Anonymous Reader writes, “I was prepared for this review of SuSE 8.0 Professional to be a no-brainer. I had last used SuSE at version 6.4 before switching to Mandrake. I was basically happy with it then, and figured it had only improved since then. What I’ve seen after using SuSE’s latest and greatest for the past two weeks has surprised me, and not all in a good way …”

Read the full review at Linuxlookup.com.

– By Robin “Roblimo” Miller –
I’m writing this review partially because I lost my most recent game of Mozilla Roulette, which is what I call the act of downloading and installing the latest Mozilla. I was fine and stable with 0.9.8, but “upgraded” to one of the 1.0 release candidates only to be rewarded (if that’s the right word) with frequent crashes. I had Opera 6 (beta) already as part of my Mandrake 8.2 install, so instead of messing with Mozilla this week, I decided to upgrade to the final version of Opera 6.0 for Linux to see how far Opera had progressed since I last tried it.

As is rather well-known by now, Opera is a tiny download compared to Mozilla or Netscape, coming in at around 3 MB for the RPM. This is not a totally fair comparison, because full versions of Netscape/Mozilla — let’s call this pair Netzilla for short — include an email program and a bunch of other stuff Opera doesn’t have, but Opera is still tiny compared to most other browsers. As for the lack of email, I have Kmail, right? So to the Opera we go, using your basic Mandrake/KDE “click on the file in the home directory” moron-style two-second install.

No crashes

I don’t know about you, but I hate programs that crash. I work on the Internet all day long. Browser crashes irritate me immensely, because they cost me work time. I work more than enough hours without having bad code take even more minutes away from me when, as they say, I’d rather be sailing, which I truly would, especially on a day like today, with lovely blue skies and a perfect breeze here on the Florida Gulf Coast.

Opera 6 has not crashed on me yet. Not once. I’m sure it will sooner or later, because all browsers seem to crash eventually; Microsoft IE 5.x, for example, seems to be barf regularly on the current Dilbertized Google, according to friends who haven’t yet distanced themselves from The Redmond Monopolist. Netscape 4.x, the first graphical Linux browser I used, was so bad that I first fell in love with Mandrake because of it. Mandrake was nice enough to put a handy “kill” button right on your desktop. I used that button many times every day on Netscape 4.x because of its frequent freeze-ups.

I haven’t had to use that kill button on Opera so far. I haven’t had to restart Opera so far. Opera is being very, very good to me. (I am patting Opera on its cute little head and hoping this behavior keeps up. Nice Opera!)

Opera is fast

Speed has been Opera’s big boast from the start. It’s not an empty boast. Opera displays pages faster than any other graphical browser I have ever used, period. If you are always in a hurry, Opera is the perfect browser for you. MSIE and Netzilla simply aren’t in the same league. Galeon and Konq don’t compete. Opera zooms past them all, and it’s as fast on ftp downloads as a dedicated ftp program, too. This is good.

What you pay for Opera

Yes, pay. You either watch ads in the upper right hand corner of your screen — blinking ads, no less — even though Opera gives you the ability to turn off virtually every kind of ad in the browser window itself, or you pay $39 (US) to become ad-free. I used my journalistic superpowers to get a free registration key from Opera, but I was still faced with another kind of payment: Time.

Opera is wonderful and fast and all that, but if you are used to Netzilla or The Monopolist’s browser, you are going to spend at least a few hours getting used to Opera, installing plugins, and figuring out how to import your Netzilla bookmark files, assuming you can. I finally gave up on the bookmark import and put my important ones in by hand. I still don’t have all the plugins going that I’m used to, but I see instructions in the well-organized “help” file, and more on Opera’s Web site, so I’m sure I’ll be able to figure out plugins when I get some time. Perhaps that’s where some of the time I save from Opera’s ultra-fast rendering will go. We’ll see.

Another place Opera can suck up the hours is hinted at in this statement on the Opera Web site: “Opera is a highly user-friendly browser, allowing for customization of almost microscopic detail.” That’s very nice. Actually, a lot of the customization is kind of fun. Heck, you could spend days playing with cool Opera configurations and personalizations, and enjoy every minute of the exploration. Just trying out skins (there are lots of them available) could blow a morning or two.

