I have passed on my imac as painful as it was. I always had a love/hate relationship with my Mac. I love the way it is built. I love the way software works flawlessly. I love the no virus to worry about problem. Most of the software I used was either free or low cost.

I was however sold on the siren song of Windows 7 from using it on my laptop. Windows 7 is nice OS. Nothing to complain about, almost. Just some niggling stuff. Windows 7 complains about the lack of virus protection and I need to buy third party software to have virus protection. Yes, there is free anti virus, but that is not the point. Two included text editors without spell checking? File encryption built in, but turned off unless you have the most expensive version of Windows 7?

These shortcomings are not big things by themselves. They are greed driven things. They are small items that should either be included in Windows 7 when purchased as is. I am all for making a profit. If companies did not make a profit, none of us would have work to do for our money. Like it or not we need to work. But come on, having to pay some serious dollars for the privilege of having file encryption, and a spell checker? That goes beyond making a profit.

I tried hard to enjoy Windows 7. I like it on my laptop for the most part, but my laptop is only used occasionally, I use my desktop a lot more often. As much as I would like to use the space a desktop takes up for something else, a laptop without adding more hardware, does not a desktop make.

After a week it became apparent that life with Windows was only a more polished version of previous life with Windows. Nothing changed really since I left Windows behind some years back. Virus checking, defragment hard drives, wondering how downloads and web sites were giving away presents I did not want. My virus checker confirmed nothing really had changed in the Windows World except the cost of Virus Checking went way up.

I had enough, and it was time to go back to Linux. I tried my favorites, but seeing my desktop is recently off the shelf and 64 bit, my favorite Linux versions did not fit well with one piece or another of my desktop computer. After trying six or seven of my old standby Linux flavors, I went back to my Linux beginnings. Every 32 bit Linux distribution installation was generally happy after install except my LAN and Wireless card which would fail to work after a few minutes.

My first experience with Linux was an off the shelf computer store purchase for $42.00. For my $42.00 plus tax, I had a three Cd set and a Magazine. I had purchased Suse Linux 8.2 for my hard earned money. I never looked back from Linux, even though Suse 8.2 never made my favorites list.

Back then, as now Suse was/is a little confusing to install. Back then because I had no clue, this time around with Open Suse 11.4 because I had a empty one terabyte hard rive, and only wanted to use part of it for Linux OS.

I eventually came to terms with what the install process actually wanted rather than how I thought it should be done. and my Open Suse installation went smoothly. Almost anyone should be able to install Open Suse Linux. It may be daunting for a new user, or perhaps perplexing as it was for me, trying to install Open Suse on an empty hard drive, but there is a wealth of information on the Open Suse web site to ease anyone through the process.

My perspective has changed over the years. When I installed Suse 8.2 I did not appreciate how rigid the structure seemed to be. The mousing was to precise, I could not install any old program I wanted, and I had to learn how to do things the Suse way. Now some years and scores of Linux distributions later, I am typing this in LibreOffice running on Open Suse, Funny how all those original faults I thought I had with Suse Linux, I have now come to value.

There is not a lot to say about Open Suse, that has not been said already. It is a well made, well contained distribution, and if you have been a distro hopper like myself, you will appreciate the precision and care taken with Open Suse. I installed the KDE Desktop, but Gnome, LXDE, and perhaps other desktops are available.

There were a few things I wanted to change. Minor personal nits contained within KDE itself. I have never been a big KDE desktop fan. It is alright, but it is not my first choice for a desktop. I appreciate K3B, a few games, and the wallet, but after that I am indifferent to what KDE has to offer.

After I did not locate what I wanted in the repositories I did what I should have done in the first place. I went to the Open Suse home page and started looking for answers there. Of course everything I wanted to change, was there as other Open Suse users also want something different than the stock DVD. Within thirty minutes, I made all the changes I wanted.

I mentioned I am typing this post in LibreOffice Writer, and it is as snappy and more powerful than any text editor I may use. I have not used the other parts of LibreOffice, so I will leave them to others to write about.

There are numerous reviews about Open Suse, and the newest release is currently getting ready to replace the version I downloaded a few weeks ago. I understand from what I read, there is an upgrade path available for those that want it. I back up what is important to me, and now that I understand the Open Suse way of doing a Linux installation and upgrade or reinstall, either method will be painless.

Open Suse is one of the most popular Linux Distributions in the world. The days of needing everything about your hardware to do an installation have gone the way of my first Linux, Suse 8.2. If you have not found a Linux distribution that reaches and grabs you, you may want to give Open Suse a try. I am happy I decided to give Open Suse a visit.