| Installing SUSE Linux 10.0 on a laptop |
by Steven J. Rosen (Dec. 1, 2005)
Foreword: Thinking about installing the latest SUSE Linux? If so, be sure read this excellent, comprehensive article about installing SUSE Linux 10.0 on a laptop. Author Steven J. Rosen, a software developer for two decades, has primarily used Linux on his home machines for four years, including Mandrake/Mandriva and Fedora Core. Enjoy . . . !
Installing SUSE Linux 10.0 on a laptop
by Steven J. Rosen
I recently installed the open source software (OSS) version of SUSE Linux 10.0 on my Gateway M520CS laptop computer, and would like to share my impressions of the product so far. This is the third distribution that has been installed on this laptop, with Mandrake Linux 10.1 and Fedora Core 4 both preceding SUSE 10.0. SUSE 10.0 outshines both of the other distributions so far.
First, a bit about myself: I've been a software developer for over 20 years, primarily on various Unix systems for the last 11 years. I've been using Linux on my home machines for the last four years, starting with Mandrake Linux 8.1 up through Mandriva Linux 2005, and including Fedora Core 3 and 4. I'm fairly comfortable with installing and configuring Linux systems, including geeky tasks such as writing complex BASH scripts and hand-editing configuration files. Although this article is based on my own background and experience with the product, you'll notice that I often try to view the system from a new Linux user's perspective.
The Test Machine
The laptop on which these distributions were installed is a Gateway M520CS with an Intel Celeron processor, 512 MB of RAM, a 60 GB hard drive and a combo DVD/CD-RW optical drive. For communication, it has a built-in Broadcom 802.11g wireless LAN controller as well as a 10/100 Base-TX Ethernet port and a modem. Sound and video are provided by the 852GME Intel chipset. The 15-inch LCD display maxes out at 1024x768. Finally, it includes a 2-button touchpad, four USB ports and an IEEE1394 port.
Mandrake 10.1 and Fedora Core 4
Both Mandrake Linux 10.1 and Fedora Core 4 installed fine on this machine, but both had problems. Let's delve into these problems a bit before we look at whether SUSE did any better.
The first problem was the wireless network adapter, which didn't work after installation under either distribution. For both Mandrake and Fedora, the ndiswrapper driver solved the problem. Mandrake's network configuration tool made it fairly easy to add a wireless network interface that used ndiswrapper; it was a little more difficult in Fedora, but worked just the same. I'll provide additional details when discussing how I solved this problem in SUSE 10.0.
Secondly, neither distribution correctly set up the sound system. With Mandrake (this was before the company's merger with Conectiva), it took much Googling to finally solve the problem, which involved adding entries to modprobe.conf (a kernel module configuration file) and turning off the external amplifier switch in the sound mixer. Neither these solutions nor any other worked in Fedora, however; I never did get the sound to work.
A third problem was suspending the computer; it just didn't work. After some major fiddling in Mandrake, I was able to get the laptop to suspend to disk; however, when awakened, invariably something didn't work, such as sound and/or the network adapters. In Fedora, the display went completely blank when attempting to restore, requiring a power down and reboot.
Now let's have a look at SUSE 10.0 OSS, starting with installation.
Installing and Configuring SUSE 10.0 OSS
Installing the distribution was mostly a breeze. I decided to install over the Internet via FTP, having a fast broadband connection and a limited supply of blank CDs on hand that evening, and it went smoothly. You can also choose to download five CD images (ISO files) to burn. To perform the FTP type of installation, you must download one small ISO file and burn it to CD, then boot from that CD. The installer downloads everything else it needs via FTP. Note that this FTP install option is only available for the OSS edition; the "evaluation" edition (which includes some proprietary software not in the OSS version) can only be downloaded as ISO files. Head over to the OpenSUSE download page to make your own choice.
I won't focus on the installation details, as that has been well covered in other good SUSE articles, such as this one at Linux-Noob.com, which has some excellent installation screenshots, and also this one at Linux.org. One note: if you're doing the FTP installation, you'll be asked for the FTP site and directory; I used SUSE's own download site, but mirror sites are available. The installer did not recognize the laptop's wireless adapter, so the installation proceeded using the wired Ethernet adapter. I chose to install a KDE-centric system, which left out many Gnome applications; as a result, the discussions below often mention KDE software (e.g., Konqueror) rather than the Gnome alternatives (e.g., Nautilus).
