I have tried it at each stage of development and today ran the RC
For me it’s been pretty stable right thru
But guess what – I’m writing this now from 11.4 M2 KDE, which I just installed back over Ub*
Don’t get me wrong, Ub* works just fine, but I just can’t live with it.
But I tell you what, M2 is wonderful on this R61
Love Ubuntu here 
Best for Nubs like me
11.4 M2 I take it is the next Suse? Why is it called M2?
M2 = Milestone 2
I too tried out Ubuntu 10.10 RC on my netbook and its really nice but I just can’t go back to Ubuntu after using openSUSE because openSUSE is just nicer - Installed openSUSE 11.3 back on my netbook again
M = Milestone
RC = Release Candidate
GM = Gold Master
Cool beans, Thankies
So, it’s clear to you that the sequence to a full release is :
M1
M2
M3
M4
…
RC
GM
Stable release
Where the Milestones are considered not stable, to be used for testing, not for production use?
How does the release cycle for Suse work then? Do the point release last a set amount of time? As in between 11.2 - 11.3 - 11.4 is there 6 months between each? How big is the difference between each one?
Too may questions… Must read Suse docs 
Pyux,
Here at Opensuse for right now our cycle is a new release every 8 Months.
Yup. It stands for “Ubunticide”, and those here that stepped back from the brink were saved. 
I booted the Ubuntu-10.10 Gnome desktop i386 liveCD to my wife’s laptop earlier today. In fact, I’m typing from it now.
This is the Linux ‘killer’ Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo 7400M with the Intel i855GM graphics, and like every other Linux distribution with a kernel after the 2.6.27 kernel (Ubuntu-10.10 has the 2.6.35-22 kernel) it failed miserably with the Intel graphics. I currently have it running X with the FBDEV driver (which I can also do with the openSUSE versions) and its slow slow slow. Just like every other Linux distribution since openSUSE-11.1 (with its 2.6.27 kernel) the Intel driver fails with this i855GM graphics. I had thought there ‘might’ be a chance Ubuntu works, since someone did create a liveCD of Ubuntu-10.04 with a trial kernel patch for the bug that has bitten the i855GM, but that patch has not made it upstream to the Linus GIT stream and it appears like most (maybe all) other Linux distribution, Ubuntu packaging staff are not going to take a chance on this trial and uncertain patch.
With the FBDEV driver, this laptop is almost not useful for anything more than surfing (but without video playback which is too painful with the FBDEV driver).
One thing I will say about Ubuntu-10.10 is it did not even try to show it attempted the Intel driver (via a failed black screen). Instead X just came up with Gnome, and one had to initially deduce by the pathetic peformance (of FBDEV) followed by looking at the /var/log/Xorg.0.conf file, that the Intel driver did NOT load (but the FBDEV did load).
With Ubuntu-10.10, for brand new users, at least having X running with FBDEV is better than a freeze or no graphics with a failed Intel graphic driver load (which is what one see’s in some other distributions).
One other thing I like about the Ubuntu liveCD is when one selects to reboot (or presumeably shut down) it EJECTS the CD. OpenSUSE liveCDs do NOT do that, and I wish the SuSE-GmbH packagers would take a leaf out of the Ubuntu packing book and add that feature. … It makes me think I need to search to see if anyone has suggested this on openFATE.
Oh … and I’m now typing this on my ‘killer’ laptop again, but this time running the 32-bit openSUSE-11.3 Gnome liveCD with the FBDEV driver (I commanded that driver by typing ‘nomodeset’ in the liveCD’s boot splash option line). Performance here is the same as the newer Ubuntu-10.10. ie slow slow slow …
In comparison openSUSE-11.1 (with its 2.6.27 kernel) and the Intel driver is refershingly fast on this laptop.
I thought I would try 10.10 again (this time final release opposed to RC) so I installed it on my test box. Ubuntu 10.10 at first looks seems to have a new font. To install packages I was doing zypper in the terminal because I’m so used to typing that instead of apt-get and it gave me command not found - After a good hour of playing around with 10.10 I decided that it wasn’t for me so I put openSUSE 11.3 i386 back on my test pc again. I’m always willing to give each Ubuntu release a try to see what it is like. It will be interesting to see how 11.04 turns out. Another distro I want to try out soon is the upcoming Fedora 14. They seem to have some nice features in the new release.
I’m running F14 now, writing from it.
It’s the usual slick OS you would expect
I really really want to use Fedora, but to much terminal use and googling needed for me Install restricted formats, flash plugin, 32 bit libs on 64 bit desktop and drivers Puts a simple little mite like me off
Hmmm … its a beta version, is it not ? … Once its released I’ll likely take it for a spin on a test PC (and definitely on my “linux killer” laptop, IF we have not given it away to my mother by then).
Having typed that I confess I’m not much of a distro hopper. Not at all in fact.
Typically if I have a piece of hardware that does NOT work, and I suspect there is development work going on, I’ll try another distro to see if it works, and possibly see what they do to get the hardware working. … But other than that, I find just participating in openSUSE (together with my home video making hobby) keeps me busy.
Beta it is
I’m not distro hopping. Just testing and keeping up with all the latest developments. Testing other distros actually helps in the forum of my true allegiance
@oldcpu: Wouldn’t it be an idea to ask one of the/all openSUSE devs to create a patch for the kernel, apply it, compile it, make it available to Studio, so that you can create a LiveCD with a patched kernel? If all is working like I understand it, this would mean that you start with a LiveCD’s set of packages, replace the kernel packages by those with the patched kernel.
Edit: I forgot it is running. The only thing you would need is some one to make packages with a patched kernel and sources.
Whatever suits you best. 