Short answer: No I don't.

Longer answer:

As well as being a "user" of Linux, as a bit of a geek, I also enjoy "playing" with Linux. Consequently my computer tends to gather residual crud over time. Given that doing a clean install of Linux is generally pretty quick and easy, this provides an efficient way of restoring my PC to "pristine" condition. I usually reinstall about once a year, but before doing so I look at different distros and decide which one it will be this time.

There's a lot that I like about Open Suse, but so far I have not been tempted to install it as my main OS. The main things that put me off are that from a default install, it feels bloated, buggy and slow compared to some other distros. While this may sound harsh, I would add that thanks to the tremendous work of Linux developers, the bar is set very high. I'm certainly not implying that Open Suse is anywhere near as bloated, buggy or slow as Windows 10.

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Now that is "funny". I use tumbleweed and thus do several times a week a "zypper dup". Never had this problem, but I seem to remember that you can export your Software configuration (at least with YAST). I don't know your machine's setup but you might want to delete or rename the file which contains this software-list which (hypothetically at least) reloads all those programs you don't want anymore.

Hi folks
whatever works for you with the least hassle and greatest efficiency.

Answering this question is like saying what's better a ferrari or a 4WD off road truck. For racing on a highway the ferrari would get a vote but for going off road up really steep muddy mountain type pathways the 4WD drive gets it !!!.

Personally I've found CENTOS based on RHEL eneterprise the most stable yet even if it's not the most thrilling looking and still has an old kernel. However if stability and reliability are what you want then choose something staid like centos.

I found SUSE tumbleweed a bit over bloated, not enough manual choices on install time and also was a real dogs dinner of a mess to install -- it also overwrote my boot partition on a Windows laptop. Centos at leasts allows you to install to specific places and doesn't touch other HDD's / SSD's in your system.

Cheers
-D

You missed the "Details" button on the "Software Selection and System Tasks" screen.

Another checkbox missed or errant choice or bad timing. openSUSE's "Expert" partitioner button offers 100% control over what goes where. TW is a rolling release not far removed from bleeding edge, so bugs occasionally escape briefly in both installer and installed OS. It's never disturbed any of my Windows partitions or made Windows unbootable.

I've never seen any installer of any OS that offers more control over the process to those who choose to exercise it.

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The OpenSUSE installer is the best i've ever used, but in saying that, it can be a little confusing to noobs. An installer is definitely not the means of measurement of a good distro though. I just think it deserves am honer able mention because the level of customisation available in it is leagues beyond any other distro i've installed.
OpenSUSE is my favourite distro but it's not without its flaws. I think Zypper is the second best package manger i've used, combined with YAST it's awesome. The way that packages are split up into a million sub packages annoys me though. I've seen OpenSUSE advocates claim that Debian is worse in this respect and part of the reason that Debian has more packages, but i've always found the Debian way to be much cleaner. Unfortunately(?) my tinkering days are basically behind me and i can't remember any examples.

When Leap was just a concept and OpenSUSE was announced that with Leap they were adopting a SUSE base and aiming for a longer supported and more stable approach, i was all for it. I loved the concept.
I think OpenSUSE 15 and 42.3 were pretty solid releases, but the initial introduction of Plasma 5 was too soon and contradicted the direction that Leap was supposedly meant to be taking. Despite this complaint I will mention that i do love Plasma 5 (wish the spacers in the panels worked properly by now though).
Upon further reflection of the first OpenSUSE Leap, it was the second OpenSUSE release to come with Systemd as the only option. During this time Systemd was sparking lots of debates. I still sometimes wonder if the decision to base OpenSUSE on SUSE was contingency to avoid a Devuan like fork, as that had only been announced around that time too.

None the less, for me OpenSUSE runs great on my machines, it's easy to get setup the way i like, has lots of great packages, and is easy to manage and do advanced customisation on as well.
Other people on the other hand may have empirical trouble with it. I get that. I see countless great reviews for Mageia and it baffles me because i tried three different releases and got nothing but trouble on all three.

Right.

But you are Aware of the bundles (or what ever they are called) YAST is offering?

The rest of your observations re SUSE are right on the mark as far as my experience goes.

