Unboxing SuSE Linux 7.2

I’ve done a proper unboxing before on this blog, and since SuSE Linux 7.2 is contained in a box, it needs unboxing. But where normally for any box six sides are plenty to make clear what’s inside, advertise logos and paint one corner red with the word “New” (or translations thereof), SuSE apparently needed two more sides, so they simply added them.

A box with eight sides

This box was for the Dutch market, so it’s in Dutch, but the contents are mostly not. On the back side (not visible) a price sticker states ƒ180, which must have been rather steep for me in 2000/2001. Inside are five books, three leaflets, seven CDs and one DVD. The DVD has some scratches, but the CDs appear fine.

SuSE Linux 7.2 box contents

The leaflets invite registering, list support phone numbers and explicitly state exclusion of warranty, referring to the open-source nature of the software.

The Quick Install Manual is the most playful of the books. It is also the only one that is in Dutch. Using a comic style, it helps the user through the installation process, focusing on a happy flow.

SuSE 7.2 Quick Install Manual

On the first page it states that this is the fourth edition of the book. The three versions of SuSE Linux before this one were 6.4 (March 2000), 7.0 (September 2000), and 7.1 (February 2001), so supposedly version 6.4 would have been the first time this book was added. The next few pages explain what Linux is and is not and that it has to be installed before it can be booted. You’d expect someone buying this box to know that, at least I did.

The user is instructed to enter the first CD into their computer and reboot it. There is a section to solve problems at this stage as well, that mentions a boot floppy, that sadly was not in the box. The screenshot of the Language selection screen shows the Dutch language selected. That’s attention to detail.

Configuration

The book with the chameleon painting the letters LINUX from blue to green (with the word SuSE on its paint bucket) warns it is taking “the risk of boring some and overwhelming others”.

SuSE 7.2 Configuration manual

Despite the title, this manual isn’t just about configuration. It has entire chapters dedicated to introducing and explaining using KDE2, GNOME and Konqueror. Other chapters, however, explain how to configure KDE, how to use YaST2, or SaX2. There are chapters on printing or scanning, watching TV on your PC, working with the (Bash) shell and even workplace ergonomics.

Konqueror’s chapter explains the difference between Java and JavaScript and that it is the former that is needed to run Java applets. Cookies are admittedly convenient, but they “also make the user’s details transparent. (…) data may be transmitted without your approval.” (SuSE Linux 7.2 Configuration, 3rd edition (2001), p.51).

With YaST2 and SaX2, SuSE has gone to great lengths to shield the user from having to edit configuration files themselves. Even though the chapter on Bash has an introduction into basic shell usage as well as the shortest introduction into Vi that I’ve ever seen, configuring SuSE Linux and its applications is done by clicking on icons with the mouse and filling in a form here and there. But it was exactly this approach, and its limits, that made me switch to Crux, years later.

Applications

The Applications manual is what you would want or perhaps even expect from a book with such a title in such a context. It has “a summary of several programs and an introduction to using them effectively” (Foreword, SuSE Linux 7.2 Applications, 3rd edition (2001), p.iii).

SuSE Linux 7.2 Applications manual

The first chapter is on StarOffice 5.2, warning that it “cannot discuss this extensive program in all its details.” (SuSE Linux 7.2 Applications, 3rd edition (2001), p.1). StarOffice is not open source and has to be installed using an installer, a procedure which is discussed in this chapter. It then explains the basics of each of its applications Writer, Calc, StarBase, Schedule (calendar), Draw and Image (presentations) and discusses a few example use cases. It is these use case that bring the story to life. Simply listing menu functions in order doesn’t tell you how to use an application.

Other applications mentioned are Acrobat Reader, Netscape, CD player KSCD, music player XMMS, X-CD Roast, “the GIMP” and XSane but several operating system level use cases, such as faxing (using a computer prevented someone far away filling your study with fast yellowing paper) and using Audio and MIDI. Here too, documentation approaching software via use cases acknowledges that people want to do things, not use things.

Reference

What’s left are two more serious books with less playful covers, Reference Manual and Network. These are more technical in nature. Both are first editions, meaning that, contrary to the books discussed above, they weren’t included in an earlier form with earlier versions of SuSE Linux. Both have indexes and Reference Manual has a bibliography.

SuSE Linux 7.2 Reference Manual

Reference Manual’s chapters 2 (Your first Linux Installation) and 3 (YaST) contain a more in-depth explanation of the installation procedure than the Quick Install Manual discussed above, discussing for example swap partitions sizes and installation via NFS. Chapter 4 is entirely on booting, mostly using LILO, and also discusses exception flows, such as those caused by the 1024 cylinder limit of IDE disks.

Chapter 5, The X Window System, opens with a historical background that is an interesting read. Apparently, X11 was first developed in 1987 by DEC and MIT after which “a handful ambitious programmers (…) founded the XFree86 project in 1992.” (SuSE Linux 7.2 Reference Manual, 1st edition (2001), p.121).

Hardware such as PCI and ISA cards, PS/2 and USB ports, tape drives, PCMCIA, APM and infrared (IrDA) are discussed in chapters 6 and 7. Printing systems are explained in chapter 8. In chapter 9 we get to the kernel, its sources, parameters and how to load and unload modules.

The last three chapters are specific to SuSE Linux, explaining package management using the Redhat Package Manager (RPM), updates and how to upgrade from SuSE Linux 6.4 to 7.0, 7.0 to 7.1 and 7.1 to 7.2. Discussed is how SuSE Linux uses the initrd RAM disk, the Rescue system and how runlevels are used, a must-read if you are from the future and are used to systemd. SuSE Linux has a central configuration file that influences everything in /etc/rc.conf. It is discussed in detail. The book ends with a thoughtfully printed manpage of e2fsck(8) and the full GPL version 2.

Network

What seems missing from Reference Manual is a chapter on networking, but as mentioned, the SuSE documentation authors wrote a dedicated 177-page book on the subject. It discusses setting up, configuration, monitoring and security subjects such as firewalls and masquerading. Much of it is theory and quite useful even for the 2026 reader. What is the difference between TCP, UDP, ICMP and IGMP? What is the structure of an Ethernet package? How do you set up an IPV6 Address?

SuSE 7.2 Networking

There are brief introductions in setting up Apache and Squid, a proxy server. SuSE’s simple Personal Firewall is discussed as is OpenSSH. Wvdail, a program that establishes a TCP/IP connection over a phone line, is one I remember using all the time in 2001, before my flatmates allowed me to install cable.

The book ends with a section called “Security as a matter of Confidence.”

Closing

I have never reviewed five books in one blog post, much less without reading any of them cover to cover. If you have made it all the way down here, wow. I promise, for the next post I will actually turn on the ThinkCenter S50 that has both caused and allowed this project. I do believe that the other box, SuSE Linux 9.2, only contains two books, but I won’t read them entirely either.