Quite awhile ago (app.10 years)I had purchased a 3 cd set to install Suse v.9 and repeatedly reloaded it while uninstalling various windows OS's.Finally,with the Suse software getting old,I gave up and ran windows while attempting a variety of linux iso distros to no avail.I am very curious about what I am reading about the latest Debian distro.Has anybody had real success with it running w/o getting into a load,unload,doubt and redundantly cycling software.I have gotten so annoyed with this that I am actually looking at windows 8 (Major Ugh!).

Debian is a great system, rock solid and run in almost every machine, you wont have the ughness for sure.
Here look what people is been achieving on Debian 7: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...752/page8.html

Regards

SuSE enterprise 9 is VERY old...the latest is 11.

But why, since you know SuSE, don't you try openSUSE? It's free, and would be familiar to you...the latest is 13.1. Running ANYTHING that's as old as what you had would give you problems...you wouldn't be running Windows 98 these days and not expect problems...Linux is no different.

as above
Install OpenSuSE 13.1
or
buy SuSE Enterprise Linux Desktop ( SELD) 11 service pack 3

9 is VERY OLD ant not even supported any longer

using it would be line trying to install win98( well ME or 32bit XP ) on a NEW 64 bit computer