Leap or Tumbleweed?

Hello,

I’m an experienced Ubuntu user; but have come to the conclusion that that distro is hopelessly broken. 7+ years and it continues to have versioning problems that never get resolved, among many other problems. My biggest concern with Ubuntu is that apps that normally work in many other Linux distros, just don’t work properly or at all in Ubuntu. Another of my biggest complaints is not being able to upgrade to the newest version of my favorite apps. Many apps that I need, especially telco and video editing are missing dependencies or have bugs that don’t get fixed until later versions. I often can’t upgrade to the version that has the bug fixes I need until the next regular OS release. This has been a major problem in Ubuntu. This is why the “idea” of a rolling release appeals to me. I run a lot of apps and heavily customize the desktop environment; so I hate new builds. I would prefer to do this no more often than every three years. I also travel internationally and for that purpose I would prefer to have the OS loaded on a usb-stick/external ssd. The last time I was in Canada, customs searched my laptop. I really felt violated by this and would prefer that this doesn’t happen again, anywhere; so I would prefer NOT to make it easy for them.

Initially, I would like to try openSUSE on a 128GB 300/400MBs usb stick; and later upgrade to a larger stick by cloning. Is this possible and are there any caveats? I’ve read that sometimes when cloning from usb stick to usb stick grub gets broken. I always use the latest version of clonezilla. I would also like the option of building a dual-boot Windows 10/openSUSE on an internal SSD. Are these options possible?

I guess my questions are, is Leap or Tumbleweed better for my needs; and can both be used in usb-stick configurations as well as dual-boot internal configs?

Thanks

Well it is tricky but all in all should be easer if you use EFI boot and not MBR. But still it may require the reinstalling grub

It all depends on the details

re:" I would also like the option of building a dual-boot Windows 10/openSUSE on an internal SSD. Are these options possible?"

Yes; I’m running Tumbleweed and multibooting Win10 and Linux Mint 17.3.
Caveat: some computers, e.g. Lenovo H50-55, have ACPI tightly controlled by the BIOS and provide no user control of the settings. With the computer I mentioned, I have to start Win10 first in order to “wake up” the system devices before I can restart to boot a Linux.

Regarding Ubuntu, I suggest trying Linux Mint 17.3, either Mate or KDE versions.