On the productivity software front there is the Novell-enhanced version of OpenOffice. The biggest addition coming in the form of support for Microsoft's Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) meaning you should be able to run macros created for either Microsoft Excel or Word with OpenOffice. That could be a really big deal for any business with an investment in Microsoft Office looking for a way to migrate over to Linux. A beta release of Firefox 3.0 was part of the base distribution, but you'll get upgraded to the latest release when you accept the system updates.

If you choose the GNOME environment you'll get a number of standard applications like the Tomboy note taker, Banshee media player, F-Spot photo manager and the Evolution Personal Information Manager (PIM). GNOME also incorporates an integrated desktop search tool similar to spotlight on Mac OS X. Clicking on the Computer tab in the lower left hand corner of the desktop launches the system menu applet with recently used programs and a search box to help you find what you're looking for.

KDE has comparable features and applications to GNOME with a slightly different look and feel. The Kontact application offers essentially the same functionality as Evolution but doesn't have as large a user base. There's a similar search box at the top of the application menu that will search the web if it doesn't find what you're looking for.

Bottom Line

openSUSE 11.0 is a solid release with all the functionality you could ever need on the installation DVD. If by some chance it's not on the DVD, you'll more than likely find it on the openSUSE.org website. Installation is painless and operation is smooth. openSUSE 11.0 is definitely a distribution worthy of your investigation.

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