I’m an immigrant from Linux Mint whose curiosity was piqued by articles on opensuse.org detailing close collaboration between KDE developers and openSuse. Recently I installed Linux Mint Nadia Kde, their latest KDE flavor, and I’ve converted to KDE, prefer it very much, so I had to give openSuse a try since it seems to be specializing in KDE to an extent.
I first attempted download of the Opensuse 12.3 beta DVD, but that did not go well, because I think the lengthy download was aborted at some point due to user actions. 
I checked the MD5 hash and it did not jibe, so I forgot about it.
Then I tried downloading the small Live CD from a mirror and that went quite well. The MD5 hash jibed. I chose a mirror geographically close to me, because I think it matters, but I could be mistaken…if it does matter, then it may be wise to denote the location on the page with the mirrors. I happened to puzzle out the location of one of the mirrors but not all the links are quite so obvious.
Using the Live KDE CD, I booted without difficulty, verified that Firefox could access the web, and then clicked on permanent installation on my humble 2008-era Lenovo Thinkpad R60 with Intel Core 2 Duo processor and a 60gb Seagate Momentus hard drive. I was quite impressed with OpenSuse installation which was problem-free for me, but what impressed me the most were the sensible defaults suggested for partitioning. I am not one to dual-boot because that seems too complicated, and btw, why?! Anyway, I overwrote Linux Mint Maya Mate which had some problems. I highly recommend that users accept the defaults chosen by OpenSuse’s installation process, because they seem to know what they are doing in my opinion.
Where I ran into some difficulty was in the update process when I ran Package Manager. Several instances of “conflicts” and occasions when the program was waiting on permission, and yet the password entry screen did not jump into focus, so a clueless user like myself did not know, the first couple of times, that I needed to bring the password window into focus. I would say that the update/package manager is not quite as good as that of Linux Mint, not quite as intuitive and streamlined. In Linux Mint, one enters the password when the package manager loads, and that is that, it handles everything else and sorts updates by priority and potential risk.
Another difference with openSuse is that there is a clear and obvious emphasis on passwords and security everywhere, probably owing to Suse’s use in business and servers. I choose a cheesy password and was scolded for it during the install. ha ha ha, well I will go to bed without cookies and milk tonight, then.
I’m eager for the final version of openSuse to be released, because I want to buy a new SSD for it. I think 12.3 looks good and it is running fast enough for me on my old laptop, which isn’t quite so ancient though–it has 2 gb and a dual core processor after all.
What I really, really love in openSuse 12.3 beta, and what I’m afraid will be REMOVED in stable, is the absolutely, stunning, amazing, gorgeous default wallpaper and look and feel. Love the dark wallpaper with the nice little green vine on the right-hand side. This saves me a lot of time, because usually I have to customize the desktop because other distros want to make everything so bright and punishing on the eyes. When one spends many hours at a computer every day, one prefers less brightness. Especially with LCD monitors being so bright these days, I don’t understand why anyone would want to stare into a light bulb all day. I think among all the distros I’ve tried, openSuse 12.3 beta has the best default appearance.
Overall I find openSuse comparable to the Linux Mint KDE, no really huge differences that stand out, other than the smarter installation and not as smart update process.
Now a question – will I have to reinstall for 12.3 stable, or can I easily and without risk update to stable? I suspect the former.
Ah, one last thing- I did encounter a bug. I tried to sync time with the ntp.org outfit, and got a strange error message . I tried to submit a bug report, but needed to install some kind of debug symbol package, which when I clicked on it, did not install. So I had to abort sending the bug report. I suspect this is an intentional method to cut down on the number of bug reports, to raise a hurdle for low-knowledge users so they cannot send bug reports. I admit I do not have a lot of patience to research and debug all the the things I would need to file a bug report at this time, as I am not fully invested in openSuse.