I haven’t even tried to explore all Opera features. That could take weeks.

Rendering quality

Let’s put it this way: If a site’s HTML is in order, Opera will display it just fine. If a site has whacky HTML or badly-done cascading style sheets, Opera might make a horrible botch out of it. You can set Opera to fool browser detection schemes into thinking it’s something else as a way to get around dumb stuff like this page, brought to you by the Manatee Chamber Of Commerce in Manatee County, Florida. But Opera still won’t display a lot of this group’s Web pages correctly, because they are some of the worst examples of bad Front Page extension use in the world (which causes me a certain amount of personal embarrassment, because Manatee County is where I live).

But assuming you don’t want to do business in Manatee County, you will probably be more than satisfied with Opera’s page rendering. MSNBC displays very nicely in Opera, even without an identity spoof. Ditto Microsoft.com.

Is Opera worth the money?

I’m going to waffle. I don’t like Opera quite as much as I like Netzilla (or should I call it MozScape?) when it’s not crashing. That’s probably my own fuddy-duddyness as much as anything; once I get used to a piece of software it’s a little hard to get me to switch to something else. This is a very human trait, and is probably at least 80% of the reason people who know a move from Windows to Linux would free them of virus problems forever and save them beaucoup licensing bucks still don’t make the switch.

If my first browser experience had been Opera, and I later tried MSIE and MozScape and was told I had a choice between paying $39 for Opera and getting one of the other browsers for free, I’d almost certainly pay the money for Opera, and if I didn’t have $39 to spend, I’d no doubt use Opera for free and put up with the blinkie ads.

Naturally, Free Software purists are going to steer clear of Opera, because it is openly and unabashedly proprietary software.

As for the rest of us, it comes down to a matter of taste. Opera is more than “good enough” for everyday use, and has a lot of neat features. I’ll probably keep using it, at least some of the time. Perhaps it will eventually grow on me to the point where it becomes my primary browser, even if the next version of Mozilla I try is as stable as Opera 6 has proved to be so far.

Our friends at The Register mention a new hard drive offering from Seagate. Specifically, they say,
“Seagate is coming to the upgrade market with a new line of ‘consumer friendly hard drives’ which it will sell through retailers.”

Mikael Pawlo writes, “Several Swedish sources report that the leading Danish portal Jubii only develops new functionality for Internet Explorer. New functionality for Netscape Navigator, Opera, Mozilla and other browsers will be discontinued. Martin Thonborg, the portal manager, states to Computer Sweden that Netscape users are ‘not even a subculture, but a dying breed.’ Swedish competetors, like Lunarstorm, states that they will continue to support Mozilla, hence Netscape, while they have a large user base running Linux. Is the behaviour of Jubii common?”

Clicky writes, “A reader’s letter about illuminated keyboards led (no pun intended) Linux and Main to survey some of the popular models available and to ask readers to offer their suggestions. Commodity or item of personal computing apparel? You be the judge.”

“BOSTON–Researchers at Boston University are out to prove that a picture is worth a thousand databases…. The university’s Scientific Computing and Visualization Group recently opened a new front in the techno revolution: creating oversized and extremely detailed 3D images out of reams of data and mathematical models to better study phenomena such as solar wind, electrical pulses or particle interaction.” (Yes, it’s powered by Linux.) News.com story.

Suddenly, Peruvian congressman Dr. Edgar Villanueva is all over the place in Linuxland since he told Microsoft why Peru is better off with Open Source than with proprietary software. NewsForge is starting to feel left out, as nearly the only news outlet that covers Linux and Open Source that hasn’t interviewed this guy. At least the Linux Journal interview, while brief, has a picture. (Nice tie, eh?)

Yet another piece of IBM press release-ish news, yet another “win for Linux” article. This one (check the headline) is about the oil industry, and one paragraph says, “Landmark Graphics, a subsidiary of petroleum industry support company Halliburton, provides software for oil exploration, drilling and production. Under a three-year deal, IBM will cooperate with the company to bring these products to Linux systems. IBM will provide service and support for the products.” Read the rest at News.com.