Configuration with YaST
One of the highlights of SUSE Linux 10.0 is its terrific configuration tool, the YaST Control Center (see Figure 1). YaST, which stands for Yet Another Setup Tool, allows the user to configure many aspects of a Linux system. Many users will never need to hand-edit a configuration file with YaST around. Mandrake Linux 10.1 has the Mandrake Control Center, which also exists in later Mandriva releases, and is also a very good system configuration tool, but I've found YaST to be somewhat easier to use and better documented. Both tools offer a wide range of modules that cover most aspects of Linux system configuration and administration. Although other tools (e.g., Webmin) may offer more breadth and depth, YaST mostly presents the configuration options in a more user-friendly manner.
Figure 1: The YaST Control Center
(Click for larger image)
YaST is not entirely without problems. For example, I used the System Services tool to set up the Lisa daemon -- which provides network discovery to locate other computers on your network -- to run on system startup, but the tool hung trying to start the daemon.
We'll talk more about YaST in the subsequent sections of this article as we discuss various aspects of SUSE Linux 10.0 OSS.
Issues
The major post-installation issue for me was getting the wireless network adapter to work. Both Mandrake and Fedora had the same problem, so having been through this twice before, this was fairly easy to solve -- this time. It was anything but easy the first time.
If your wireless adapter isn't recognized by SUSE, there may not be a Linux driver for it. In that case, there's a good chance that ndiswrapper will work; it allows you to use a Microsoft Windows driver in Linux for your wireless adapter. See the sidebar "Find the Windows Driver" for details.
Find the Windows Driver
Note: the instructions below work if you have a PCI (built-in or PC Card) wireless adapter. They do not apply to USB wireless adapters.
Step 1: Find out what device you have -- In YaST, click on the Hardware category, then click on the Hardware Information tool. After probing is complete, look under the Network Card entry for your wireless device. Look at the "udi" entry, and write down the letters and numbers after the "pci_"; mine was "14e4_4320." You'll need this later.
Step 2: Find the driver -- Go to the ndiswrapper card list. Search the web page for the stuff you wrote down earlier, but with a ":" (colon) instead of the "_", for example, I searched the page for "14e4:4320" for my adapter. Download the driver corresponding to that list entry. See the ndiswrapper wiki for more info. | Once you have the Windows driver, install ndiswrapper using YaST Control Center: select "Software" from the categories on the left side of the window, then select "Software Management" on the right side. When the window appears, search on "ndiswrapper". One note: I had to manually add the line "alias wlan0 ndiswrapper" in /etc/modprobe.conf.local as the root user to get ndiswrapper to work. For more information on installing and using ndiswrapper and the associated Windows driver files, see the project's excellent wiki or see andrewd18's article (andrewd18 is a staff member at suseforums.net). The LinuxQuestions.org website is also a very good resource for this and any other Linux problem.
With ndiswrapper installed, the next step was to define a network interface. YaST Control Center provides a means for this, by selecting the Network Card icon in the Network Devices category. On my system, YaST didn't recognize the wireless adapter even after installing ndiswrapper and rebooting. I selected the Add button to manually configure a new network interface. On the manual configuration window, I selected Wireless for the device type, typed "wlan0" for the hardware configuration name, and typed "ndiswrapper" for the module name. After clicking Next, I selected the addressing method (DHCP on my system) and set up the detailed settings for my network. Ah, a working wireless adapter!
All in all, getting wireless networking to work in SUSE 10.0 was no more difficult than getting it to work in Mandrake 10.1. YaST's networking tools compare well to those in the Mandrake Control Center, and both are superior to Fedora's tools.
