[ltp] thinkpad 310ED

[Dr. Edmund Weitz]

Tino Keitel <tino.keitel@web.de> writes:

> I don't know any technical details about SuSE since the I haven't used it on 
> laptops, but my optinion is that SuSE is also very bloated compared to 
> Debian. The latter uses 1,1 GB on my HD and I have stuff like KDE 2, tetex, 
> xemacs, HOWTOs, kernel source, XFree86 3 _and_ XFree86 4, Java SDK and a lot 
> of developer packages installed.

I've just installed SuSE 7.3 on my laptop. It uses about 2.2 GB with
KDE 2, tetex, emacs, HOWTOs, kernel source, XFree86 3, XFree86 4,
Netscape, Mozilla, two Java SDKs, a couple of developer packages, and
five full-blown Common Lisp implementations (CLISP, CMUCL, SBCL,
Lispworks, Allegro - the latter four not being part of the SuSE distro
unfortunately).

You might call this 'bloated' but I can live with 2.2 GB on a 32 GB
hard disk. (As an alternative, you can choose a 'minimal install' or
choose the packages yourself which will leave you with about the same
size as a minimal Debian distro, I think. After all, emacs and tetex
don't get bigger just because they have been compiled by SuSE
engineers.) It is also very convenient to be able to carry around a
DVD in your DVD drive that includes the full distribution with 3,200+
apps.

I've also tried Mandrake 8.1, Debian 2.2, Progeny, and Slackware 8.
SuSE (7.2 as well as 7.3) was the only distribution so far that was
able to automatically configure the Savage driver for my T21 correctly
and that offered a 1400x1050 screen resolution during the installation
phase, no problems with the sound card either, and two external PCMCIA
devices (Nokia Card Phone and Lucent Orinoco WaveLAN card) also worked
out-of-the-box. So, to answer the OPs mail - I think that, yes, SuSE
_is_ a fine and convenient distribution for laptops.

This is not intended as a distribution flame war. For servers, I
usually use Debian or FreeBSD. For laptops, which tend to have the
latest-and-greatest hardware stuff, I can recommend SuSE. I have no
problems with people using or recommending other distros... :)

Best regards,
Edi.


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