Something for my SuSE lovers
Unless you come here and never read anything I post, you know that I am a SuSE lover, and that I promote it's use almost daily. It is by far my favorite distro of Linux. I have been using it since January, which isn't a long time, but long enough for me to know that it's the best.
I found these sites and thought I would share them with everyone. Also, searching the main website http://www.suse.com you can find even more sofwatre they offer. Hopefully someone finds this useful.
http://www.swanson.uklinux.net/suse
http://guru.linuxbe.org/rpm
And now for the story of how I became the SuSE fan that you all know and hopefully love:
SuSE is great. And also it was founded in the country my familly came from, Germany. I bought SuSE 8.1 Professional around the end of December last year, I was in best buy and had some money left over and decided to get a new Linux distro, I had used Mandrake 7.1 and, well, thats about it. I noticed the new version was out and so was this new version of SuSE, a Linux I had never used before.
I was going to buy both but didnt have the money too so it was one or the other. After holding both in myh and and thinking it over for about an hour, I decided to look one more time. SuSE looked VERY nice, and I already had one version of Mandrake. The thing with Linux was, I could NEVER get the thing online, or get sound out of it. So I was kind of testy and wondered what to do.
Well, I went for SuSE and that was that. I knew I prolly wouldnt be able to get online but I still Loved Linux, it was fun for me. I had one computer at this time, and even though I had 3, one died, another got ganked from my ex GF and so I had just one PC. So I bought Partition magic 8.0, mainly because I didnt know how powerful SuSE was.
I got back in the car and my Mom and aunt wanted to go to the store, so I stayed in the car and waited for them. It was nice and cold and snowing outside and well, nice and cozy in the car, which is my fav weather, cold outside, kind of warm inside. May seem odd but I like wearing hoodies, so when it's cold outside, I can be warm and nice inside.
Well, I popped open the SuSE box, I knew it had alot inside becaue it was so heavy. I opened it up and saw two huge manuals. I was kind of shocked because any other Linux distro rarely came with something that nice in it. Theyw ere nice sized manuals, but also not boring ones. I looked them over vaguely, and then I saw this CD case and it was big.
I reached in and pulled it out and was shocked too see a DVD and 7 CDs. It was cool! And then I opened it up and saw the stickers. Now, Iv bought alot of Linux and BSD distros, NONE ame with stickers, EVER! I was like whoa! They were cool little stickers, something to put on the PC case and show off proudly.
I looked over the manuals and was amazed at how interesting and efficient they were. Well, when I got home, I read the manuals for a bit and was very happy to see a section on security. But also I remembered passed partition nightmares, where I had lost everything.
So I waited for almost a month with the bag just sitting in my room and the manuals out. Then I decided to go for it. I partitioned the drives and used Partition magic, which was a mistake, because it wouldv been better to just let SuSE take it from the begining.
The boot magic worked fine but I had to select Linux from there and then boot Windows or Linux from GRUB. The install started and I was amazed at how many things it had to offer. I had never seen that many tools before. After install I booted into Linux and played a bit, enjoying how nice it Looked by default.
But of course I had to boot into Windows to make sure it still booted ok, and it did. I got online and started telling people how great SuSE was so far. then I rebooted and got back into Linux. Just to feed that hunger of curiousity and see which error message Id get when I tried getting online I tried something internet related, and of course it didnt work, which come to fnid out was my own fault because I hadnt set up something yet. So for more of an "Ok it wont work just like you thought" I popped up Konq and typed in yahoo.com....To my astonishment, IT LOADED!
I could NOT believe it, I was online with Linux! I almost fainted....Ok not really but I was happy! At the time I hadnt added any hardware besides RAM, and of course the peice of **** soundcard the box came with didnt work, but who cares? I wa online! I came on here and made a post about it.
Then I updated the whole system, YAST2 worked great, the online update did lag a bit, but it went fine. I updated my system and then started playing around. Then I thought, why the hell have partition magic and boot magic on here when GRUB loads everything fine?
So I booted into Windows and took them off like a week later.......Of course it ****ed my partition table nicely and only Linux would boot, I had a few back ups done, but they were old, I had lost ALOT of ****. So I reformatted and tried putting Windows back on, no luck, couldnt find the HD.
This is why restore CDs should come separate, not as the OS too. I had a damn near nervouse break down at this point, thinking of all the things I lost. But then again, I gained alot too. Like experiance in using Linux as the only OS. I Prayed alot to God, I was seriously about to snap. And then, one day while poppin a Vicodin, I realised, not only had I not had a crash or data loss, I hadnt had to reboot at all since it happened.
It all came to me then, I missed having sound on my computer, but I knew the card wouldnt work. I saved up some money and bought a Sound Blaster Live! card and had it installed. I had finally broke through BOTH barriers that Linux had over me, I could never get online, or get sound. With SuSE Linux, I had gotten passed both of them.
And yes, I realise Im rambling on, but I dont care, someone might think my story is interesting. I did try a few more times to get Windows to install, but it didnt work, it would always say there was no HD. At this time I was new to having only Linux and didnt know what to do. Then one day I installed Free BSD on it and formatted everything. Then my cousin was here and hes about 13, and I was showing him how an OS install went, I popped in Windows 2000, which I had also tried, and even that said there was no HD, and I was like ok, you boot from the CD like this, and then I started explaining to him how to install, I was like in a second it'll prolly say it cant find the HD but Ill show you in more detail from the book.
But instead, it found it! I removed all partitions, installed Windows 2000, and he watched me and learned how to install an OS. After that I whipped out the restore CDs, of course they couldnt find the HD again, but I have had that before, so I whipped out a regular Windows 98 SE CD and tried that, it worked, after I formatted, I didnt install, I grabbed the restore CDs, and they worked!
I installed 98 SE on again, and got everything working again. after this I was kind of tired. I had learned alot though about partitions and how they work, and about installing Linux. Of course I put SuSE back on, it was awesome! Since then I have bought two new computers, the newest fo which Im typing this on, with SuSE 8.2 professional as the OS. And that PC I had Windows on is running Linux right now with 17 days uptime.
And I still have a Windows box for school work and music when I want too. SuSE opened my eyes to Linux like nothing before it had. Also I had learned how to get Windows 2000 online and with sound, and Windows server 2003, and for the first time ever, Free BSD. Also a few other Linux distros Iv used...Heh ok more than a few, but I can get them online with sound now too! All thanks to trying SuSE and loving it enough to not give up.
I know, it's a touching story isnt it.
