Suse 10 -or- Mandriva 2006

[uberlinux]

Need a second OS which is better?

[Skrewdriver]

Of the two options, I'd go with Suse (the open version).

Mandriva is lame without access to Mandriva Club, and Mandriva Club is poor return on your $$ compared to what you can get elsewhere.

If you are feeling brave, you should have a crack at a Gentoo install. A very educational experience.

[Pablo_Escobar]

I'd go for none of these :) I have very bad memories of Suse and Mandrake.
If I'd need an other OS (which I'm thinking about right now :) ) I'd try out Slack or Gentoo - more to learn about the OS.

Just my 0,02 $

[bored2k]

I'd go with SuSE, but don't cry when you discover you don't a "real" apt-get command ;).

[lerrup]

Why do you need one? It seems they are all flavours of linux. If it is for educational purposes I'd understand, but they won't do anything that Ubuntu can't.

[Sirin]

Why do you need one? It seems they are all flavours of linux. If it is for educational purposes I'd understand, but they won't do anything that Ubuntu can't.

They come with proprietary stuff (Java, MP3 support, Flash Player, etc.). In Ubuntu, you have to type commands out of your heart just to install a barely working version of Java. I like things that can work right out of the box. ;)
Ubuntu to me is more for advanced users who like to freak up with with the command line.

[Vorian]

RPM!!!

RedHat is better than both, but SuSE is better than Mandriva.

[asimon]

I'd go with SuSE, but don't cry when you discover you don't a "real" apt-get command ;).
Actually apt-get works fine under SUSE and since 10.0 it's officially part of the distro. Of course you have YaST2, yum, and smart too ...

[squirrelyosis]

I'd go with SUSE, i have it running as a "server" at my house. It took a while to get used to coming from the debian style of things. I really liked yast2 after i got used to it. I like the fact that you can run yast2 over ssh. As far as SUSE on the desktop I tried it and it didn't work at all. I couldn't get the sound to work and the video was all messed up. It took a few hours of messing around to reconnect my Ubuntu drive.

[bored2k]

Actually apt-get works fine under SUSE and since 10.0 it's officially part of the distro. Of course you have YaST2, yum, and smart too ...
Compared to Debian's, how good are the repos? Last time i tried apt-get in RPM it was really bad.

I'd love to try it... but it's just ridiculously big.

[Burning Bronx]

They come with proprietary stuff (Java, MP3 support, Flash Player, etc.). In Ubuntu, you have to type commands out of your heart just to install a barely working version of Java. I like things that can work right out of the box. ;)
Ubuntu to me is more for advanced users who like to freak up with with the command line.

There is a good reason (legal) not to include this stuff in Ubuntu main packages. Still it's no biggie installing them as there are pretty understandable and straightforward guides here https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RestrictedFormats .

As an alternative to Ubuntu I'd recommend neither of SuSE or Mandriva as I have (or had friends who had) serious troubles with them. I would suggest the new Fedora Core 4 which is the free variant of RedHat linux. I've tested it and I have a few friends running it and they find it pretty acommodating.

Still I like best my Ubuntu :D

[asimon]

Compared to Debian's, how good are the repos? I'd love to try it... but it's just ridiculously big. I would say good, but of course there is still big room for improvements. There are plenty of apt repositores at gwdg.de (ftp://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/suse/apt/SuSE/10.0-i386). The main problem is that there are many different repos and sometimes packages from one can clash with packages from an other repo (very annoying for newbies). I had one or two such cases but the maintainers where friendly and quick to fix the issues. Most packagers seem to do a good job maintaing the packages in their repos and keep them up to date. The different packagers are currently working under the opensuse umbrella on general packaging guidelines and other improvements and for next year SUSE wants to offer a world-class infrastructure for the packagers like build servers, bug tracking system, etc. I also remember that I read on the mailing list that for SUSE 10.1 they want to improve the package management module of YaST, and want especially make it easier for people to add third-party repos. Overall my expieriences of using SUSE 10.0 (and it's betas) for three month very very good. I didn't had more problems with SUSE packages then with Ubuntu packages, I encounter problems with both, just different problems. I really can't say that there is a clear winner in quality or otherwise. Both are great distros. SUSE may have a little advantage with YaST and it's various gui modules to configure hardware, network connections, monitor resolution, etc. Neither gnome's system tools nor the ones for KDE offer currently as much as YaST.

EDIT: Yes, it's rediculous big. Having to download 5 CD images is really a little bit overkill. There is already somewhere a 1-CD install project. It would do SUSE good to get that official.

[uberlinux]

Yea, gonna do SuSE, just need to mix it up a little.
SuSE was the first distro I liked, back in 7.x
Not gonna mess with gentoo, even stage three, sick of compiling junk.

[otake-tux]

I have had bad experiences with SUSE but I hear the lates version is quite nice. However I worked with mandriva and I know that one is nice. So I would go with mandriva.

[KiwiNZ]

I am currently using Suse 10 and it has been fantastic.Give it a go

I am going to test Mandriva 2006 over the next week for a client .

[uberlinux]

I am currently using Suse 10 and it has been fantastic.Give it a go

I am going to test Mandriva 2006 over the next week for a client .
which SuSE10 are you doing? The retail or the community?
I've got the community one about 73% DL'ed

[KiwiNZ]

I have the community version to get all the base OS and I added the DVD's for 9.3 and 9.2 Professional as sources for other software included in them.

[uberlinux]

I really liked 9.3, it was a real contender against Kubuntu 5.04, in fact if it had a REAL apt-get system in place, it might have won, what having Xen and YaST and all.

[void_false]

I was totally blown by SUSE 10.0. It's just great! Installation of additional software with YAST is much simplier and intuitive than synaptic. Also you get few possibilities to solve dependency issues. And sound... Thats great... At last I can listen to my favourite music with Amarok and play my favourite game and hear sound from them BOTH!!! And support for streaming media is just great. Flash has sound too! OMG. I fell into love with SUSE.