> I haven't spent much time with Suse, but does anyone really know the
> differences between Suse 9 Personal, Suse 9 Professional and Suse Linux
> Enterprise Server (SLES) 8.  I don't care much about the GUI interface,
> this will be on a server where most of the maintenance is done via the
> command line.  I'm looking if there is any advantages / disadvantages for
> each version when running web, mail, dns, database types of services.

Jim,

Josh's assessment is right on (with the exception of the slap at YaST ;-)
but here's a little more of the differences as I understand them. I've
been a SuSE user since 6.2 which is about 3.5 years.

Basically SuSE Professional includes most of the server and development
tools you'd want on the CD-ROMs. The Personal version will include all the
multimedia software and "end-user" software, but only some of the server
software you might want.

One of the main differences between the standard SuSE Linux products and
the SLES product is the time frame for upgrades. SuSE Linux is upgraded
twice a year (2nd and 4th Quarters usually) while the Enterprise server is
upgraded at most once a year. Updates and patches are released as needed
but the version is not rolled more than once a year. This allows them to
maintain certs for things like Oracle, Lotus Notes, and other big packages
that need to be tested. Basically they promise the Enterprise customer
that what they invest in today will be the version that gets SuSE's
attention for at least the next 12 months. There's a product roadmap on
the www.suse.com site that explains some of this.

FWIW I like SuSE that's why I've stayed with it. Unlike Josh I happen to
like YaST as a tool. It may be that after enough time I'm just used to it.
The other thing that Josh mentioned that I'll second is hardware
recognition. I purchased and AverMedia TV tuner card and YaST picked it up
and configured it with out any hassle. So unless you need the stability of
the Enterprise package (or the support contracts available for it) the Pro
package should do what you need.

----
Jack Ungerleider - local SuSE bigot
jack at jacku.com

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