A friend of mine has an old Gateway with a corrupted MS Windows ME OS installed. She doesn’t have the original recovery disk(s) so I brought up the subject of installing a Linux OS in its place. I then realized she doesn’t have an ethernet card but was using a USB connection to her cable modem (Roadrunner is her service provider). Does openSUSE 11.1 installation have driver support for the newest USB cable modems or is she forced to find a cheap ethernet card?
Don’t know about USB modem support, it depends on the model, but I’ve always used an Ethernet card with broadband, you get better performance that way too. A run-of-the-mill Ethernet card will only cost you $5-$10.
You mention ME. If the computer is that old, you might want to post the specs (RAM most important) to see if you can fit openSUSE on it. If not, there are lighter choices.