All of the Windows NTFS partitions will be mounted as read-only and be assigned the mount points: /windows/C, /windows/D,...etc. All files on these NTFS-formated volumes are accessible and can be exported as shared volumes on the network under either Samba or NFS. The utility of this new feature, however, is distinctly limited. Without the ability to handle the metadata journaling of NTFS volumes for the dormant Windows OS, writing to these disk partitions while running Linux is simply impossible. Furthermore, Windows is unable to read the Linux partitions. As a result, it is still necessary to use a FAT32 partition or an external network storage device in order to update any data that is "shared" between the Linux and Windows partitions on a dual-booted system.

While dual booting is an attention grabber, there are many more interesting changes and additions to YaST in this new release. The most dramatic change is the complete absorption of YaST into the KDE Control Center. This makes YaST accessible to all users, but not necessarily usable by all. Most of the YaST components require entering into "Administrator mode," which requires root password verification. When in Administrator mode, YaST displays the component wrapped in a red frame.

The lion's share of the additions to YaST deal with networking and mobile computing. From a user interface perspective, a rather significant change has been made to Samba, which is now under the YaST umbrella for the first time. There are now Samba client and Samba server tabs in YaST that appear to be similar to the client and server tabs for NFS.

Like the NFS Server tab, the Samba Server tab introduces a set of forms to configure how local printers and files will be exported to other users for sharing. Unlike the NFS client tab, the Samba client does not setup sha res to be imported and mounted at login time. The Samba client module simply provides a way to define a default workgroup or the log into a Windows domain for authentication. This may seem like a trivial extension to YaST at first glance; however, it is actually a key component in replacing the LAN Information Server (LISa) daemon in order to provide users of SUSE Linux with a network- browsing scheme that more closely parallels the look and feel of Windows.

SUSE has added a "Local Network" icon to the user's desktop that links to a new network-browsing applet that closely mirrors the behavior of the "Network Neighborhood"/ "My Network Places" applet found in Windows. Clicking on the Local Network icon brings up all of the Windows workgroups and domains discovered on the Network. From there, all of the systems in any selected workgroup or domain will be listed using the system's name rather than the system's IP address. 

Another major new networking feature in YaST, which is sure to please IT road warriors, is the added support for most of the common WinModem implementations. Inexpensive, brain-dead, Windows-only modems have long been a staple of laptop computers. Long a lock-in device for Windows and a bane for Linux, these modems can now be accessed and controlled with SUSE Linux. What's more, in good Open Source community tradition, scripts are provided within YaST to utilize a vast array of national and international Internet dialup services, which typically provide their subscribers with a login wizard that only works with Windows.

Commanding center stage for all the changes and additions to YaST in SUSE Linux 9.0 is the System Configuration Profile Management (SCPM) applet. In a recent poll on network usage, better than 3 out of 4 of Open's readers indicated that they use laptop computers on multiple networks. For such users, SUSE's much improved SCPM now provides an easy-to-use system to manage configuration profiles.

Using a database construct, SCPM provides a mechanism to associate a complex collection of settings that represent the current status of the running system as a profile, store these settings, and activate the entire collection when needed. Under the SCPM scheme, a profile is essentially a container object that holds sets of resources. Currently there are three types of resources, which implement specialized logic.

The three resource types are:
 

The new interface to SCPM in SUSE Linux 9.0 Professional defines a plethora of preconfigured sets of resources and initializes a popular subset when SCPM is enabled. For quick profile switching, the database be allowed to grow excessively.

Its important to note that the SCPM module simply defines the resources that will be placed in the profile container. The act of defining a profile captures the current values of those resources for the database. As a result, these profiles can be quite complex involving such things as the importing and exporting of file shares, as well as the starting of Web and e-mail services.

In addition to all of the applications and system management software bundled with SUSE Linux 9.0, the package also features a long list of hardware drivers including high-end I/O devices such as Ultra320 SCSI and 2Gbit Fibre Channel host bus adaptors. In addition, the standard SUSE Linux 9.0 Professional distribution supports both 32-bit systems—Intel X86 and AMD Athlon—and 64-bit systems—AMD Athlon64, which is an implementation of Opteron for the desktop. As a result, SUSE Linux 9.0 Professional is equally at home when setting up high-end Xeon- and Opteron-based servers as it is when configuring a screaming Intel P4- or AMD Athlon64-based gamebox.

We tested the performance of SUSE Linux 9.0 on a dual-processor Xeon server from HP, the ML350 G3, and a dual-processor Opteron server from Appro, the 1122Hi. In both cases we compared our results to the same server running SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 8 X86 and Opteron distributions respectively.

CPU performance was spot-on equal between SUSE Linux 9.0 Professional and SLES 8 on both the Xeon and Opteron servers. On the Opteron server we used our best- performing 32-bit code compiled with Intel's C/C++ compiler. As a result, our Opteron tests in this review were restricted to the AMD 64-32 emulation environment.

In addition to our CPU test, we tested I/O performance on the HP ML350 G3 using an Adaptec 39320D-R Ultra320 SCSI controller and 4 Maxtor 15K drives. In line with SUSE's goal of providing the latest functionality of the Linux Professional distribution series, SUSE Linux 9.0 is the first distribution to include drivers for the Adaptec Ultra320 SCSI series of controllers.

In line with CPU performance, SUSE Linux 9.0 exploited the Adaptec controller and Maxtor drives perfectly. The HP's I/O subsystem delivered a stream of I/O operations that peaked at about 2,400 IOPs per second.

The expanded system management functions in YaST, extensive driver support, and kernel support for 64-bit AMD processors combine to make this new SUSE Linux 9.0 Professional distribution a must-have for developers and IT professionals. And if all of that leaves you unconvinced, the final release version of this distribution will also include a Linux 2.6 kernel for testing.