The next problem to tackle was sound. After logging in to the KDE desktop, none of the sounds worked. Sound on laptops is notoriously difficult for Linux distributions because of the huge variety of chip sets and lack of manufacturer support. I tried one of the solutions I had used previously, namely, bringing up the mixer application (Multimedia -> Volume Control -> Sound Mixer) and turning off the external amplifier switch. Lo and behold, this immediately worked! No Googling necessary, no fiddling with kernel module parameters in modprobe.conf (or modprobe.conf.local in SUSE). In other words, SUSE did the best job of all three distributions in setting up sound correctly.
Figure 2: KDE Mixer showing Switches tab | To bring up the mixer window in KDE, click on the speaker icon in the System Tray (bottom right corner of the screen), and select the Mixer button (or from the KDE menu, select Multimedia, then Volume Control, and finally Sound Mixer). Click on the Switches tab. If the External Amplifier is on (yellow "light" is on), turn it off by clicking on the yellow light (see Figure 2). You can also use alsamixer, which can be run from a command line.
Neither YaST nor KDE was able to detect my printer, which is available on the local network. The printer is attached to another computer on the network and is made available on the network via a CUPS (Common Unix Printing System) server on that computer. Both Mandrake and Fedora had been able to detect this CUPS server and automatically configure the printer on the laptop. The fact that SUSE couldn't detect it is probably due to firewall settings -- SUSE sets up a firewall by default with many ports closed, including the IPP (Internet Printing Protocol) ports that are used by CUPS (TCP and UDP ports 631). Using YaST, I had to allow the IPP client service in the firewall module, then add a printer by manually specifying the CUPS server to make YaST's printer module scan the network for CUPS broadcasts. This finally worked.
I have two gripes about this experience. First of all, YaST's printer detection should be able to detect network CUPS servers. Firewall settings should not prevent this -- perhaps the printer module needs to work with the firewall module to temporarily allow access on the IPP ports while printer detection proceeds. A second gripe is about the firewall module in YaST. Under the Allowed Services tab, there are no explanations of the services in the help or anywhere else. While I have enough Linux experience to know that the IPP (Internet Printing Protocol) client service needed to be enabled, a new Linux user would have no clue how to do this. The module doesn't even explain what "IPP" (nor any other acronym) stands for. I'm being a bit hard on the SUSE developers here, but that's because most of their documentation is excellent, so I was disappointed by this module's meager help.
So what about suspending and restoring the laptop? I'm going to keep you in suspense (pun intended) for a little longer on that topic.
Dynamic Device Recognition
How does the system respond when a CD, DVD, USB device or PC Card device is inserted? How about when it's removed? SUSE 10.0 did a nice job here thanks to the SUSE Hardware Detection application, also known as suseplugger.
CDs
When I inserted a CD-ROM, suseplugger correctly detected it as a data CD, mounted it, and popped up a window asking what action to take, with the default being to open a Konqueror file manager window for the CD device (see Figure 3). Very nice. There's nothing like that in Mandrake 10.1 or Fedora Core 4. When I pressed the eject button on the CD drive, SUSE automatically unmounted and ejected the disk.
Figure 3: Suseplugger
A music CD was a bit more problematic, but it wasn't SUSE's fault. Suseplugger recognized the disk as an audio CD -- whether it was a commercial CD or a burned CD -- and started KsCD, KDE's audio CD player. KsCD started playing the CD, but no sound emerged from the speakers. This seems to be a known problem, although the known solution didn't work for me. Because suseplugger provides configurable actions, I changed the default action for audio CDs to use the Kaffeine media player, which has worked fine.
DVDs
Suseplugger recognized that a DVD was inserted and asked whether I wanted to start Kaffeine, which is a KDE interface for the Xine video player. Kaffeine started fine, but couldn't play the DVD. This is because the OSS version of SUSE does not come with software that could present legal problems, such as support for playing encrypted DVDs. We'll look at how to fix this and related problems later (see the "Multimedia" section). Once the problems are fixed, however, it all works nicely -- Kaffeine starts playing the movie when a DVD is inserted.
