Over the last few months I've been experimenting with various distros while primarily running Mepis and Kubuntu (nearly the same thing) for the last year or so. As new versions of many distros are released (or in advanced beta) I typically experiment with them to see if any make big advances and are worthy of taking over as my primary distro. Before Mepis/Kubuntu, I've used Mandriva, Suse, and Fedora extensively.

I am currently narrowed down to choosing between upgrading to Mepis 6.06 (80% based on Ubuntu edgy) or switching to Suse 10.2. Suse has very obviously matured and I've learned to appreciate Yast. The only reason I use Mepis over Kubuntu (setup with Automatix) is the additional management tools. But Yast is superior to any but maybe Mandriva with respect to management tools.

I have however, developed a STRONG bias towards Debian based distros, (especially Ubuntu) due mainly to the excellence of apt/deb packaging and synaptic versus any rpm based distro, whether using Yum, Yast, Drake, Smart, etc. Even in the latest Suse and Mandriva, their package management and variety in main repositories still inferior to Synaptic. It's very annoying to have to be so careful when updating from added repositories needed to get what's included in the ubuntu repos.

ALSO, I'm sold on the value of Beryl and I've got a box setup to dual boot to Suse 10.2 and Mepis 6.05 b5.1. Both distros are configured as near to identically as I can get them. The surprise is that Suse 10.2 clearly runs faster and more smoothly.

What I want to gain some insight on is whether this is a temporary fluke? Is it just my system or are others experiencing slow responsiveness with Beryl on their Ubuntu based systems? I'd hate to make another big switch when I might just need to wait, or maybe I'm just missing something.

Same idea here
With default configuration, suse can be more reactive to the user as it's more desktop-oriented. Between a little bit more speed and a real package management, I have choosen . Anyway, suse kernels are not build with the same options, just look at the files in /boot you will see (make a hardcore copy of the config file of suse in a debian kernel and compile) Probably on the app level its the same.
As of the overall speed (like UI and daemons) and availability, I'm not sure you can differenciate a pure debian to a suse.

When you refer to "default configuration," do you mean user settings or kernel options?

Do you happen to know why suse would be more desktop oriented than Ubuntu? I know suse is targeting the business desktop, but I thought Ubuntu's primary target is the individual. Why wouldn't the goal of a responsive desktop be even more important?

Suse kernels and debian kernels ( and Fedora kernels) are differently configured. On user level (WM is an example), suse distribution adds a lot of patches. Debian has a lower footprint, the patches are not so important afaik.
Isn't suse providing a server version of the 10.2?
Ubuntu is considered desktop but I haven't looked at their kernel config, I was talking of pure debian sorry.
Did you try both using xfce for example? afaik ubuntu is for desktop, should be the same as suse with the proper options.

There are others things that are different like mounting options of disks.

Suse has several different versions of their commercial "Enterprise" versions (all still at 10) - server, desktop, stack, real time, and open server. I am testing Open Suse 10.2, which I expect will be incorporated into their enterprise desktop at some time.

No, I was KDE when KDE wasn't cool (ie, before Linus said to use it)

My only experience with Xfce was a test of Dreamlinux. I must admit, I love the interface. How mature are the Xubuntu admin tools?

FYI, Beryl crashes now on my Suse install since my last update. This is one of the things I hate about every rpm based distro (well, except Mandriva). There are so many repositories needed to do various things and dependency hell results. I think that rather than try to figure it out and fix it, I'll just stick with my ubunutu based Mepis system.

I do wish that the kernel better emphasized desktop responsiveness. Maybe I should try rolling my own kernel to slim it down and speed it up.

Thanks for your feedback.