Suse Linux Professional 9.3 64bit

Novell's distribution aimed at 'power users' rather than companies

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Price: £65

Manufacturer: Novell

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Verdict

Pros:
Easy 64bit computing; rich features; easy to set up

Cons:
Unstable beta applications; problems can be complex to fix

Overall:
Excellent Linux distribution and a great way into 64bit computing, but best suited to enthusiasts

Tim Anderson, Personal Computer World 18 Aug 2005

Suse Linux Professional 9.3 is positioned by Novell as its 'power user' distribution. Enterprises are meant to play safe with the more conservative Novell Linux Desktop. The two products are based on the same core, but Suse lives closer to the bleeding edge with a more up-to-date bundle of applications, some of them beta releases.

Despite these cautionary notes, Suse is just as usable and stable as other popular distributions. Version 9.3 uses the 2.6 kernel, and comes with lots of applications, including a pre-release Open Office 2, Linphone Voice over IP, and Bluetooth and wireless networking support.

Suse's 64bit edition is included along with the standard 32bit build. The 64bit edition is installed by default on systems that support it. When you install, the only 64bit indication is a tiny '64bit' caption on the very first screen. It's easy to miss and you could install the 64bit edition without realising. Only the presence of the lib64 directories show that you have entered the world of 64bit computing.

On the surface, most things work the same as on 32bit systems and existing programs execute seamlessly. Linux has an advantage over proprietary operating systems, in that most software is distributed as source code. Provided that the developers take care to make their code 64bit compatible, the software compiles equally well for either platform. The result is that most packages in Suse Linux are true 64bit. There are some important exceptions, such as Open Office and Adobe Acrobat, but thanks to the flexibility of the hybrid AMD and Intel processors, 32bit code also runs with full performance.

It turns out that Suse Linux is an excellent platform for 64bit computing. On our Intel EM64T system, everything worked more or less immediately, including USB, Intel Hi-definition audio, and the Nvidia Geforce 5900 PCI Express graphics. We could compile and run 64bit applications, while 32bit applications such as Open Office ran fine as well.

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