USB Devices
I plugged in two USB 2.0 devices to see how SUSE would respond: an XD card from my Olympus C-750 digital camera (via a USB 2.0 card reader), and a LaCie 50GB USB hard drive. In both cases suseplugger's window popped up with the correct suggestion, and Konqueror correctly opened showing the files on the devices. One possible problem for Linux newcomers: No corresponding icon appeared on the desktop for the devices. While this is not a problem when the device is inserted due to SUSE's hardware detection, it's not obvious how to remove the device. Clicking on the desktop's My Computer icon revealed an icon for the device; however, I was unable to unmount either device using the icon. I finally had to unmount as root from the command line (for example, umount /media/usbdisk for the XD card) or using Konqueror in "super user mode." This is not acceptable for a new user.
Graphical Environment
The default SUSE KDE desktop is quite attractive (especially if you like veiled chameleons, SUSE's mascot, and the color green). I find the desktop to be simple, not overwhelming, yet functional and attractive. Personally I prefer few icons on the desktop; I'd rather put them in the taskbar's quick launcher area, where they're always available even if the screen is covered with windows. So I'm quite happy with the simple layout of SUSE's KDE desktop.
Overall the impression is of a very slick, professional desktop appearance. Important applications available as icons on the desktop include Firefox, My Computer (which brings up a Konqueror file manager window), Office (for OpenOffice.org applications), Printer, SUSE (registration, online updates, and a free newsletter!), and a Trash icon.
The other aspects of KDE's appearance in SUSE 10.0 are fairly standard -- attractive without getting in the way. The icons are a slightly customized version of the attractive Crystal SVG icon set by Everaldo.com. The window decorations include a sharp-looking two-toned blue title bar with subdued buttons for minimizing, restoring and closing the window. The default style is the standard KDE Plastik style. (You can see some of these features in Figures 1, 2, 3, and 5.) There's certainly no special "eye candy" here in SUSE's default styles, but I find it to be attractive enough while maintaining good usability. And if you want eye candy, there's plenty to be had at sites such as KDE-Look.org.
Software
Overview of Installed Software and Applications
SUSE 10.0 OSS's default KDE installation provides a good range of software without being overwhelming. It seems the SUSE engineers have picked a preferred application in each category and included it in the defaults. For example, the only word processor installed by default is OpenOffice.org Writer. Picking the best-of-breed product in each category makes sense to me -- if chosen well, there's a good chance that SUSE's default selection will be acceptable or even preferable for most users, and having fewer initial choices avoids confusion for new users. For those who prefer applications other than the defaults, you can make those choices while installing SUSE or later via YaST -- there is quite a large selection of additional software available on the SUSE repositories or the installation CDs. For example, both KWord and Abiword are available in the word processing category.
SUSE's KDE menu structure under which this software can be found is mostly intuitive, although some menu choices were a bit odd. The menu item names usually indicate what the software does rather than listing the name of the application, for example "Project Management" instead of the less meaningful "TaskJuggler." This is a big help to the new user. Actually the menu item names often include the name of the application, but there seems to be no consistency -- many do not. I'd like to see almost every menu item include the application's function plus its name, e.g. "Project Management (TaskJuggler)."
Let's look at some of the default software installed in various categories. I'm not going to describe everything that's installed by default, but just highlight some of the most useful software in each category. The categories below mostly follow SUSE's KDE menu structure.
Graphics
The graphics category includes drawing tools and digital imaging tools, some of which are listed below. - GIMP 2.2.8: The Gnu Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) is a powerful image editor and a standard on Linux systems. While powerful, learning to use the GIMP effectively takes time -- there are no friendly wizards to help you accomplish basic image editing tasks like removing red eye or fixing image colors.
- digiKam, which is a very good digital image organizer. You may also want to check out F-Spot, an up-and-coming application that may become the Picasa of Linux. While not installed by default, a slightly outdated version of F-Spot (0.1.2) is available on the SUSE Linux 10.0 repositories.
- Kooka, KDE's image scanning application. Kooka is fine, but I find xsane, another image scanning app, to be better. Xsane is not installed by default but is available for installation via YaST.
- OpenOffice.org Draw, a very capable vector drawing program that's part of the OpenOffice.org office suite. While it is quite good, it needs better SVG image support -- it cannot natively open or save SVG files. It does have an option to export a drawing to an SVG, but that SVG file cannot later be opened in Draw. (There apparently is an SVG import filter for OpenOffice.org 2.0 available here; please read the system requirements on that web page. I have not tried this filter.)
