openSUSE 10.2 -- Itz Rocking!

Thanks to the mighty wi-fi internet connection here @ my college, with download speed touching even 300Kbps at times, I can now discover things beyond Microsoft products. I did some research about products & resources; then chucked DAP to switch over to IDM (Internet Download Manger) because its free & can auto resume your broken download. Using the same I downloaded a lot of movies & videos along with Solaris 10 & openSUSE 10.2 (a sexy flavor of LINUX).
Initially I opted for a SUSE DVD but some how it got corrupted during the download process. It was only then I got to know about md5 checksums & Nero md5 verifier.
There after it was all serene!

Finally life is good working on SUSE. It has got great UI (User Interface) & is highly customizable.
For the very first time I saw my machine didn't freeze after plugging in the USB 2.0 device (I have also used Redhat 9 & FedoraCore 1 before).





Snapshot in KDE.

KDE & GNOME are the two main Desktop Environments in Linux.

How to download??.
a) Go to the link http://en.opensuse.org/Released_Version.

b) Select the architecture of the computer in which you want to install openSUSE 10.2. Eg. select x86 (i386) for Pentium & AMD processors.

c) Installation media can be a DVD or 6 CDs. Only 3 base CDs are needed for default installation. Packages can be added or removed by the administrator (root) after the OS gets installed (my DVD didn't work so I had revert to CDs).

d) Choose installation protocol. Torrents is the best option. HTTP or FTP will require you to verify download through md5 checksums.

MD5(Message Digest 5) is a standard algorithm that takes as input a message of arbitrary length and produces as output a 128-bit fingerprint or message digest of the input. Any modifications made to the message in transit can then be detected by recalculating the digest.

So if the md5 of the downloaded media doesn't match with the original media the image is useless. Chuck it. & download again.

e) Start downloading the ISO image & then burn it to the disc.


Installation.
SUSE requires the default ext3 Linux file system. So, If you are a Windows user or planning to have a multi-boot environment (just like I did), delete one or two logical drives through windows default management console.
Otherwise SUSE is intelligent enough to determine to installation path & destination itself.

Now restart your computer & Boot through the media to start the installation of openSUSE 10.2.

Packages can be customized at a later stage.

The only thing of concern is your data stored on other drives. So if you are novice in this field ask for a supervision. You have two options here 1) Manually partition or 2)Automatic - it will give you the best possible quotation.

Basic requirements are one (/) root for installation and one SWAP (virtual memory) partition to boost up performance.

Installation of Package.
Packages come either in tar.gz (compressed), RPM (Packaged), YUM(express installation) source. YaST, the house keeper, opens the RPMs by default & installs them. The tar.gz files need to be extracted to a location & then installation is done on the basis of INSTALL text file provided inside it. Default operations include...
a) to configure the package(the system variable given values & dependencies are checked).
b) make (the package is compiled using the previous step's configuration)
c) make install (actual installation to system folders is done here)

Plugins & Codecs.
VLC has some dependencies problem so I will recommend xVidCore or libDvdCss.
So you would be able to play each and every other media file format (presentation).

Wi-fi (Wireless Fidelity) Support.
If you use a Laptop then things are easier as SUSE might itself recognize your device but if it doesn't you need to get Drivers of your device for Linux. What! you can't find 'em? No problem, ndiswrapper comes to rescue. You can wrap or parse your Windows XP drivers into Native code so that they support Linux too.

WINE (Wine Is Not Emulator).
People now a days are not much of a IE (Internet Explorer) freak as they have other good options like Firefox & Opera. But if you want IE on Linux (that's absurd trust me) or any game that the Wine Project supports, you can run them on Linux through Wine. In SUSE it comes prebundled. Wine provides Windows environment for applications to run.

So the USP.
1) Its free.. :) highly customizable & Stable.

2) supports USB devices (Stability reinforced).

3) got support for wi-fi Ethernet controllers.

4) all the Windows' drives get mounted on the startup. So the files on your NTFS drive are no longer useless while working on SUSE.

5) Firefox 2.0 Java 1.5 & Adobe Acrobat Reader 7 comes prepackaged.

6) GIMP is the Photoshop of Linux.

7) Install some libraries & codecs to get all your mp3, flv & vob (DVD) files running without a glitch.

8) User guides in pdf format are handy on the site with complete documentation & administration guide.

So in all its a complete replacement for Windows but if you are a gaming freak then you would have to go for a Dual boot. Cheers!

Any query is invited.