I Love a Shiny New Reptile.

In my last reviews of openSUSE 11.1 and openSUSE 11, I had a number of stability issues with KDE 4.0 and 4.2 which led me to stick with the GNOME interface. However, there had been numerous reports on various mailing lists and community discussion forums that KDE 4.3 is now the fully “baked” version of 4.x, so I wanted to give KDE 4 a go again. I’m glad I did.

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Cue “Eye of the Tiger” and the Jaunty Jackalope DVD

The fight of the century? GNOME vs. KDE , the two titans of the Linux desktop. Sure there are welter and lightweights that shouldn’t be ignored, such as XFCE, Enlightenment and GNUStep/WindowMaker, but let’s face it, it’s the two heavyweights that rule the roost on all of the desktop Linux distributions that are getting the lion’s share of attention, that being Ubuntu, Fedora, and openSUSE.

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Novell produces its 2002 BMW 7-Series with SLED 11

At first glance, Novell’s SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 (SLED 11) is virtually indistinguishable from the company’s Free/Open Source and community supported Linux distribution, openSUSE 11.1. But does SLED 11 have the extra polish and the value add to justify its position as Novell’s premier enterprise desktop OS?

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Geeko needs some Quality Assurance, Novell!

From a pure technical achievement, openSUSE 11.1 is at package parity with the best Linux distributions available — such as Fedora 10 and Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex 8.10. In many ways it’s more polished, as clearly it has a lot of customization work that went into it to make it well-integrated, but at the same time, the distribution still feels like it was designed for people who know what they are doing, not for regular end-users. By trying to be a Server, Developer, and end-user Desktop platform at the same time, its target audience remains unfocused and its scope is too big. It’s now the Linux equivalent of the Swiss Army knife with 50 separate tools in it.

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Is Your Linux a Mercedes or a Volkswagen?

“I’ve only begun to scratch the surface of this vast and powerful Linux distribution. Many improvements in usability, performance and stability have been made, enough that OpenSUSE has won me back as an end-user.  However, I would still say at this point in the distro’s evolution, it is not the Linux for the masses or even for the people. It remains true to its roots, which was and still is for power users with systems that can fully take advantage of everything it has to offer. If Ubuntu is a Volkswagen, then OpenSUSE is a Mercedes-Benz.”

Read the rest of this article on ZDNet Between The Lines.