The reasons for our research is the global availability and advantageous costs of such operating systems. Many Linux desktop systems are actually free of charge to those who use them for home, public bodies and research, and its commercial versions are still much cheaper than Microsoft Windows.
Although installation and hardware compatibility is not as easy and as available as Windows, once installed is usability is much more simple than windows, i comes with very good office software that also comes as part of the system, Linux also support a site of multimedia tools that are also free of charge and there is a great range of add-ons that are certainly comparable to and some times better than the high-street operating systems.
We have started with OpenSuSe 10.2 , a Linux based operating system that is developed by Novell and with collaborators from all over the world. Our Initial research was based on installation, desktop use, network compatibility, security, multi-media, Ease of use and wireless compatibility.
We are scoring on a 1 to 5 metric as a benchmark. 1 will be poor while 5 will be best
Installation: Score 4 out of 5
Installing the system is very straight forward. The initial welcome screens are very friendly and the whole installation is guided with a comprehensive set of prompts, the screen looks very clear ans it is not intimidating at all. It was a real surprise that there were no real problems at this point. The system also has a very good way to guarantee the integrity of your installation CDs and partitioning is much easier than windows. I have done many windows installation before and this area is much more superior in Suse. The overall installation took about 1.5 hours on a laptop with a Centrino 1.3GHZ 128 RAM and 40G HD, in effect below standard laptops.
Additional software is a bit more complex, and the standard software, the ways they are installed are completely different to windows and this is an area where I needed to spend long hours and extensive research to get things such as exchange email client, RealPlayer, and Skype. but at the end I did manage to make it all work.
Desktop use: 5 out of 5.
this is probably the most user friendly desktop I have ever seen, the desktop is a combination of simplicity and use, with much better look and feel than Windows or even MacOs. all programs are accessible from a search prompt making complex navigation almost non existing. I put this t the real test by letting my 7 year old daughter use it and she found her way around much faster than she did with windows, so when you have no experience about computers at all Suse proves to be really good. In effect there is very little clutter fighting for your attention and tghis is a very big plus.
The search base navigation and filtering is something that takes very little time to get used to, but when you have windows experience this style of navigation can get in your way, then again it i very hard to make an honest opinion about this, so i let my daughter (an internet native) decide, and she sure prefers it.
I ued a Gnome desktop (there is another desktop called KDE and you can choose on installation which one you prefer) and it has features such as 3D desktop that rotates, so you can fit tons of windows. It also has a nice featurew that you can tile all your windows by just moving the mouse to the top left corner of the screen, this is something I have seen with MacOs
Network compatibility: 3 out of 5
This part was a bit of a let down, athough the system detects your network card, you really need to fiddle with network settings to get this right, I also tried to set up a windows compatible shared area and this took me about 9 hours to get together, linux network compatibility in windows is much more easier then the opposite in Suse.
Once it is all setup then it seems to work without trouble.
security: 4 out of 5
Linux and any Unix based systems have been well known for their security, and this one is no exception, Suse has a built in firewall that is much better than the recent windows XP service pack 2 one, Security updates can come from many different sources while Windows can only unpdate from the only windows update source, the update process is just as simple as windows and it is way faster.
there is also the availability of free antivirus from AVG which is my favourite Anti-virus software for all my windows systems. This is great news to me.
multi-media: 3 out of 5
Not all the multi-media that I was expecting was readily available, some things are simply not out-of-the-box. I believe there are legal implications with having things like DVD reading libraries and MP3 software and as Suse is free software it cannot come with those things readily available.
Ease of use and wireless compatibility. Now there is plenty of routes you can take to install all those missing bits. and it is not hard to find the missing software, and guess what. it is also free (as long as it is used for research, although if it is not I am unaware of anyone being legally challenged for using it for home.) . the problem of this al is that it takes time and knowledge to know why those things are not installed in the first place.
Ease of use 3.5 out of 5
I tested all office applications, to start they look great, they are easy to use and all the menus seem to make more sense than Microsoft ones, Open Office is fully compatible with Windows office and you can save and view documents in each type of office without trouble.now the file navigation takes some time to get used to but it has a built in search tool that is actually very useful. Windows has something similar but it is not built in to the window but it is like a bolted in bit of separate software. now you do need to know the name of the software in order for you to find it and this is difficult in the beginning.
Wireless: 2 out of 5
This was a mayor let down, when so much was going so well, then wireless settings and compatibility was very off putting. There is only a few compatible wireless cards that work, and the ones that do need special add-ons, mine was supposed to work but it took me for ever to set it up, the network settings are very complex and something as simple as WPA security I still have not managed to make it work. Apparently my router (which uses Linux to operate) does not like my Linux wireless.I had to put some basic MAC address security which is not ideal for my wireless network
Overall score 3.5.
Conclusion: The Open Suse 10.2 Linux system is probably much more user friendly than windows, it also has many built-in capabilities, it is scalable and very stable, you will be around £300 better off then you will be using the basic windows OS and Microsoft Office, but you will need some research to get things going. Installing it is a breeze and the desktop is year ahead of windows. now, for those that are wireless be prepared because there will be long hours to get this right if you do at all. We will recommend this system to those who want to buy second-hand computers that will not match the minimum requirements for windows or thiose who are already on a low budget, as you will be saving money on expensive software.
For those who do decide to use Suse Linux, Loboski will be offering support for this type of operating system.Please fell free to ask us any questions related to Suse, and if we do not know the answer we promise you we will refer you to those who do know. if you want Loboski to install a Linux operating system please fill in the form on the right of this screen.
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