From Codingstyle.com:

“May 22 marks the official release of Sony’s PS2 Linux kit in North America and Europe, while Japanese users have been
tinkering with their kits for about a year (in beta release; the official release for Japan was last month). To give you something to do while waiting
for your package to arrive in the mail, Codingstyle has interviewed several people in the PS2 development community, including two people from Sony
Computer Entertainment America, Inc. (SCEA) and Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, Ltd. (SCEE). For more, please read on.”

This Week’s Summary: StarOffice 6.0 Officially Released; Spotlight on
MandrakeExpert; MandrakeClub Activities; Website of the Week
(plf.zarb.org); Online Survey; Ximian GNOME for Mandrake 8.2; Mandrake
in the News; Website Updates; Software Updates; Headlines from
MandrakeForum.

StarOffice 6.0 Officially Released
----------------------------------------
Sun has officially released commercial pricing for the StarOffice 6.0 
office suite. MandrakeClub members who downloaded the OEM version, and 
Mandrake 8.2 PowerPack/ProSuite owners, can now take advantage of many 
Sun online resources such as:

    * Online documentation
    * Discussion groups
    * Training courses

If you have a problem installing or using StarOffice, the OEM license 
entitles you to one free support incident provided by Sun. And 
remember, StarOffice 6.0 can be installed onto as many as five 
individual workstations or PCs, to give you the flexibility to run the 
software on multiple machines at work, at home... wherever you want.
http://sunsolve.sun.com/staroffice/

Reminder: Mandrake 8.2 with StarOffice 6.0 is available right now for 
order at MandrakeStore:
http://www.mandrakestore.com

Or, subscribe to the Mandrake Club as a "Silver" member (and above) and 
get instant access to StarOffice 6.0 for Linux:
http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/club/


Spotlight on MandrakeExpert
----------------------------------------
Looking for Mandrake Linux support? MandrakeExpert is the official 
online support forum for Mandrake Linux users. 200 experts are 
available to help resolve your problem and answer any questions. These 
experts aren't just people sitting at a help desk reading answers off a 
script, but real experts who use Linux every day.

Stop by and ask a question. It's free! Users also have the option of 
paying for a support incident to receive a guaranteed response within a 
specific timeframe.
http://www.mandrakeexpert.com/

If you're already a Linux guru, sign up as an expert and answer the 
questions that people ask. Watch your ratings grow!  Each month, one 
main prize, plus ten runner-up prizes are awarded to the highest-ranked 
experts. Learn all the details:
http://www.mandrakeexpert.com/tech/


MandrakeClub
----------------------------------------
The most popular downloads are:

  * Codeweavers Wine
  * Real Player
  * Macromedia Flash Player
  * Crossover Plugin  
  * Opera browser
  * NVidia GLX
  * Netscape  
  * Acroread Netscape Plugin

Not yet a Mandrake Club member? To learn more, please visit:
http://mandrakelinux.com/en/club/


Website of the Week
----------------------------------------
The Penguin Liberation Front (plf.zarb.org) is an unofficial archive of 
software packages that can not be included in the Mandrake Linux 
distribution for legal reasons (such as copyright/licenses/patents, 
etc.). This independent site is maintained by Mandrake users and 
contains goodies such as DVD players which play encrypted DVD movies in 
Linux, multimedia apps, and lots more. Instructions for accessing the 
packages with urpmi are also provided on the website.
http://plf.zarb.org/

Disclaimer: Sites featured in "Website of the Week" are provided for 
your convenience only and do not constitute an endorsement by 
MandrakeSoft. Check your local laws for any restrictions or limitations 
regarding the use of the applications.


Online Survey
----------------------------------------
Should Source RPMs (SRPMs) be included in the PowerPack?

* No, SRPMs are a waste of space.
* Yes, SRPMs are an essential part of the PowerPack
* Who cares?

Cast your vote in the Voting Booth and check the results:
http://www.mandrakeforum.com/pollBooth.php?op=results&pollID=34


Ximian GNOME for Mandrake 8.2
----------------------------------------
Ximian GNOME has been released for Mandrake 8.2.
"Ximian" is a commercial software & services company that produces a 
customized version of the popular GNOME desktop -- "The Ximian 
Desktop". People who are interested in updating their Mandrake systems 
with Ximian GNOME should be aware that the download can be quite large 
(up to 200MB), and that it replaces the standard GNOME desktop.

