SuSE Linux Demonstrates Old PCs Still Have Use

By: Rob Reilly
Monday, May 12, 2003 11:26:53 AM EST
URL: http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reviews/4795/1/

From The Out Of His Mind Department

What? Are you nuts? Running SuSE 8.2 Linux Professional on a 150 Mhz Pentium? That will never work.

That's exactly what I did do and it did work, admirably.

SuSE 8.2 Linux Professional has many great features and is easy to get up and running. Most of the readers probably have more current hardware, but isn't it comforting to know that the latest and greatest offering from SuSE will run well on just about anything you have in your company? That should calm the frayed nerves of any CIO, in this day of stingy budgets and a tight business environment.

Speaking of budgets, let's not forget that the SuSE 8.2 Professional version costs $79.95 at the SuSE store online. With no licensing headaches. It includes: the 2.4.20 kernel, KDE 3.1, Gnome 2.2, OpenOffice.org 1.0.2, Apache 2.0.44, desktop sharing, and a whole host of other enhancements over previous versions. The SuSE installation program YAST2 has been upgraded considerably with intelligent default values and clean, coherent user interface screens. Take a look at the new YAST2 screen in Figure 1 to see what I mean.

Overall, anyone that is interested in a powerful, easy to load Linux desktop machine on just about any hardware, should really consider SuSE 8.2 Linux Professional.

Now on to the details.

Putting 8.2 On The Machine

The hardware was a standard old office 133 Mhz. Pentium, over-clocked to 150. It had 64 MB of memory, a 3.0 GB Maxtor disk, a generic 10/100 NIC, 2 MB Mach 64 video card, generic Soundblaster audio card and a WinTV TV/capture card. The monitor was a 17 inch NEC Multisync XE17. I ran a standard AT keyboard and no-name 2-button serial mouse. Power supply was a generic 150 watt unit. Nothing special, but nothing really unusual, except maybe for the age of the components. The machine was donated for testing purposes, from my pal John in Melbourne, Florida. He runs an elementary school computer lab using a Linux Terminal Server Project setup. Total cost: dinner.

Installation was about as straightforward as you can get, albeit a little slow on the old 133. The number 1 CD was inserted into the 4X CD drive and the machine was started. Very soon the usual SuSE installation screens came up. I had a choice of text or 640x480 video mode during installation. I always liked the 1024x768 in version 8.0, myself. There are now 5 CDs and 2 DVDs instead of the 7 CDs and 1 DVD of version 8.0. SuSe also now has light blue backgrounds instead of the old light olive green color scheme.

As you would expect the "Installation Settings" screen eventually appeared where the mode, keyboard, mouse, partitioning, software, booting and so on were set.

Partitioning of the 3.0 GB drive was set to 2.7 GB for / using the default Reiser journaling file system. Since I had 244 MB allocated for swap when I had 128 MB in the machine, I just left it there, even though I had yanked out 64 Megs.

Software was the default system including help docs, the KDE desktop, office applications, graphical base system and the C/C++ compiler/tools. OpenOffice.org, evolution, the gimp and gnucash were included in the office applications group by default. I made sure Mozilla, Lynx, and FVWM2 were included, as well. Total software space used was a scant 1.72 GB.

SuSE now uses GRUB as its default bootloader. I chose to go with the tried and true LILO, instead. Just a personal preference and something I'm halfway familiar with.

One thing that always tripped me up with SuSE was that the time zone always seemed to default to USA/Pacific. I'm in the Eastern time zone and it seemed like a little bit of a pain to change it once the system was up and running. Set it to the correct one during installation and save yourself some trouble.

The only task that I had to spend any time on was setting up the video mode. The default seemed to be 640x480. I simply went into the YAST2 control center-> Hardware -> Graphics Card and Monitor and changed it to the 1024x768 and 16 bit color setting.

Another cool feature was that during installation you are asked if you want to install the latest patches to the installed packages. If you answer "yes," YAST2 goes off does the job automatically. Past versions allowed you to update only after installation.

SuSE took care of finding all the hardware, it configured the network card, and loaded all the chosen software with very minor changes on my part. This is the perfect version for a complete newbie to Linux. I think SuSE has done an admirable job streamlining installation.

New Features in SuSE Linux 8.2

KDE 3.1

I'm a fan of KDE, for my normal desktop and the 3.1 version included in SuSE worked well. It's sporting a light blue background theme and the new artsy (kind of fuzzy) type icons. Also, most buttons now have rounded edges and a 3-dimensional look to them. Another feature that shows up in KDE 3.1 is desktop sharing. The Melbourne Linux User Group runs desktop sharing now, in addition to audio streaming and IRC during their regular Tueday night meetings. Remote meeting attendees can now see what is being discussed, just like sitting in the audience eye-balling it first hand. And, it worked just fine on my home network, between the 133 Mhz Pentium and my laptop. Response was good, even though my laptop was on a wireless link.

