Suse is a great and now free distro of linux, it has great hardware support and have made it easy for a windows user to transfer to linux os. suse is completely open source, well at leas the open source version.

Red hat on the other hand is very good and is used more for IT and big companies. NASA uses redhat so as dell and hp. but it is a commercial linux, and can get pretty expensive. its more for the engineer and IT pro.

overall suse is best for the average user that wants an easy linux distro to get started with and never change.
i personally recommend it my self.

so, the real info is the fact that you like Suze. I didn't really see if you prefer Suze or if you prefer Redhat, or if you prefer Suze because it's free.
The free version of Redhat looks really closely to the commercial distribution, so for the beginner you will not see immediately the difference. Personnally, I found Suze less comfortable than RedHat, and RedHat seems less easy to use than Mandrake. However, this is not technical, this is a look-and-feel info.

I'd like to add up to you yordan ..

I have the 4 CDs of SuSE ready to start install, but waiting till the next Thursday for my exams to get over so i can dedicate time. But just today i popped in CD1 and went through the first few screens. I have NEVER used linux and installing a linux OS is out of my league, you give me a windows installation and i'll tell u what screen comes where and after what time. But today after seeing the screens of SuSE, i felt it would be a little eazy, but the explaining done is quiet indepth.

I stopped on the partition part because i didnt know what option to choose or should i go with the default option. It said "Shrink windows partion" .. lol now i can interpret it as it would keep the installation and configure it to fit a linux installation WITHOUT disturbing the partition i have already made through windows. When i hit the next button it shows me a box that says, "Formating and creating partitions will erase everything on your drive .."

I wanted to keep the present windows installation and install linux so if i need to go through my subject files and documents or if anything wrong happens i could get back to windows. But this was the case .. I feel that SuSE looks good .. but they need to do some work to improve "Detailed Explaination" for the n00b user on every step and not go so "hi-fi"

Regards
Dhanesh.

If your Windows Partition uses the whole disk, there's no room left for a Linux installation. Then, you use the option "shrink windows partition" ; I would not say "without disturbing the partition you made" ; however, "shrink the windows partition" makes the windows partition smaller, so that there is free space for creating the Linux partitions.
Usually, before starting anything, i decide which space I will give to whom. for instance, now I am formatting my new disk : 14 giga for Windows, then two 30 gig FAT 32 partitions (in order to be read/write from Linux AND from windows), then 30 gig NFTFS partions, the last 20 Gig will be left unused, in order to install Linux.

Thankx for the quick post yordan, I got what ur trying to tell me .. but when i get hands-on with the linux installation i know whats actually happening, i wouldent wana intrude this thread .. i'll make a new one. Just another one week to go for the exams and m off to linuxville

Thanks again
Regards
Dhanesh.

I would say Novell's SuSE is doing better than the RedHat/Fedora family. Fedora is now filled with pot-holes and such.

xboxrulz

Yea redhat just doesn't have it anymore IMHO, however Suse seems to be getting stronger with each release. I really enjoy using Suse, it's well put together and just solid all around. Redhat is quite good it just has more issues to worry about. I too would reccomend suse over redhat...if those were the only linux distros I had to choose from

My dad owns both SuZe and Fedora, and he said SuZe has really improved now since Novell has taken it over. My friend has Fedora Core 2 and he says it's great also, but I geuss it really depends on what your planning to do, if you want a personal server/intranet I would use Fedora Core or Redhat, if you don't have the money to go buy a $70 OS and you don't plan on using PHP/MySQL/Apache then I would go with SuZe.

Fedora and SuSE are both FREE in open source and in money-wise.

xboxrulz

I prefer Suse, it doesn't only look better because it uses KDE (standard) instead of GNOME.
Plus, every RedHat I've tried was pretty slow, even FedoraC3 ran very slow . Suse on the other hand runs pretty smooth on my oldie PIII733.

Ow, and Suse is (as stated in another topic), more for l33t users (as me )