For more information about Ximian GNOME and download locations, see:
http://www.ximian.com/products/ximian_desktop/
http://www.ximian.com/download/

MandrakeForum also has an article on the new release:
http://www.mandrakeforum.com/article.php?lang=en&sid=2135


Mandrake in the News
----------------------------------------
LinuxWorld.com --  Mandrake 8.2 offers the easiest installation ever.
Joe Barr installs the 8.2 Powerpack on a Sony Vaio laptop computer and 
concludes: "It went on like warm butter on a hot biscuit."

"In less than an hour I had Mandrake to go, ready to go. A completely 
equipped laptop with all the tools I need for work or play. Internet 
ready, to boot."
http://www.linuxworld.com/site-stories/2002/0520.mandrake.html

--

LinuxWorld.com -- A step-by-step guide to installing Mandrake 8.2.
Nick Davis, the IDG.net and LinuxWorld.com editor, posts a very 
informative beginner's guide to installing Mandrake 8.2 on a PC.

"All you need is a PC, a CD burner, an Internet connection, and some 
time to join the Mandrake club... Wow. This has been painless, and it 
will continue to be so. The folks at Mandrake did a great job creating 
a simple, user-friendly installation. Now that the file-copying is 
complete, we can whiz right on through the rest of the installation 
process, and get our new Mandrake box booted up."
http://www.linuxworld.com/site-stories/2002/0424.mandrake.html

--

NewsForge.com -- Mandrake 8.2 is boring, in the best way.
Robin "Roblimo" Miller describes his experience installing the 8.2 
PowerPack:

"Less than an hour after my review copy of Mandrake 8.2 Powerpack 
arrived, I had everything up and running, including my printer, 
wireless connection, and StarOffice, along with Mozilla and a number of 
popular plugins... This is the best Mandrake yet. Just like that. Now 
I'm going to stop typing and go watch some Quicktime movie trailers, 
Yes, a trial edition of the justifiably famous Crossover "run Windows 
browser plugins in Linux" program is included, as are trial versions of 
many other interesting commercial programs for Linux.
http://newsforge.com/newsforge/02/05/01/0044222.shtml?tid=23
  

Website Updates
----------------------------------------
MandrakeUser.org has a new Offline Archive available for download.
Tom Berger adds: "Replacing the older archives is strongly recommended 
since this version contains many fixes and updates."
http://www.mandrakeuser.org/download.php


Software Updates
----------------------------------------
Security-related software updates have been released for:

tcpdump -- fixes buffer overflows
fileutils -- fixes race condition
iptables -- temporary fix for iptables NAT/ICMP information leak 

View the complete list at:
http://www.mandrakesecure.net


Headlines from MandrakeForum
----------------------------------------
Killing Spam With Spamassassin.
If you're sick of spam, "Spamassassin" could be the ideal solution. 
Mandrake user 'fischerz' describes how to install and configure this 
spam killer.
http://www.mandrakeforum.com/article.php?lang=en&sid=2140

Installing The Netscape Browser on Mandrake Linux
Tom provides step-by-step instructions on installing the latest 
Netscape release in Mandrake 8.2.
http://www.mandrakeforum.com/article.php?lang=en&sid=2137

LinuxJournal Reviews Linux DVD Players.
Tom opens a discussion about DVD players that work in Linux; readers 
contribute their own suggestions and experiences.
http://www.mandrakeforum.com/article.php?lang=en&sid=2129

German Linux Campus Portal goes online.
Denis writes: "As promised at CEBIT, our German training partners have 
opened a German Linux Campus portal. Thanks to this new site, all the 
Linux Campus related information, including the description of the 
courses, schedule, prices and online booking in whole Germany can be 
found and booked on one place: www.linux-campus.de!"
http://www.mandrakeforum.com/article.php?lang=en&sid=2116

Too many applications?
Does the distribution contain too many applications? Are you missing a 
favorite application from the 8.2 PowerPack or from the Download 
Edition? This story explains why certain software was removed from the 
CDs (Download & PowerPack) and how to install the additional 
applications.
http://www.mandrakeforum.com/article.php?lang=en&sid=2124

Read these and other stories at MandrakeForum
http://www.MandrakeForum.com/

----------------------------------------