My first purchase of SuSE was way back in the 7's. Since then, I've downloaded and ftp'd my way thru the 9's and bought 8.3 and 9.2. I downloaded 9.3 and didn't think it was any better than 9.2 (and I missed the icon zooming), so I switched back.

Now that I'm getting ready to download 10, I just have to ask...is it any better? I mean, I haven't had hardly any problems (a video card, network card, and sound card here and there) to speak of. As a matter of fact, with the exception of the Audigy 2 Value card that I have right now, 9.2 installs and works perfectly.

So, what am I going to gain?

"It depends"

Unless you have a really compelling reason to upgrade, wait for 10.1

10 has a newer kernel, GCC 4.0 and KDE 3.4.2. That's enough for me. And you can downloade opensuse for free.

I replaced Suse 9.2 with Suse 10.0 eval and I have noticed a marked improvement. Apart from a few cosmetic improvement that are provided by KDE 3.4 over the 3.3 included with 9.2 I would say the best thing about 10 is the much improved hardware support.

With 9.2 I couldn't configure my Hauppage WinTV Go TV card or Creative Audigy 24 Live speakers and my onboard ac97 soundcard didn't have any software volume control. With 10.0 all these things worked without effort. This, I guess, is due to the newer kernal, etc, included with 10.0.

So, as you say all your hardware works with 9.2 there probably isn't much point in switching yet but maybe your audigy card will?

Perhaps it would worth using a suse10.0 live cd (i'm not sure if there is one but there was for previous releases) and seeing if you prefer it.

p.s. You mentioned icon zooming, I assume you mean the icons in the kpanel? I used to like that feature in 9.2 as it was simple way to mimic the Mac OS menu bar. Does anyone know how to re-add this feature to suse 10.0?

thanks for your advice. i went ahead and updated my 9.2 to 10 even though i didn't know what i would gain. you are correct, my audigy 2 works and i'm listening to a little bill monroe (bluegrass) right now! that, in itself, was worth doing it for.

as far as re-enabling icon zooming in the kpanel, you're speaking with a gui-only person.

one drawback i've already found with 10 is that in kde, i can't seem to get 1280x1024 resolution through my geforce 5200 and dell fp1905. i have it set for a 1280 display, but unless i'm in gnome, i can only get 1024x768...wierd.

10.1 alpha 3 is due to be out by 17th Nov.

9.3 is professional.
10.0 is not

You're not missing anything from 9.3 pro and 10.0 eval. You just have to add an internet installation source and you get all the missing packages if you bought Suse 10 in the store.

If you've paid big bucks for 9.3 then just wait for 10.1. 10.0 does have newer components, but it is rather unstable at times. I've found that the audio subsystem and YAST need some work. I think 10.1 comes out in the beginning of summer, so it's not too long to wait.
In other words unless you are interested in helping out by reporting bugs then it's probably a better descision to wait.