OS) were up to date.
It certainly takes a while (though only an hour orso here) but it isn't 'antiquated'. It has many more options and features available than ubuntu and pclinuxos for example, and it leaves your system fully updated with all the latest updates.
That said, I do imagine that would be difficult to see after being bored to death for 6 hours. I certainly don't blame you for some hard feelings there. The livecd system would indeed by a good idea.
Cheers.
"instead of just clickking "next" like a mindless Windows-zombie."
Well, An average Linux user, wishing for a Desktop OS would click "next" and go for default options. I see things from a normal user's point of view. A user who is trying to use Linux instead of Windows. PCLOS and Ubuntu both provide this and help convert some users; which the high headed like you turn off with their rude remarks.
Another lame review that basically only talks about the install process. How often does a common user install an OS? How about adding more useful?
I've been using openSUSE 10.2 (and now 10.03) for the last several months as my primary work OS on my laptop. I work as a consultant and change networks and move about and work on my types of servers and networks. openSUSE works well in all of what I've encountered while being stable, something none of the *ubuntu's can claim. Biggest complaint in 10.2 was how slow it was to install new software, but 10.3 fixes that problem. Everything else works straight out of the box; wifi, suspend-to-disk, suspend-to-ram, partition encryption, solid security out of the box. Plus SUSE's kpowersaved is something of a blessing in power management.
Basically, openSUSE is great for actually doing real work. If you want to play in the dirt, keep playing with the Ubuntu's because their install process is so cool.
I really want to like SUSE but I think this review is dead on. I went through the same process with 10.3 only to find it couldn't identify my wireless card. This is a card that is properly identified by UBUNTU, MINT and PCLINUX OS. I'm done with SUSE for good.
"Another lame review that basically only talks about the install process. How often does a common user install an OS? How about adding more useful? "
First thing first, this is not review, this is just my install experience.
In the Conclusion of my article, I begin with
"This article is purely from the point of view of initial install and does not cover the usage."
Also Please read
"I know that usage wise SUSE is one of the best, but SUSE developers have to understand that installing the OS is the first part of the total experience."
I, like my many other friends, keep one distro as primary ( PCLOS in my case) and then keep trying other distros. I am no Ubuntu fan, but if Ubuntu offers a very good install experience, I am going to appreciate it.
However, like I said in my previous comment, the lame install will not deter me from using SUSE.
I test a distribution on four major points
1) Stability -- most important for me.
2) Available COMMON packages and ease of installation.
3) User friendliness and
4) Artwork - It pays to be visually appealing.
I will try SUSE on these and will come up with a comprehensive review.
Look out for that.
you don't have to complain about online repositories (repos) being enabled during installation. you can disable them. Also with online repos enabled, you are not downloading patches or upgrades, but are installing extra packages. If you don't want them, simply disable online repos. Actually reboot is not such a bad thing. You just don't do anything, the system reboots and the installation just starts from the previous stage. It may take couple of minutes extra with reboot. 6:02 hrs is not a big deal compared to 6:00 hrs. Is it? Also I guess it took you 6:00 hrs because of the initial days of the release and hence slow download speed.
@David,
For me, fedora has antiquated installer. If it can't find ext3 partition, it refuses to go further. Also I don't understand why saving a few clicks (@ the expense of choice is rated so high) Suse installer gives lot of choice and yet keeps things simple and intuitive to understand. I can install to XFS or JFS, I can keep /opt, /usr/local, /boot on separate partitions (use whatever configuration you have in mind), & can choose what software I want to install (deselect some of the the default packages and choose others based on my needs). And I am not saying these for the sake of arguing. I do it with every installation. And in regular days if you have decent network speed (not in the first few days of release), you can do net-install entire Suse using 64MB USB stick, provided your computer can boot from USB. By the time you finish burning a CD, you will be done with intial configuration and then leave it to the installer.
Hi Bharat,
Thanks for the merits of SUSE install. I totally agree with you, however, when thinking from an average user's point of view this is really not required.
An average user who generally likes to stay with the OS his computer came with and might not even change the default desktop wallpaper.
An average user would simply take default configurations and would love to get the system working as soon as possible.
Where does one acquire a 256mbps connection anyhow? best I got is 6Mbps from cable co. :(
SUSE 10.3 is Great took me like 2 hours to download though via FTP only glitches so far are with the Xgl, sound system (Gstreamer) trying to get it to output properly to my PCM hw:0,2 & KDE4 I expected KDE4 to be buggy...
You should seriously consider changing your ISP if it takes you 4-5 hours to download a 700 MB ISO on a 256 mbps line. I think you meant kbps.
