Alright, it’s about time I got around to this. I was so excited to play around with it, yet it took me almost a week to get to. It took forever to download initially, then on top of that, the file I downloaded wouldn’t burn to a DVD (I tried twice, both times failed at the same time… argh). I ended up downloading the DVD again via HTTP instead of TORRENT… well there isn’t a live version with that, and finally, I downloaded the KDE LiveCD (They also offer GNOME).

Alright, first and foremost, I throw the LiveCD into my system and restart my computer (I was in Windows when I did this remember). It comes up with a menu asking me what I want to do. I can boot OpenSUSE 11.0 Live regularly or in safe mode. I can also do a few other things, like boot from the hard drive and change the resolution (what a bunch of jerks, they only offer 4:3 resolution and 2 sizes as well).

I boot up, it takes more then 5 minutes, but less then 10. It starts up and I’m greeted with a very Windows-esque user interface. A start menu at the bottom, icons on the desktop, a widgets thingy (I don’t know what else to call it) in the upper right corner. There is a quick launch bar and everything, it’s pretty much Windows Free Edition, so far a good way to transition those who are afraid to move into Linux too quickly.

Alright, time to get the good ol’ wireless working. I click on the icon in the bottom right corner. I have to set up my connection. At first it opens up a screen which should show all the wireless networks in the area… it shows nothing… ARGH. I type in the SSID manual and the WEP key. I go to connect, still nothing. This is getting to be garbage. I try it again, this time it auto-detects my home wireless connection at 80%… hmmmm My computer is in the same spot as it was before when I was using Ubuntu and Windows and I’m getting a connection that’s not as good… I don’t know what to think here. I put the WEP key in again and it connects quickly.

I open Firefox from the desktop (oh my, some translucent bubble comes up around the icon, more on that soon!) and it opens up Firefox 3.0 RC5 to the OpenSUSE homepage. Alright, we have internets! Everything looks find, but I still like the less blocky look on Windows.

Alright those buttle things around the desktop icons. Four tiny icons show up on the right side of the bubble. There is one that has 4 arrows pointing inwards, one with a semi-circle with an arrow tip on one end, a wrench and a red “X”. Alright this is pretty cool… the first icon lets you resize the icon… you can’t make the icons any smaller then the size they start as but you can make them grow to be the size of the who screen (giant SUSE lizards… scary!). The second lets you rotate the icon… I made all mine look like they were falling from the sky (it’s a useless feature unless you have no life… like me!). The wrench, that’s what you use to beat yourself in the head with when you run into a wall… oh wait, no, here is like editing the properties of an icon in Windows (they call it Icon Settings). Last but not least, the red “X” allows you to nuke the icon from your desktop. Easy enough, onward we go!

Lets play with Widgets… As I look through the widgets menu, I notice a red bar on some of them… I click it… OH MY GAWD, My start icon thingy just went away. I click to add it again, but now it looks like an icon on my desktop. Go back start menu, go back! I dragged the start menu back to the bar on the bottom… it looks like it went back, but the screen goes black and it just stops responding. Now I’m on another computer documenting my black screen and frustrations.

Alright, I do what any self-respecting frustrated person would do at this point, I press all the buttons… NOTHING. Alright, Ctrl + Alt + Del… I hope this work… Hey it works, but now I can logout, shut down or restart. I vote logout and see if it’ll work when I come back… Be Right Back… if this works, I’ll be back on my lappy!

Alright, well that kinda worked.  I logged back in using root for both the username and the password… but now the settings have been all farked up.  And to make matters worse, I can’t connect to my wireless network.  It found it, it just doesn’t want to connect.

OpenSUSE, you lost my vote right now.  I’m far to frustrated to continue this.  I’ll go through Mandriva tomorrow and Fedora the next day.  Maybe the day after that I’ll be cooled down enough to try this again… stupid widget-ized desktop!