Opensuse 11 is the latest version of this long-standing Linux distribution. As a DVD download it has more choices than Ubuntu by virtue of the greater space available.

The first noticeable change is that there is a new installation program. It is not just a change of appearance, there are nice touches such as getting the time zone right from the language settings, rather than defaulting to a US timezone.

One important choice during installation is which desktop to use. There is Gnome, which will be familiar to anyone who has used Ubuntu, and two versions of KDE to choose from, one of which is the very latest version, KDE4.

This has a new style interface (KDE used to be the most like Windows of the desktops) that includes desktop widgets that can be used to read RSS news feeds and show battery status on notebooks. 3D effects can also be used on the Desktop.

All of the software that could possibly be needed is included, from Openoffice to the Firefox browser.