Internet
The Internet category contains just what you would expect: Web browsers (Firefox and KDE's Konqueror), an online chat application (KDE's Kopete, which works with AOL, MSN, Yahoo Messenger, Jabber and others), email (KDE's very good KMail application), a Usenet news reader, and web page creation software.
Multimedia
As briefly discussed earlier, SUSE Linux 10.0 OSS does not come with everything you need to play and encode multimedia files. For example, there is no MP3 playback or encoding (i.e., ripping) support, and no way to play encrypted DVDs. We'll discuss how to solve these problems while looking at some of the included applications below. - amaroK: This is the default audio player in SUSE, and it is an excellent application. But using it on systems with a hyperthreaded processor (certain Pentium 4 processors) elicits a warning about amaroK's stability on hyperthreaded systems, which I have found to be accurate -- my desktop system has a Pentium 4 hyperthreaded processor, and amaroK locks up regularly. In addition, amaroK on SUSE 10.0 OSS can't play MP3s because SUSE doesn't provide an MP3 playback library due to licensing issues. See Jem Matzan's "Hacking OpenSUSE" article for information on how to remedy this and install other missing software.
If you find that you need another audio player, both XMMS and Juk are very good and available for installation on SUSE's software repositories.
- Kaffeine, a video display application based on Xine, can play movies, TV, and many audio files, but also is crippled by default -- it has no MP3 playback, no Windows media support and no encrypted DVD support (most commercial DVDs are encrypted). Again, see Jem Matzan's article to fix these problems.
- Various other tools, including several volume control tools, a sound recorder, a CD/DVD burning tools (the wonderful K3b), a CD player and a TV viewer.
Office
The office category is highlighted by OpenOffice.org, along with some good KDE office applications. - OpenOffice.org: Setting the standard in Linux office applications, OpenOffice.org includes terrific word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, and database applications in the office category. SUSE's version is slightly customized (e.g., a custom splash screen on startup) and includes a package to help OpenOffice integrate better with KDE. SUSE includes no menu item anywhere for the OpenOffice.org printer administration application. The installed version is OpenOffice.org 1.9.125, a beta release that has long been superseded by 2.0 release candidates 1 through 3 and by the final release of 2.0; automatic update (see next section) didn't update to a later version. However, SUSE has recently made the final 2.0 release available on its download site (and many of its mirror sites), although the README file says these files are "not supported."
- Several PDF and PostScript viewer applications are installed; however, Adobe's PDF reader (Adobe Reader) is not installed by default; see Jem Matzan's article to install it.
- KDE personal information management (PIM) applications, including Kontact, KDE's integrated PIM application that includes email, calendar, to do list, notes and more.
- TaskJuggler, a project planning/management application that I've never tried.
System
The system applications are a somewhat disorganized collection of applications, ranging from utilities (desktop applets, file utilities, remote access programs) to system hardware information and system configuration. I don't think of some of the tools in this category as system tools; many belong under utilities, while others (e.g., the remote access applications) are better suited for a new networking category that could also include Internet applications.
Under the system category you'll find two important tools, the YaST Control Center and, under the Desktop Applet subcategory, the Software Update Monitor (SUSEWatcher), which is discussed further below. If you need a command line, the System menu includes several, including KDE's Konsole and xterm. The File System menu includes KDE's file search tool. The hot, new desktop search application Beagle was not installed by default on my system, but can be installed from the SUSE repositories; if you do install it, the system menu is where it can be found.
Utilities
The Utilities menu includes a variety of mostly KDE software: desktop applications, such as a color palette editor, pop-up "yellow sticky" notes, and a screen capture utility; printing and faxing utilities; Ark, a graphical archive program that can read and write archives, including Zip files; a calculator; and a text editor.
Other Software
SUSE Linux 10.0 OSS isn't just a desktop Linux system; it comes with a large variety of client and server software, with YaST modules to help set up just about all of them. The list of server software is pretty familiar to long-time Linux users: DHCP, DNS, HTTP, NFS, NIS, Samba, and FTP servers were included in my installation, and others (such as SSH) are available. Client software includes DHCP, Kerberos, LDAP, NFS, NIS, NTP, Samba, SSH, and FTP. If you're new to Linux, don't worry about this alphabet soup of clients and servers; many people will never need them and YaST has modules to help set them up if you do need them.
