Any Idea about the new suse 9.5?

[mike]

Hi

What do you think about the new suse 9.5
Will be easy to use like Winlows XP pro?

Best regard mike

[phil_m]

Surely you mean SuSE 9.3? SuSE is, in general, a joy to use, but I'd steer clear of 9.3 unless they sort out the issues regarding mp3 playback.

[brian]

Read somewhere that there are additional packages now to resolve the mp3 issues on 9.3, can anyone confirm? (having pre-ordered 9.3 )

[uselinux34]

Apparently, you can down load multimedia packs via YOU, which enables MP3 playback.

[mike]

So what can you tell me the different between 9.3 and 9.5 ?

[towy71]

I don't think there is a SuSE 9.5, and it is likely that when such does appear it might have Novell somewhere in the title

[andychannelle]

I've just installed a review copy of SUSE 9.3 Pro and it's lovely. I was initially really annoyed at the lack of MP3 plkayback (probably something to do with a deal between Novell and Real Networks?), but as mentioned, there are a quartet of extra plugins available via YOU that restore MP3 playback. Sweet.

[fingers99]

probably something to do with a deal between Novell and Real Networks?

More likely something to dop with possible litigation around the mp3 patent: RedHat used to/still do much the same thing.

[andychannelle]

The way I understood it, the patent holders were really only interested in revenue raising implementations of the standard, by which I thought they meant hardware playback. Anyway, RealNetworks has bought some sort of platform licence and included it with the Linux release of Real Player 10, so if you download and install that - and its free (also is well integrated into SUSE 9.3) then you have a valid MP3 playback licence. As far as I know, such a licence wouldn't be restricted to a single application but covers the user - just as you could use GIFs with GIMP if you had a licence for the technology via something such as Internet Explorer.

Anyway, it works fine, though Amarok isn't piping the audio through the visualisation engine as far as I can tell, so the viz's are pretty static.

Andy

[Raymond]

I`ve installed SuSE 9.3 Professional and as usual except for swap it don`t identify my Linux partitions (swap,/,home), The floppy disc don`t work anymore ("The process for the media protocol died unexpectedly") and the login is slow and the panel takes ages to fill up. Opening the control centre is slow. You can`t have a login background photo, the tools are there to do it but the default background comes on after a couple of seconds. After a few minutes inactivity you get a black screen (not screensaver) and I can`t find anyway to stop it, theres only laptop battery in the power control.
However the plastic wallet the disks came in was good...
-*-Update-*- Although Yast could`nt help my power problems I found KPowersave in the menus (it was probably in the panel before I uncluttered it) and after 3 attempts and dissabling everything I can now stop the screen from going blank.
No change in the Floppy yet.
-*-Update 2-*- Ah Ha, fathomed the floppy out, its the old permissions thing in disguise (circa Mandrake 7.0). Instead of "you do not have sufficient permissions" its now "The process died". I used the root console and made me the owner and it works now.

[birdra]

Hmm, I've upgraded to 9.3 from 9.1 on a workstation and did a new install of 9.3 on a Dell D600 and had no problems. As far as MP3/DVD goes I usually head to PackMan http://packman.links2linux.de to sort out playback issues.