Yes i am aware of patterns, thanks. You just reminded me. The package managing module of YAST is awesome at organising things too. Very helpful. This is the reason why the installer is so great, because it uses YAST which is so good at organising things.

My biggest woe with OpenSUSE is the retarded spelling of everything.

Umm -- what? Do you have examples?

"openSUSE" (no capital letter) previously "SuSE Linux", "YaST".
Trivial i know but sometimes people bring it up on the forums when people are trying to have a discussion or asking for help and it's plain annoying.

Oh, I see. That has probably its origin in the historical development of good ole Susie. Suse was once a German firm (Nuremberg) and in German nouns start with a capital letter even within the sentences (like in headlines in English). They probably just wanted to show that they know correct case sensitivity. .

I started with Unix on SCO Xenix in 1988. Not trying to claim seniority here -- I am still ~15y from retirement, optimistically -- just for context. I have used ½ dozen commercial closed-source Unixes, have experience on every major Linux distro that I know of, as well as very slight familiarity with all the main BSDs and other FOSS Unixes, plus 20-30 other OSes.

My first Linux was Lasermooon Linux-FT in 1996, then Red Hat, then SuSE Linux Professional.

No.

There is no single "best Linux" or "best OS" and there cannot possibly be. It depends on what you want to do and how you want to do it.

Just looking at free Linux distros, I think openSUSE is a strong offering. If I were personally deploying a Linux server, it would be among my top choices. The YaST system-admin tool is a killer advantage. Its Btrfs default filesystem also gives it snapshots and rollback which can be very useful, even a life-saver. While the corporate flavour favours GNOME, the freeware openSUSE defaults to KDE, which I don't personally like or use but has many fans.

For a free-of-charge desktop, Ubuntu is pretty good, but I personally dislike the GNOME 3 desktop it now offers by default. I liked Ubuntu's now-discontinued Unity desktop, myself, partly because it is Mac-like and I like Mac OS X.

Mint is less "clean" in its components, being a mixture of software from several different sources, Ubuntu among them. However, because it includes probably the most drivers, codecs and other tools, it's possibly the easiest for a beginner, if you want a Windows-like desktop experience.

(Incidentally, openSUSE also has its own "Mint", GeckoLinux, which I really like.)

Debian, the upstream source of Ubuntu, is harder work than its descendants and can need extra effort in terms of installing drivers and other proprietary bits, but is easier than it was some years ago. Devuan, the systemd-free fork of Devuan, is also pretty good.

For those in the commercial/enterprise space, Red Hat offers a number of alternatives. Fedora is well-integrated but its all-Free-software stance excludes a lot of proprietary drivers and codecs, making it more work for the less Linux-savvy. CentOS, on the other hand, is slow-moving and so includes outdated components. I really don't like their setup and admin tools, nor their default desktops, though.

The Mandrake/Mandriva/Mageia/Rosa family (the one-time French offering, which also has Brazilian roots) is now fragmented and lacks a single strong backer. I would not longer consider it for this reason.

There are also lots of niche distros which are great if you're willing to do a lot of learning.

Basically there is a *ton* of tradition out there. North American people tend to favour their homegrown distro family -- Red Hat and relatives.

Historically and among hacker types, Debian had better packaging tools, and so it has a strong following among people who don't like RH.

People in the German-speaking countries tend to favour their home-grown offering: openSUSE and its relatives.

Pick what criteria you want and choose something that ticks your own boxes. :-)

(Disclaimer: I work for SUSE on the enterprise products. I used to work for Red Hat.)

I inherited a distro of SUSE when starting a new position, and promptly replaced it. I didn't like it much.

Have to admit it was due to a predecessor who was hired to do the job, didn't really know how to develop in Linux, and quit to avoid impending doom. I came along and learned I had to pick up the pieces.

Considering they were so haphazard about everything, it was barely a no brainer to start the effort anew.

At some later point I tried SUSE, just because. Didn't like it then either.

Sort of like when you have a bad experience at a restaurant, you never want to go there again.

+1

However, I had similar experiences with Fedora and of course Ubuntu.

I started with Suse 8.2,and have kept it in a dual boot with the current Windows version on my main desktop and laptop since then. For the netbooks and lower spec machines, I prefer to use something Debian based.

I tend to like it for it's server driver support.

Is it the best? Only the user can decide.......