Product: 1590594584

As a total Linux ‘Noob’ (newbie, new user) I’ve just finished installing SUSE 9.1, dual booting with Windows XP, using the DVD that came with this book, and using the first few chapters as a guide. Here are my initial thoughts…

Seems like a good book: good writing style, well edited, and a good value here on Amazon. The description of the installation process doesn’t quite match what I saw on screen. I had particular problems trying to resize my partition and finally bailed and accepted the installation’s defaults (mainly laziness on my part). There were some hardware issues, however:

1) Linux did not recognize my wireless keyboard during the install. It wouldn’t let me click to close the very first dialog box, so I couldn’t proceed with the installation. Plugged in a wired keyboard to fix that issue.

2) I have an ATI All-In-Wonder X800 video card, which isn’t supported. The install completed, but the graphics were terrible. I Googled ‘suse ati x800’ and found that lots of people were having issues with this graphics card. There were fixes, but involved downloading drivers and recompiling Linux, so I replaced my X800 with an older Radeon 9600 and it worked flawlessly.

My point from these ramblings is that I am looking for alternatives to Windows (I have real concerns about Longhorn / Vista) and I will make the effort to become knowledgeable about Linux. Ultimately, I expect to use both operating systems (with a 91% user base, Windows won’t be going away). Linux has come a long way in the last few years and looks great, but don’t expect to master it without some effort and commitment, and don’t try to use it with cutting edge hardware that probably won’t be immediately supported.
Rating: 5
1590594584
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