Novell SUSE Linux: A consumer-friendly version of Linux that’s “good enough. ”

Configuration: Lenovo X60 notebook running Novell’s SUSE 10 Service Pack 1 Release Candidate 3. The OS was bundled with OpenOffice 2.0 Novell Edition, which includes applications for word processing and creating spreadsheets and presentations. The OS also includes the open-source Evolution e-mail client, the Citrix ICA client (used with Citrix presentation server), Gimp (the open-source answer to Photoshop), DIA diagramming software, a project tracking application, Real Player 10, the Kino audio and video editor, Totem movie player and Banshee, the open-source version of iTunes. All that software comes to a grand total of $50 for one year.

What he liked: Heading into the month of using SUSE as his sole operating system, Halamka was a little dubious. He didn’t know what to expect from an operating system refined and distributed by Novell, a company with a 24-year history in networking. After experiencing last summer the unique frustrations of two other Linux distributions, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and Fedora, he wasn’t sure he’d get a stable, reliable, user-friendly computing experience.

To his surprise, Halamka found in SUSE a version of the Linux operating system that didn’t crash or lock up once during the month he used it; that booted quickly (within 30 seconds); that was easy enough to navigate, and was well integrated with the Lenovo hardware. “It felt like a coherent suite of applications and functionality, ” he says. “This is the first open-source operating system [I’ve used] that has good wireless support, good USB support and a suite of software tools that allow a knowledge worker to get work done. Fedora was cutting edge but unstable. Red Hat [Enterprise Linux] was stable but didn’t support all of my USB devices. [SUSE] has stability and support for both. ”

Indeed, when Halamka was given a remote mouse to use during one of the many presentations he gave in April, he wasn’t sure if it was going to work in light of the difficulties he faced getting RHEL to recognize USB drives. But when he put the USB into his laptop, the mouse began working instantly.

He had similarly seamless experiences with his wired networks and home wireless network, both of which worked well with his SUSE configuration. He had no problem connecting to the HP K550 printer he uses at home over a WPA/PEAP wireless network. Nor did he have problems connecting to a workgroup printer over CareGroup’s corporate network. Even when traveling in Europe, as he did during the month he tested SUSE, he didn’t have a single problem with the OS or wireless connectivity.

Overall, the system worked so smoothly because Lenovo and Novell configured the operating system to work on the X60 machines. In other words, the hardware and the operating system software were made to work together; had he tried putting SUSE on different hardware, it might not have operated as well. Because the laptop was preconfigured to work with the OS, Halamka could get to work within a minute of booting up his new computer. With the exception of the Evolution e-mail client, which we’ll discuss in Dislikes, Halamka says the applications worked flawlessly. He was also impressed with Novell’s support organization, which he describes as very responsive and committed to creating an integrated open-source desktop for the typical user. (Novell is aware of Halamka’s experiment and of the Windows vs. Linux vs. OS X story.)

All in all, SUSE exceeded Halamka’s expectations, even if they were a little low to begin with.

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