Updating Installed Software
Figure 4: SUSEWatcher in the system tray; green in top image, red in bottom image. Red means critical updates are available. | SUSE 10.0 includes two applications that make online system updates easy: the Software Update Monitor (also known as SUSEWatcher) and YaST Online Update (YOU). SUSEWatcher puts an icon in the system tray that changes color when new online updates are available (see Figure 4). From the icon, you can invoke YOU to download and install the updated packages. It's very easy to use and the service is free. Mirror servers are available in addition to SUSE's own servers if you need increased download performance.
The tools are just as easy to use as Fedora's Red Hat Network Alert system tray icon and its up2date tool, which downloads the updates. So far I haven't had any problems with the SUSE tools; on the other hand, Fedora's up2date didn't work at all on the laptop, and seems to be buggy on my desktop system's Fedora Core 3. However, Fedora's yum command-line tool worked well for system updates both on FC3 and FC4; download KYum if you want a graphical front-end to yum on Fedora.
Mandrake 10.1 only provides the system tray icon + update tool combination when you join their MandrivaOnline service for a fee. Mandrake's free urpmi tool performs the same service but without a system tray icon, which I find less convenient.
One advantage of SUSE's tools over Mandrake's and Fedora's is updating via patches. YOU is capable of downloading and applying a patch to an installed product. This has the advantage of making the downloads much smaller and thus faster -- only a small patch file is downloaded rather than an entire replacement package.
When using SUSEWatcher and YOU, make sure that the repositories listed in Jem Matzan's article are available in YaST's Installation Source tool. Jem's article describes using the mirrors.kernel.org FTP site for the three additional installation repositories, but you can use any mirror of OpenSUSE. For a list of mirrors near you, go here.
Adding and Removing Software
YaST's Installation Source and Software Management tools make it easy to install and remove software, especially if you've used the Installation Source tool to add the extra repositories listed in Jem Matzan's article. To add and remove software, use the Software Management tool in YaST (see Figure 5).
Figure 5: YaST's Software Management tool
(Click for larger image)
If you know the name of the software package that you want to add or remove, use the Search box to find it. You can also search by description; for example, searching on "word process" brings up "abiword" and "koffice-wordprocessing" in the package list to the right of the Search box. Click on a package in the list to see details about the package. Click on the check box next to the package name to select the package for installation. If the check box is already selected, the package is already installed; clicking the check box will cause the package to be updated (if an update is available); clicking yet again will remove the package from your system.
The tool offers other options for finding software other than the Search box. Select these options using the Filter combo box located above the Search box. The "Selections" and "Package Groups" filters, for example, show packages organized into categories; select one of the categories to see the list of packages in that category.
Once you select a package for installation, YaST remembers the selection. This is not at all obvious, however, when using the tool -- I'd like to see SUSE improve this. For example, suppose I select "abiword" for installation by clicking on its check box in the package list. What happens if I then do a search on "photo," which lists photo-related applications? Is "abiword" still selected for installation? The answer is yes, it is. To make sure, use the Installation Summary filter to see a summary of all the changes that YaST will make to your system. When you're ready to actually apply these changes, click the Accept button on the bottom right of the window.
Documentation
The documentation that comes with SUSE Linux 10.0 is generally very good. Novell includes two very good user manuals, a start-up guide and a reference manual. Both are available in softcopy in the SUSE Help Center, which is a customized version of the KDE Help Center. In addition to the SUSE manuals, the Help Center includes application manuals (for each application that supplies one) and the Linux info pages and man pages.
SUSE's Start-Up guide covers installation and basic configuration, an introduction to using Linux and key software applications, and troubleshooting. The Reference manual contains detailed information on SUSE Linux, including advanced installation and setup, a good overview of the software installed with SUSE Linux and how to use it, and detailed configuration information. I was impressed with the depth of the information in this manual; while it doesn't replace manuals for individual applications, it often provides very good step-by-step usage information. For example, the chapter on K3b covers the process of burning different types of CDs and DVDs in excellent detail.