Abhay,
if you are talking about average user, they don't even bother to check linux. Forget about average user, my PhD (office) room-mate, now a research scientist don't even bother to learn anything rgding linux. His excuse, back in 2000, he tried using linux and it was a disaster. Now I have to do everything for him. And for that matter, I know lot of highly educated guys, who can get their tasks better accomplished in linux, try cheap alternatives in windows, so that they can avoid learning a new thing. Heck, they don't even bother to tweak their windowz machines. The inertia w.r.t. linux is very high and most of the times IMO, linux users are curios to know new stuff. Maybe suse should add noob interface in addition to regular one, where everything is done without user choice like in Ubuntu. I don't think its difficult to implement, just the philosophy of the distro I guess.
OOPS!!,
Did I write 256mbps ?? Sorry. I meant 256 kbps. Thanks for correcting me.
Bharat,
Thats exactly the sort of users I am talking about. Give them a PCLOS live CD and tell them just to switch on the computer. PCLOS will load to a beautiful desktop and is ready for almost all tasks that a user might want to do. He might prefer Free Linux to pirated Windows. After your friend is satisfied with the LiveCD, he might be tempted to install. The average user would love the simplicity of no options--- just a single click install.
Folks,
How we forget.
openSUSE has always released the install DVD and CD first. Soon after they release the other CD's for the install, then they release the liveCD.
A liveCD install costs memory. The engineers have to weigh the costs of memory, with a one time inconvience.
You are the only one I know who can't live without your system for such a short period of time. Maybe if more people demand it, it will happen, or maybe you and your friends should fix it, after all, this is FOSS.
The article shows that the author is fairly new to suse linux. It is been tested and certified by many magazines and websites that opensuse got one of the best installer. At the beginning of installation itself the installer asks if you would like to download and install additional software. If you didn't want install from the internet then you should have not enabled that option and the installation would have been faster, why blame opensuse? Just think that the CD is only 700 MB and we cant expect to have all the softwares in that single CD.
Hi jst4fun,
"Just think that the CD is only 700 MB and we cant expect to have all the softwares in that single CD."
OOPS!! but PCLOS and Mint do this, they install not only the regular softwares but also some proprietary ones like browser plugins, media codecs etc.
I think that maybe an average desktop user might live without some SUSE specifics like AppArmor, but without media codecs and browser plugins-- No Way.
PCLOS never cared of patents and it was meant as a complete multimedia suit so no surprise that it caries all the codecs. Since I dont have any experience with mint Linux I am not in a position on to comment on it. I agree to the fact that opensuse 10.2 and previous version did not support or neither provided easier installation of codecs. But opensuse 10.3 supports mp3 out of the box in DVD installation. In one CD installation you would be asked if you would like to download and install the codec to play the media file (including codecs other than mp3). They made it so easy to make the opensuse a complete multimedia box. One click install is another great feature in this release. It is so simple to install softwares using that feature. And about apparmour. Even normal user would benefit from apparmour. Hope you know one issue with skype that was discovered through apparmour. That is skype was trying to access the password files and apparmour effectively prevented it. I believe even normal users do not want their personal information to be stolen by the application they have installed and this is where apparmour help us. All the browser plugin are available in the DVD version. Opensuse is released in one cd for the first time which made others to try it out without downloading full DVD package. They may improve the once CD in later version.
All this talk about mint, and ubuntu being great, I had to try them out. Folks you got to be kidding me. If you are not getting asked to reboot I couldn't do it. OpenSuSE needed 1 reboot and so did ubuntu just at different points in the install. After seeing ubuntu and opensuse side by side I just can't believe anyone uses ubuntu, it was so boring and bland and didn't come with anything. No wonder it fits on a single media all it has is browser plugins and codecs. I'm glad these post got me to try out ubuntu and mint, because now I know what distro's to stay away from.. Thanks everyone.
I recall I tested SUSE life CD some time ago. Compared to Knoppix, it was a slow resource hod missing any fun applications. Possibly that explains why the install CD is just the install CD.
What else but thinking about patents would you expect from SUSE when all the people capable to do other things left?
Well, I've tried them all. I'm a linux distro junkie. OpenSuse by far has the most professional installer I've seen. Lets be honest, we only boot the "live" cd once to install and then discard the disk (or keep it around to fix windows issues). Live CDs are slow to use so nobody uses them anyways. I used to like ubuntu but it is featureless and you have to install everything anyways. Nothing compares to YaST and with pre-setup repos finding rpms is easy. Only drawback is its slower (but still much faster than live cds). Each to his own.
Suse rocks! I'm using 10.1. I didn't know that you could get all this cool stuff linux has to offer and it FREE! Cant wait to try 10.3 even if the install is crappy it couldn't be any worse than paying $150+ for an equally crappy install of windoze. I believe that suse will someday surpass all other os's and won't that be a wonderful day for mr.Bill
in my case (Intel p4 3.2 ATI graphic card 7000)ubuntu 10.7 was only os that worked currect with my hardwares. suse 10.3 never could find my network card and graphic card.
Because it is very stable and hasing usefully edited kernel. Thanks you Fiyat
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