Whats the consensus on 11.3?

Now that the drought has ended with a flood I am thinking of updating to 11.3. You folks that are using it; what do you think? Is it worth upgrading from a stable (my setup) 11.2? How is the latest iteration of KDE?

I am waffling about building myself a newer computer and putting 11.3 on it. I am thinking of going low power, simple, to just setup a net access box. Any recommendations or thoughts?

Hope all of the Old Regulars are still around after a hot dry Summer (in my neck of the woods).

Hmm... taking a look about I spotted the "Shuttle XS35-702 Barebone PC - Intel Atom D510 1.66GHz, 1GB DDR2, 160GB HDD, Card Reader, Wireless-N, No OS" for $199. Will have to check and see if compatible with SUSE.

I'll be interested in seeing how this comes out, as I've only gotten as far as downloading the DVD, but haven't installed it on anything. With this mess with my MIL I have very limited time to access any high speed connections (or *any* connection, for that matter). If the hick-town hospital and skilled nursing facility would put a little effort into installing wifi, patients and families, not to mention staff, would all be much happier, and I would have 11.3 on my laptop, at least. Oh, well, part of the charm of country life, I guess.

Well, Ive had good luck with 11.3 so far ...after finding my way around certain hardware issues. Seem the kernel-desktop 2.6.34.4-0.1.1 don't like my hardware, but the kernel-default 2.6.34.4-0.1.1 works perfect. But what do I know I'm just a silly penguin....

What problems did you experience with the desktop kernel, welan?

Sounds like a good little system MattB. The only part that might cause trouble would be the wireless card, but I bet its got an onboard wired card too. I suspect it would have enough video power to handle KDE fine. Worse case scenario you could use LXDE or XFCE.

I'm personally curious how the atom machines work. I've not used one myself.

I see it has a 10/100 Lan port. I would probably not use wireless since it is easier to use the ethernet connection at my desk. I might consider picking up a external DVD for loading SUSE since I am not sure about doing it from flash card.

MattB4 wrote:

What problems did you experience with the desktop kernel, welan?

The ever popular M$ freeze ups, tho I believe it has more to do with the Nvidia kernel module then the kernel it's self. Seems to work fine with the default kernel, but gets all flaky with the desktop kernel.

I,ve had the opportunity to toy with several different Atom processor machines and all I can say is they are quite snappy for what they are. Not sure how one would handle KDE, but with the right GPU assistance I'm sure it could be awsome.

Thanks for the info on the Atom processor. I am not needing much of it other than a Internet appliance. I probably do not need Kde on it though I might play with it to see how it works out if I go this route.

MattB4 wrote:

Now that the drought has ended with a flood I am thinking of updating to 11.3. You folks that are using it; what do you think? Is it worth upgrading from a stable (my setup) 11.2? How is the latest iteration of KDE?

I have 11.2 on my production machine and 11.3 on my test machine, which are both identical. Even though I am delighted with 11.3 and KDE 4.5.1 I have absolutely no issues on either machine. Also from an operating and performance perspective any inherent differences are simply not noticeable, so in my case I do not see any incentive to upgrade my 11.2 machine at the present time.

Thanks for the review WinXP-Escapee! I may just leave my tower on 11.2 and try out 11.3 on the mini if I get one.