Irfan’s Corner on the Web On Mac, Linux, Grid, Virtualization and Software Technology

Free OpenSuse 10.2 DVDs

From the last few posts you can easily see how much I've come to love openSuse 10.2. Many geeks in Pakistan unfortunately don't have access to highspeed internet to download openSuse 10.2 DVD, and only old Fedora and Redhat 9 are available in the local market, using older distros discourages people fomr switching to Linux. So I've started a mini-campaign to spread openSuse in Pakistan, I'll be 'shipping' 100 DVDs intially and over a period of 1 month, and seeing how well it goes. I could scale up with a little help.

I would love to write the ISO image of the DVD so that someone can burn a copy for their friends.

If you are in Pakistan and are interested in trying out openSuse 10.2, please mail your address to freesuse@phantomos.org

OpenSuse completely supports my Notebook!

Good news for Dell Inspiron Users: Your notebook is completely supported in OpenSuse 10.2

You can check out these tutorials for getting ubuntu run on Dell Inspiron and this one for Fedora. What do both have in common? Massive manual configuration encompassing kernel recompilations and what not.
However in OpenSuse 10.2, I didnt have to do any special configuration at all to get my hardware running. OpenSuse 10.1 supported everything except the MMC card reader (from Ricoh). Now this is supportedd aswell.

However one thing that is not supported is hardly openSuse's fault: The Connexant Modem. Connexant Modems are notorious for their proprietory hardware standards and focus on the Windows users! Besides I hardly use a dialup connection so this is irrelevant for me. For those reader who do use dial-up connections, I would suggest that you get those cheap external modems (hardly $30).

Ubuntu came to fame purely through marketting and hype! I believe that OpenSuse is the better Desktop/Notebook distro and without any proportional marketting/advocacy large parts of the human population will be deprieved of the 'better' Linux. I personally will soon get a pack of DVD's and spread it amongst my friends.