openSUSE/KDE 4
As for its look, KDE 4 ("openSUSE edition") is quite impressive, though I'm not sure it is ready for much more then tracking the development. The following details my attempts at making it work for me.
Installation
I still think openSUSE's installation procedure is way too technical and far from being intuitive. Though easy to finish successfully, YaST is awkward, too detailed, and the installation involves too many stages (especially when compared to other desktop distros, such as Ubuntu, or even PC-BSD and DesktopBSD, which manage to get it done with quite effectively).
Credit: openSUSE GNOME variant installer from Novell's website
- The only problem I run into with the installer was finding myself at the console (at runlevel 3) when it was all done... mind you, "startx" works just fine...
WiFi
- Netopia WiFi Pen: does not work with WPA, works fine unencrypted (didn't try WEP). Surprisingly, the card got associated with router, and I got an IP address, but couldn't connect to the Internet, even though the routing table seemed OK.
Mass storage devices
- Removable Media (DOK): could mount and unmount, though couldn't access the content, unless as root
- Camera (Sony Alpha 100): was mounted as a (VFAT) mass storage device, but was not accessible to me, unless as root. Also, digiKam (still not ported to KDE 4) could not identify the camera, nor access it as a mass storage device.
- Trying to poke around AppArmor profiles...
Desktop & User interface
KDE 4 seems to have come along just fine, and openSUSE is one of the best showcases of what's going on so far, with almost all parts integrated and functional... sort of (see notes above).
- Konqueror seems to render pages rather differently then Fireofx 3 (Beta 5), and they don't look very pretty. In some case, like on Blogger, the text disappears as the mouse hover over the text.
Conclusion
Though I can't say openSUSE 11 is ready (it is in beta after all), I was hoping for a smoother experience at this stage. Most of the things which did not work for me here, worked with other distros, but not all. PC-BSD seems to crash when using the Netopia WiFi Pen for a while, and other distros, such as Ubuntu, could not complete WPA authentication either.
Notes:
- AFAIK there are no drivers ready for nVidia (unless installed manually)
Links:
More screenshots of openSUSE 11 beta 2