Open Sesame Opensuse 11

One important point that lead me to abandon PC Linux was the fact that eventhough it was based on Mandriva, it did not use the same repositories. This is a major peeve for me since having different repositories and package nomenclature causes fragmentation of the linux family. Since Mandriva is more entrenched than PCLinux, and the latter owes its genesis to the former, the least that PCLinux could have done was to retain package compatibility. An analogy that springs to mind is Mint Linux and Ubuntu. While Mint is based on Ubuntu, it also retains package compatibility so any app downloaded for Ubuntu can also be used for Mint. By sharing the repositories and package standard, Mint is freed from the need to convert packages and also maintain repositories. These are major resource hoggers, especially if you are a small team (as is in the case with most distros). By splitting the Mandriva family, PCLinux has created another area that would consume resources which could have been used to better the core product.

Got the OPensuse 11 live CD with KDE4. And it works as the previous edition (10.3), which was quite good itself. The KDE4 does add a lot of additional GUI features, most of which I do not like, but one significant area of improvement is the ability to use the Realtek gigabit LAN chip onboard the motherboard. This, I assume, is because the Linux Kernel is newer and has the drivers bundled. The lan chip proved to be too slippery for all the older distros - except Belenix based on Opensolaris.

There are no conspicuous changes that immediately catch the eye. Most menu options remain the same. The Widget placeholder (on the top right corner of the screen) is new, but I do not find any need for it. The Dolphin File manager is new. As is the plugged media indicator in the system tray.