In most cases the documentation of SUSE's own tools is quite good. Most of YaST's modules have good help available, often visible on the left side of the window while you work -- perfect for new users.
One notable exception to SUSE's good documentation is the SUSE Advanced X11 Configuration tool, also known as SaX2. For some reason, the Help button in SaX2 is grayed out in all modules, and I was not able to find a SaX2 manual on the hard drive. However, there is a software design document, so while you can't find out anything about how to use SaX2, you can find out everything you ever wanted to know about how its developers designed it! (The SaX2 design document is in /usr/share/doc/packages/sax2/sax.pdf.)
Laptop-Specific Issues
Suspend and Restore
Well, I've kept you in suspense long enough: Suspend and restore just plain worked. Well, mostly -- certainly much better than in Mandrake and Fedora. In Mandrake 10.1, the system would suspend to disk but had problems on restore, such as sound not working, among others. In Fedora, attempting to restore after a suspend to disk just didn't work -- the screen would go blank and I'd have to power down and reboot. In SUSE, much to my delight, suspend to disk worked perfectly -- everything worked after restoring. In one instance, I had trouble with the USB mouse after restoring the system; however, the touchpad still worked fine, and unplugging and replugging the USB mouse restored its functionality.
Suspend to RAM, which is much faster than suspend to disk, didn't work in any of the three distributions. In all three, the system would suspend but not restore correctly, requiring a power down and reboot. To its credit, SUSE recognized that only suspend to disk would work: the suspend permissions in YaST's Power Management module allowed users to select only suspend to disk, not suspend to RAM.
Power/Battery Management
YaST's Power Management module offers several options for managing laptop power settings. You can select different power schemes to use when the system is AC powered (plugged in) and when it's running on battery. There are four built-in power schemes to choose from and you can define your own as well. Any of the power schemes, including the four built-in ones, can be edited to adjust specific power management settings. This module also provides options to tailor the actions taken as battery power run out. When the battery is at a "warning" level, a "low" level, or a "critical" level, the system can automatically notify the user, log off, go into standby mode, suspend to disk, or shut down.
The Power Management module does not replace KDE's KPowersave module, it supplements it by adding functions. And SUSE's engineers have done a nice job of integrating the two. KPowersave presents a power icon in the system tray that indicates whether the system is running on AC or battery power, along with an estimate of remaining battery power. The icon's right click menu includes several power management options, including "Start YaST2 Power Management Module." A nice piece of integration that makes the system easier to use for Linux newcomers -- all the power management options are available in one place. Presumably SUSE accomplished this by customizing KPowersave; if so, installing a non-SUSE version of KDE would remove this integration.
How well does the power management system work at prolonging battery life? I didn't run any controlled experiments to compare battery life using SUSE versus the other distributions or versus Windows. In my informal tests, my impression was that the three Linux distributions performed about the same. The battery seems to last a little over 90 minutes of active use in all three distributions. I can't compare this against Windows, however. Although my laptop dual-boots Windows XP and Linux, I don't use Windows for anything other than occasionally checking work email, which takes far less than 90 minutes. I would be interested to know other users' experiences with laptop battery life in Linux versus Windows.
Summary
All in all, SUSE Linux 10.0 OSS is the best Linux system I've used. It's easy to install and has a large selection of both desktop and server software. It has been extremely stable during my use. It is clearly an excellent choice for Linux beginners, with its fine documentation, easy installation, and comprehensive graphical configuration tools, while also offering software selection and powerful tools for the experienced user. So stop reading this article and get busy -- go get SUSE Linux and install it!
Copyright (c) 2005 by Steven J. Rosen. All rights reserved. Reproduced by DesktopLinux.com with permission.
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About the author
 Steven J. Rosen has been a software developer and systems engineer for over 20 years with IBM and Lockheed Martin Corporation. For the last 11 years, he has primarily developed large government software systems on Unix using C++. He began using Linux on his home computers four years ago, starting with Mandrake Linux 8.1, and has used it ever since. He lives in Maryland with his wife and two children.
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