Question1.
I need to bring my old desktop up to speed - it’s currently on Suse 3.12.53-40. I’ve got DvDs of 13.2 and Leap 42.1, which would forum opinion favour.
Question 2
I’m fed up with Win 10 on the backup Asus laptop I have - I think I know how to reset the BIOS so it doesn’t boot from the HDD but one of the DvDs - again which would people advise me to use?
Thanx
Hi
Are they all 64bit systems? Maybe some system specs for both, CPU, GPU, RAM, HDD(s), Legacy boot (mbr) or UEFI?
I would go for openSUSE 42.2 (release not far away).
Go for 13.2, stable and solid, but be aware it’s end-of-life in 2017… I switched back recently a Tumbleweed notebook (6-8 years old) due to problems solved with 13.2. 42.1 I tried about a year ago, it was …hmmm… no really convincing. This whole KDE QT5 is not sooooo stable in Tumbleweed and 42.1.
Leap 42.1. Make sure you have a network connection, and enable the “use online resources” feature, which will enable the update repo, hence bringing you f.e. updated/fixed plasma packages.
Hi
What has KDE/QT got to do with things, there are plenty of other desktops environments available depending on hardware, end usage etc…
Likewise plenty of other distros available, I have a current version openBSD running on a SunBlade sparc system around 14 years old, I’m also running SLED 12 SP2/osX on 9 year old hardware (MacBook3,1), it’s had openSUSE 42.1 an Tumbleweed on it, runs fine with 4GB of RAM, 240GB SSD (aside from one kernel bug, but doesn’t affect usage), I run the GNOME DE, but is irrelevant to the OP’s question…
openSUSE 13.2 is close to EOL, keep running it if you want, no one will stop you 
If the OP is running KDE I’d say it has a lot to do with “things”.
For KDE users who want stability and few surprises I’d recommend 13.2 given my own experiences. Those not running KDE or those who don’t mind things like multiple desktops not working as expected would probably do best to go ahead with Leap 42.1
Looks like 13.2 has the majority - @ my age 2017 is light years away.
All my boxes except an elderly MSI notebook are 64-bit and that is only still working thanks to dropping Win 7 for Suse 13.
Thanks everyone.
Yes, I can sympathise with your Windows 10 view – I have a Windows 10 Home Edition running in an Oracle VirtualBox VM to process Sigma RAW (.x3f) camera files – it works fine, it’s a case of “getting used to the new Redmond way of doing things” and, the alternative would be for me to by a Mac – Sigma Photo Pro versions 5.x and 6.x do not run in Wine . . .
One thing to watch out for – BIOS updates. I have a Lenovo Laptop where the BIOS/UEFI can only be updated via Windows – therefore I dual-boot Windows 8.1 on that machine – and also run Sigma Photo Pro on that OEM (Lenovo) Windows 8.1 . . .
RE BIOS updates:
Sometimes-but not always- there is the option to do “Windows-only” BIOS updates with a bootable DOS USB stick. At least with Dell machines.
I am an Xfce user so I cannot comment on KDE. I use Leap 42.1 because it is the recent and stable version and it works perfectly. Of course I will upgrade to the next release. As it is in beta phase you could install it. I guess there are no real issues but I would still prefer 42.1 at the moment if it is mission critical. It still will be supported for a while and then you can upgrade when you have the time and did your backups to 42.2 and most of the bugs will be ironed out in the meantime.
There was a change in the way releases are supported all 42.x versions will be LEAP, 13.2 will die in 2 months 42.1 will die in 6 months if you have a x64 cpu go for 42.2 it will officially be out in a week but I do belive rc2 will be more or less identical to the stable
That being said plasma 5 had a lot of changes compared to kde4 and quite a few kde4 users don’t like it but kde4 is dead and there’s no bringing it back, the question what to install, I’d say 42.2 it doesn’t matter what DVD’s you have as they’re both old and you’ll have to download a lot of updates imo it’s better to get the 42.2 network installer and download/install only what you need