openSUSE 12 1 Just released and seems to be working

I am sure you have seen the default openSUSE 12.1 KDE Desktop, so here is a different one.

I remember when openSUSE 11.4 was released and that was probably the most broken release in their history. So broken that I decided there and then that I would be dumping openSUSE for good.

To date I have stuck to my words but for the past few months there have been significant developments in the world of Linux desktop environments. Yes, Gnome (S)hell and Unity.

Those developments have left me with a big problem, long term wise what Linux distribution should I use?

The first step in addressing this problem is to identify what Desktop Environment is available to suit my needs and right now KDE looks promising. I was impressed with Fedoras implementation of KDE in F15, even with Kubuntu 11.04 but both suffer from the occasional quirk. With Fedora being what it is, I can understand the odd quirk but Kubuntu needs to try harder.

Fast forward to Fedora 16 KDE and Kubuntu 11.10, I am finding F16 just too unreliable. You know when a distribution is unreliable when you have to hit the reset button on your PC.

Kubuntu 11.10, feels a little sluggish and rough in a few places but is at least usable.

At some point before F16 and Kubuntu 11.10 I came across Mandriva 2011, I like what they have done with KDE but usability wise they need to make it more reliable. Perhaps when they release their LTS version by the end of the year things will be better.

Hold on, who are you trying to kid, its French. But the Russians now have their hands on it. (Perhaps not then)

There are of course many more KDE distributions out there but I cant be bothered to try everything. At the end of the day I want something that works, is easy to setup and has good support.

So the quest continues or do I eat my own words and give openSUSE another chance?

I am currently running it from a Live USB, inital observations are that it is quite nippy, probably due to their desktop kernel tweaks. The Live CD / USB also comes with useful software such as Firefox, LibreOffice and GIMP which makes it a better option over Fedora and Kubuntu.

I think for now I will just continue to monitor the forums and internet as I need my system for some important work. On that note if you are wondering what operating system I am using for this important work, Ubuntu 10.04 LTS.

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