Suse or Mandrake

[Jason Hayes]

I'll preface this post with a note that I am not trying to start a war
between rival distro factions in the city. I am simply trying to get
intelligent comments on the merits of one distro that I have not used
very often.

I am expecting shipment of my new laptop (an acer aspire 1804 WSMI- XPP
Notebook) and am wondering if anyone has had any experience using Suse
on Acer systems.

I tried to install Suse on my last laptop (an aspire 1705) but had a
fair bit of trouble getting the networking and video to cooperate with
it. Rather than fighting for a long time with it, I went back to
Mandrake and have used Mdk 9.0, 9.2, 10.0, and 10.1 on the 1705. It has
worked well with that system.

Sadly, the 1705 suffered an untimely death recently - at the hands of a
power surge - and all my attempts to fix it (including replacing the
mother board) have failed to revive it.

So with the new system on the way, I am once again considering Suse. I
liked the fact that Suse now has the 9.3 iso's available for download
and am keen on trying it. However, since this is going to be a primary
workhorse for my job, I don't have a lot of time to fiddle with things.

If anyone has any experience with Suse and Acer laptops and can send it
my way, I would appreciate it. If not, I will likely head back to
Mandrake or Mandriva and see if that continues to work.

Thanks
Jason Hayes