I am currently using OpenSuSE 10.2 and considering either uprading to 10.3 or switching to Kubuntu 7.10. My /home directory is mounted on a separate partition. If I install OpenSuSE 10.3 by formatting my /root partition but leaving /home intact, then I assume all will be fine. However, if I were to install Kubuntu in the same way, are there any issues that might arise from distro-specific differences?

Any information much appreciated.

It might happen that the uid's doesnt match. That is easy to do something about, with chown.
I've experienced that the configuration for kde had some defferences. Sometimes it will be small changes and easy to fix, other times the easyest way is to delete ~/.kde and configure it all over again.

I'm no Linux pro, but I would think it would be fine either way. The only problem I could imagine with the switch to Ubuntu is if for whatever reason it doesn't play nice with whatever file system your SuSE is using...which really I don't think would ever happen (after all, Linux plays nice with Windows' file system!). Either way, I would personally leave SuSE. I did. I've never been happier.

Thanks for the replies. I think I'll try just installing OpenSuSE 10.3 onto a formatted /root drive, and see what happens. If things don't go too well I'll just flatten the lot, install Kubuntu and restore from backup.

I wish you more luck with SuSE than I had!

Were there any specific problems you had with SuSE? Which version was it?

OPENSuSE 10.3, x86_64.

I had some display issues. I also didn't like the default interface at all. It was too annoying to navigate! I wound up customizing it, but for starting out...man...it was a pain. The display issues were mostly related to Compiz-Fusion, which, for one reason or another, I couldn't get to work. So instead I was stuck with Xgl...which was nice, but it didn't have the customization that Compiz-Fusion offered. It also seemed a little sluggish (compared to Fedora 8, which I am now running). Overall, I just didn't like it. I didn't like the way if felt.

Don't let that deter you, though! Everyone's different.