[Discuss] Opnen Suse 10.3

[Robert Smits]

Friday I noticed that Opensuse 10.3 had been released, so during the evening I 
set the box to download Open Suse 10.3, both the 32 bit and 64 bit DVD isos, 
as well as the 32 bit and 64 bit addon language CD isos.

They must be fairly popular because by early morning I had already uploaded 6 
to 7 GB to other torrent users.

So I burned 'em to DVDs and CDs, and installed the 64 bit version first, on a 
64 bit box that normally runs only Windows. The only problem I had was that 
use a very old 14 inch monitor for this box, and it didn't immediately 
recognize the monitor. Everything else just worked.

Encouraged by this, I backed up all my mail, documents, etc, and did a 
completely fresh install on a Compaq Presario X1000 laptop that's been dual 
booting Windows XP and Open Suse 10.2 for some time. 

I plugged in a network cable, chose all the default values, and away it went. 
Everything worked - my usb drives, my video cards, my network cards, my rf 
mouse, everything. 

YAST is now much faster, and you can add community repositories with a very 
simple one click per repo selection. Update seemed to work flawlessly, too. 

And although they don't come pre-installed, if you go to 
http://opensuse-community.org/Multimedia there is a really simple process to 
add all the restricted multimedia codecs to let you play mp3s, dvd, divX, 
etc.

It also came with Open Office 2.3 and the latest GnuCash, both of which I use 
rather a lot, so I'm quite happy. 

The only thing that didn't quite work was Amarok, which ships with the default 
GStreamer engine. It would play my mp3s but stop after it played each track. 
Resetting the engine to xine seemed to fix all this aberrant behaviour.

-- 
Bob Smits bob at rsmits.ca 
Television is an invention that permits you to be entertained in your 
living room by people you wouldn't have in your home...David Frost