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To initiate my experiment in running a Linux desktop I downloaded The SUSE 9.3 Network Boot ISO [57Mb] and burnt a CD using it. This CD is enough to install SUSE 9.3 on a system via the Internet. Obviously this only makes sense if you have a good connection to the Internet and you don't have a concern about the approximately 3Gb of files that are downloaded as a part of the install process. I found that the OpenSUSE a great help in understanding the network install process.

The install process went very smoothly and unlike a system like Debian, didn't require answering a lot of highly technical questions. It took about 2 hours to download and install all the components (mostly the defaults offered) and proceeded unattended.

Once SUSE was installed I was surprised at how well the default KDE mimicked the Windows user interface. While some might not see that as a good thing, it sure makes the transition from Windows a lot easier.

The first piece of software that I had to figure out how to use was YaST (Yet Another Setup Tool). This controls the installation of software and the configuration of software and hardware. This tool is somewhat akin to Window's Control Panel. It was easy to go and do a system update to make sure that I had the latest versions of all the software components using the "System Update". I also setup automatic updating on a nightly basis to keep my software as current and secure as possible.

Once the general software management was set up it was time to start exploring the system and testing of various devices to see how well they work. I also started testing my ability to do what I was doing under Windows in SUSE.

The first problem that I noticed was that I wasn't getting any audio. There were no errors and it looked like there were drivers installed for the audio hardware that I had but no sound. After lots of looking through various audio related programs, I found in YaST under Hardware/Sound and clicking on the Volume button that most of the volume levels were set at 0. That seems like an odd default setting. Once that was set properly I got audio using the associated Test button but other programs still had problems at times. For instance, I installed Skype and it worked when I started to chat with someone but later other programs generated "unable to find a sound card" or similar errors. After a couple of system reboots (for other reason) I noticed that the audio seemed to be working more reliably. I'm not sure why it's working right now but I will see as I get into a more typical usage mode if the audio really is working completely.

I was happy to say that my LG GSA-4040B DVD drive was accessible and was able to read burn disks. One of the things that I really liked about this is that I didn't have to find/buy additional software to make this happen. This is one of the great things about open source software -- most of the software that a typical user needs comes as a part of the basic installation.

My Radeon 9250 video card can handle two video monitors, one VGA and the other DVI. Under Windows I had a CRT and a LCD panel connected to my computer and was using them as two desktops. I was running them at different resolutions that were the most appropriate to their size. The 15" LCD's natural resolution of 1024 x 768 but the 17" CRT looked best at 1280 x 1024. This worked pretty well under Windows although you had to get used to the mismatch of cursor location across the boundary between the two desktops.

When I installed SUSE, the two monitors were working in "clone" mode where the two monitors showed the same desktop. The problem was that under YaST only showed a single graphics card even though this card effectively has two cards. It took a while for it to dawn on me that all I had to do was to "Add new card..." in SaX2 that is the same type as the first card. Once that was done I used the multihead component in SaX2 and set the mode to Xinerama mode that allows windows to be dragged between the two windows. Unfortunately this mode seems to require that both monitors to run at the same resolution, or at least I've not been able to set the resolutions independently. Maybe I will fix this with a little more work.