Suse Linux

SUSE Linux originated in 1992 as a German language localization ofSlackware Linux. SUSE founders Hubert Mantel, Burchard Steinbild,Roland Dryoff, and Thomas Fehr formed the company S.u.S.E. GmbH, whichin German is short for Software und System Entwicklung Gesellschaft mitbeschränkter Haftung. In English, the name simply means Software andSystem Development, Ltd.

In 1996, S.u.S.E. evolved from a Slackware derivative intodeveloping its own original distribution. For its base system, S.u.S.E.chose adopt the JurixLinux distribution, at the time developed by Florian La Roche. Jurixceased to be separate project and was folded completely into S.u.S.E.,which then began writing its own installation and administrative tools.

By 2003, S.u.S.E. had grown into a top-tier Linux distributor withhome, business desktop, and server products, and officially changed itscompany name to SUSE Linux. SUSE Linux was acquired by operating system maker Novell in January of 2004.

Novell continues to develop SUSE Linux to this day. In 2005, itannounced openSUSE, a completely open source Linux distribution thatthe public could download, test, and contribute to. Novell suppliesmost of the engineering time that goes into openSUSE, as it forms thebasis for Novell's enterprise Linux products.

The first release of the new publicly-developed OpenSUSE was version10.0, in October of 2005. Since then, new point releases have come outapproximately twice every year.

One of SUSE's prominent claims to fame is YaST (Yet another SetupTool), a powerful installation, configuration, and administrationprogram. YaST gives users an easy-to-use graphical setup process,handling hardware details like disk partitioning and monitorconfiguration, and software details like application installation anduser account management.

Originally a proprietary application unique to SUSE, YaST wasreleased as open source following the Novell acquisition, and has madeits way into other Linux distributions.

SUSE uses the RPM package management system, and provides dependencychecking and online updates for installed packages through YaST. SUSEhas recently added Zen, a new package manager that is simpler to useand is geared more towards desktop applications, and less towards fullsystem management than YaST.

SUSE also features the AppArmorsecurity system, with which a system administrator can can restrict thecapabilities of each program on a system, thus preventing bad behaviorand accidental flaws from harming the system.

Although SUSE has historically favored the KDE desktop environment,its corporate parent Novell also employs a sizable group of developersworking on the GNOME desktop. Consequently, support for bothenvironments is excellent in SUSE Linux. Users can install either (orboth) through YaST.

Technically speaking, SLED and Novell's enterprise serverdistributions are derivatives of the collaboratively-developedOpenSUSE. Because they are bundled with support contracts, thesecommercial offerings are generally slower to adopt bleeding-edgetechnology like new kernels and filesystems.

OpenSUSE has spawned some non-commercial offshoots as well. The SUSE Performance Enhanced Release(SUPER) is a SUSE derivative that focuses on modifying the base SUSEdistro for enhanced speed, experimental optimizations, and missingfeatures.

At the other end of the spectrum is MiniSUSE, a minimalist distro designed for use on systems with small amounts of disk space and limited memory resources.

JackLab is a SUSE-based distro builtfor multimedia work, in particular use as a digital audio workstation.JackLab uses a real-time Linux kernel and the JACK low-latency audioserver to provide its audio-friendly specialty services.

To try OpenSUSE, visit the OpenSUSEWeb site and either download a set of CD or DVD images (for OpenSUSE10.2, you will need six CDs or one DVD), or try an over-the-networkinstall. OpenSUSE provides installation images for i386, AMD64,PowerPC, and Intel Itanium processors.

You can purchase Novell's commercial SUSE Linux products directly from Novell. Visit the Linux sectionof Novell's Web site and select SLED, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, orone of the other products, and follow the links on the page. If you arenot ready to buy yet, you can also download an evaluation version ofSLED or the server products in order to test-drive it for 60 days.