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Im on vacation this week. For me, though, vacation includes carrying around my Linux-powered laptop.
So while youre 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 Novells SuSE 10 work extremely well as a road-warrior operating system.
Linuxs 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 for transporting data from machine to machine, and by my Wi-Fi equipment.
Specifically, Im in Washington, DC, with a Toshiba Satellite A35-S159. It has 512MB of RAM, a 2.3GHz Pentium 4M and a 60GB hard drive.
It also has an Atheros AR5001X+ wireless network adapter, which supports the whole Wi-Fi gamut of 802.11a, 802.11b and 802.11g, in a Centrino-style packaging.
I need all three since I run g and a in my home office. On the road, of course, while 802.11g is becoming more common, youre still more likely to find 802.11b.
In the past, Ive had great trouble getting Linux to support the AR5001X+, even though its a very common Wi-Fi set.
With SuSE 10, though, there was no trouble whatsoever getting it to work. I installed it, I tried it, it worked.
Thats my kind of setup.
eWEEK.com Senior Editor Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols has been using and writing about operating systems since the late 80s and thinks he may just have learned something about them along the way. He can be reached at [email protected].