Sometimes I like to boot up a machine (particularly my laptop) and run FVWM2, especially when I'm in a big hurry and need to do a little job. For those of you into minimal desktops, total time to start for FVWM2 was 10 seconds. Also, FVWM2 has a neat little utility to help with configuration. I made sure FVWM2 was included during installation.

OpenOffice.org

OpenOffice.org 1.0.2 is now installed by default when you choose "Office Applications" during installation. OpenOffice.org is the StarOffice clone that has word-processing, spreadsheet, graphics, and presentation functions in an easy to use package. I use OpenOffice for many of my documentation jobs, including resumes, business letters, spreadsheets and slideshows.

Gnucash

Gnucash is a checkbook management system. It's similar to other money management packages in the Windows world like Quicken and MoneyCounts. The program is pretty simple to start and goes through a basic setup routine to establish accounts. Once that is done it's possible to perform normal financial accounting functions. See Figure 2 for a look at its interface.

MainActor

MainActor is a video editing program. I was able to start the application. I also tried to paste in an AVI file to the time-line, but didn't have any luck. I could paste in some jpegs and the program would step through the time-line during a preview, without trouble. The reader will have to try it out on their own equipment because in this instance, I just don't think the 133 Pentium was completely up to the task. See Figure 3 for a screenshot of MainActor and Figure 4 for a screenshot of the MainActor sequencer.

Old Favorites Still There

For those of you that think SuSE has gone totally graphical, I'm happy to report that they still retain the ncurses text-based YAST2 installation tool in version 8.2. While a graphical installation tool is a great help for the user that's new to Linux, being able to use text-only based tools are a time saver for more advanced users and system admins. Of course, some gurus still set up everything by hand, on the actual configuration files. What do you know, an operating system that is friendly for all levels of expertise.

I have a Hauppauge WinTV (Brooktree BT848 chip) card in this machine, so I can keep up with news, particularly when my children monopolize the family room TV. I had been using MoTV to display the picture, but on this installation SuSE used KWinTV as the default. So, I tried it out. Since it was a new installation, I had to scan channels again to see anything. You scan channels with the Wizard under the Program tab. After that step, it worked great. As expected the picture couldn't really be used at full screen because of the 2 MB of video memory, but in small windows the picture is pretty clear. KWinTV has a nice interface and is easy to use. I paid $20 for the WinTV card, after rebates. See Figure 5.

The Gimp is another old favorite that I tried out under SuSE 8.2 Pro. I use it for photo touch up and graphics resizing. All the functions seemed to work well.

Performance on the Ancient Hardware

The performance of SuSE 8.2 on this old 133 Mhz Pentium wasn't that bad, especially considering that most of the time spent waiting is when an application initially loads. After the apps are running, waiting for screen paints and switching between window panes is fairly minimal. Through the magic of a multi-tasking, multi-user operating system like Linux, most users would just load the applications and then leave the machine on all the time. That's what I do and just click between windows and desktops as needed. Normally, I run six desktop screens and put an application in each one. Here are some load numbers.

The Books

SuSE's approach to hard copy documentation seems to be a little inconsistent. 7.3 Pro had 4 thin books labeled: configuration, reference manual, applications and network. Version 8.0 Pro had 3 books, basic, applications and reference. This version has 2 books labeled: administration guide and user guide.

I thumbed through the administrative guide and found coverage of the boot management, printer operation, configuring and using laptops, and networking. Special attention was given to sound setup, file synchronization, heterogeneous networks and network security. For a new user, the guide gives a good description of how things work under SuSE Linux and would be a great place to start to learn the system.

The 8.2 User Guide covered topics like YAST, KDE, Gnome, Konqueror, Evolution, OpenOffice and other office type applications. While the guides seem a little sparse, compared to most heavy duty Linux user's libraries, they provide enough information so a new Linux user can start being productive right away. SuSE seems to have a strong focus on the desktop audience with version 8.2.

Now Who's Crazy

SuSE 8.2 Linux Professional was easy to install and provided capable business and home computing functions at a reasonable price. New users should have little trouble doing the installation, if they have basic knowledge of Intel based computer hardware. Some of the newest additions to this release, such as Evolution and some of the multimedia programs were not reviewed because I didn't have an Exchange server to test against and could only cover so much in a feature article.

Trying out the latest SuSE package on a rusty old computer might be crazy, but you can't argue with the fact that the machine performed pretty well and would be quite usable as a regular business workhorse or home internet/word-processing box. Most readers probably have a few of these machines, just gathering dust, that could be put to use right now.

I'm happy enough with 8.2 that I'm going to put it on all of the machines in my lab, including my laptop.

Rob Reilly (aka: "Dr. Torque") is a professional writer and senior technology consultant, whose work includes Linux, business systems integration, innovation training and occasional hot rodding excursions. He frequently writes and speaks about these and other topics. He has 17 years experience in the high technology, manufacturing and the utilities industries. He is always on the lookout for stories and projects that focus on Linux, business and the cutting edge. Send him a note or visit his web site at http://home.cfl.rr.com/rreilly.