Getting the most out of SUSE 10

When you've finished installing SuSE, the truth is that there is more you can do to make SuSE a system better suited to everyday computer use. First of all, there is no support for proprietary audio and video codecs by default. That, of course, prevents you from seeing news broadcasts and from listening to podcasts. You can remedy this situation without much trouble, however.

I consulted a page at the website The Jem Report to get some instructions on how to install these codecs and other proprietary software on SuSE. Let me say, that I am the first one to lament the fact that this kind of software has to be used at all, but what can I say. We live in a world where people make videos in Quicktime and they record things in MP3 and if you want to watch and listen, then, what can you do but go with the flow. That said, the Jem Report article on SUSE, though good, failed to work for me in some cases, so I'll explain what I did differently to get these packages installed. First, the article instructs you to fire up SUSE's Yast module for software, which you can see in the screenshot below:

Now, by all means, follow the instructions on this page. I really don't want to repeat all that was said there, because most of it is good. However, you need to do a few things differently. First, do not disable CD or DVD installation media as instructed by Jem. Keep it enabled. Secondly, when you get to the part about installing Flash, Acrobat, Windows Media, etc, before you attempt to install anything, you'll need to type 'libdirec' into the search field, which will find a package on your CDs called 'libxine1-directfb'. This is needed for installing mplayer. Without it, mplayer won't install and you'll be banging your head against the proverbial wall, as I did for a half and hour or so. Once you've installed libxine1-directfb, then feel free to install the w32codec-all package. That will give you the codecs you need for Quicktime and "Windoze" media. Then install all the rest listed in Jem's article. You'll also need to follow the instructions on DVD playback if you want to watch DVDs. There's a certain package, that's sort of a top-secret, hush-hush affair, that you'll have to install manually (rpm -ihv package.rpm). After this, you'll be able to see all the major video formats plus DVD.

If you successfully get through Jem Mazan's article with the few changes I've mentioned above, you'll have a great system comparable with anybody's Windows XP computer as far as features. Actually, to call it comparable to XP would be an insult to SUSE, because it will be far superior. You won't be plagued by viruses and spyware and who knows what else. You'll also have hundreds of programs that you don't have to pay for, including two (yes you get two!) top notch office suites, KOffice and OpenOffice, the Firefox browser, Evolution, which works like Outlook, an extremely easy to use CD/DVD burning program called K3B and an iTunes type applications called Amarok. Despite a few rough edges, I'm quite fond of Amarok. There's also The GIMP, for your photo and image editing needs. There's a ton of stuff here. This review would turn into a War and Peace sized book if I mentioned each one specifically.

There is one, though, that deserves a special mention. It's Beagle, a program that's designed to do in-depth searches of your computer. Kind of like your own personal Google. It was pretty well hidden in the menus and it took about 5 minutes to find it. You'll find it in: System-->File System --> Desktop search

The first time you run it, it will ask you to click on a link to start the Beagle daemon. Seeing that this was a test machine, I didn't have much on it to look through, so I transferred a directory of interesting articles that I had downloaded and searched for a reference to the mathematician Paul Erdos. Beagle found it. Then I unzipped some old archives of mail messages I had and tried a couple of other searches and they all turned up. This, of course, was not an exhaustive test, but if you're not into using command line utilities like grep, Beagle looks like a nice replacement. Plus, it's state-of-the-art Mono technology, so you'll be blazing the proverbial trail by using it.

General Impressions

As far as the general experience with SUSE 10 goes, it's just nice looking and pleasant to use all around. The fonts are all smooth and easy to read. The desktop look is modern and pleasing to the eye. You get tons of applications. Many of these, like Firefox and OpenOffice, are now used even in the Windows world. And what does all of this quality software this cost you? Zero. Zilch. Nada. SUSE 10 is definitely the best SUSE distribution to date. It may be the best distribution for the average everyday user to bear the name 'Linux' so far. It's worth taking a look at.

At Novell's website, you can find more information about downloading OpenSUSE 10 or also about purchasing the the professional version of SUSE.

Michael J. Jordan is the webmaster of Linux Online. He can be reached at Michael.Jordan**AT**Linux.org