| First look: SUSE 10, on the Road |
by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols (Oct. 13, 2005)
I'm on vacation this week. For me, though, vacation includes carrying around my Linux-powered laptop.
So while, you're going to have to wait for a while for my full review of SUSE 10, I had to let you know sooner than later about how SUSE 10 handles on the road.
Why? Because unlike most Linux desktop distributions, OpenSUSE and Novell's SUSE 10 works extremely well as a road warrior operating system.
Linux's main problem with laptops has been a lack of drivers.
SUSE 10, on the other hand, does well both by my variety of USB drives that I use in lieu of floppy disks and CDs anymore for transporting data from machine to machine, and by my WiFi equipment.
Specifically, I'm in Washington DC with a Toshiba Satellite A35-S159. It has 512MB of RAM, a 2.3 GHz Pentium 4 M, and a 60GB hard drive.
It also has an Atheros AR5001X+ wireless network adapter, which supports the whole WiFi gamut of 802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g, in Centrino-style packaging.
I need all three, since I run g and a in my home office. On the road, of course, although 802.11g is becoming more common, you're still more likely to find 802.11b.
In the past, I've had great trouble getting Linux to support the AR5001X+, even though it's a very common WiFi set.
With SUSE 10, though, there was no trouble what-so-ever getting it to work. I installed it, I tried it, it worked.
That's my kind of setup.
Getting it to work with the various hotel and cafe paid and free WiFi hotspots has also been as easy as falling off a log.
In the past, I've had to fine tune my Linux WiFi connections. Now, I don't.
For the most part, SUSE 10 automatically finds and hooks me into hotspots. No fuss, no muss.
When, I do need to get hands-on with my WiFi connection, the KDE Internet tool -- the ever-so-predictably named KInterent -- and the Network Selector Panel Applet and Network Folder Wizard, aka KNetAttach, made it easy. With the first two automatically installed on the Kicker -- the SUSE 10 KDE 3.4 menu bar -- working with WiFi on Linux was a no-brainer.
SUSE 10's entire networks connection, including WiFi, also comes with an automatically configured firewall.
Unlike Windows XP SP 2's Windows Firewall, however, it didn't get in the way. Anymore with Windows, one of the first things I do is rip out the Windows Firewall and replace it with Zone Labs's ZoneAlarm.
The standard Windows Firewall is better than nothing, but I've often found it gets in the way of day-to-day work, and I don't get enough control of its firewall settings for my taste. SUSE 10's, on the other hand, doesn't get in the way, yet provides complete control of exactly what the firewall will, and won't, block.
All in all, I found that not only did SUSE 10 make WiFi as easy to use as it is on Windows XP, I found that it actually made using it both easier and better than XP does.
And, that's why I took a few minutes from my time off to tell you about it.
For the first time, we have a laptop Linux that's not every bit as good as the competition, it's better.
Check it out. You'll be glad you did.
 About the author: Ziff Davis Internet Senior Editor Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols has been using and writing about technology and business since the late '80s and thinks he may just have learned something about them along the way. He can be reached at sjvn@ziffdavis.com.
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