SuSE almost there?

  For awhile, at least since I was a regular at the forums, I have been running linux without much of a hitch.  I have had very few problems running it on my laptop.  There were a couple versions which gave me some trouble especially on the install, but once I downloaded 11.1 RC1 a few months ago, I have had no problems whatsoever.

  I find it to be an OS which is quickly readying itself for the big time. Here's a few things I think SuSE needs to finally break into the mainstream.

 As we know a younger, more tech savvy, group of end users are coming up through the ranks, with the total failure of Vista and with 7 looming large on the horizon, many people are looking for alternatives. I know this dead dog has been beaten over and over, but what the heck, it's been awhile I'll say it again.

  My wishlist,

A. I wish that Novell would deliver an app which could be bundled into Yast which could help control web content.  With the icons which come pre-installed on SuSE and the plethora of educational open source software, it would be an excellent platform to start the kids on.  Imagine starting your young child on Linux instead of windows, in ten years time they may be much farther in understanding what drives operating systems and apps more than we ever were, but the net is a dangerous place and though there are add ons I get get for FF to help keep my kids from stumbling into the darker regions of the net, an app at the OS level adding a layer of security would be nice. If anyone knows of such an app tell me.

B.  Adobe, yes I have said this a thousand times, and I have a confession to make, I use the entire CS4 suite, I wish I didn't have to run it on xp64 bit which I am doing now. I have tried virtualisation to run xp within linux but many of my apps (including Maya which  can run just fine on SuSE by itself) need the full power of my dual graphics cards. Plus virtualisation doesn't give me the ability to have my real estate spread out over three monitors including a wacom cintiq.   Linux, and I have said this, has found its niche in CGI studios but we really neeed to be able to work with industry standards across the board.  This is an adobe problem, not a linux one, but hopefully they will realize that to port to Linux would be highly advantages in the long run.  Right now, Linux is still more demanding than OSx or Windows in its learning curve, but this is precisely why linux users tend to be the most savvy of the three main types of end users.
anyone who knows me, knows that I love the GIMP, KRITA, INKSCAPE, and the host of other alternatives to overpriced, hyped adobe, BUT, and I emphasize this, the tools those jerks provide are so powerful that it's hard to resist. Gimp has a huge advantage in formats, can you believe you can't create a favicon in photoshop without a plugin? I mean how many hundreds do you pay, or thousands for the Creative Suite and you can't even make a lousy favicon!?!?!?  I have used all the apps in our repos, but damn adobe still has what I need when the pressure is on.

C.  The biggest stumbling block is the way we update the OS, moving from version to version (though SLED is supported much longer, I believe updates for 10.1 are still available from Novell, not sure please correct me if I am wrong. But, 3rd party packages for 10.1 are dwindling rapidly) and this tends to "break" almost all installations of commercial software. And the software you were using won't be available until it is packaged for the new version.  I can't imagine how difficult it would be, probably very, but if Novell could release SuSE which runs more along the lines of the "port" model of BSD or the Debian model, that would be great.  I have never been able to update versions without having to do a clean install.  It's too messy and too many dependances. I think a Linux distro which updates the whole system, without comprimising apps, to newer versions would be much easier for the devs at commercial outfits to deploy to this platform, or unless they are willing to let  the guys at packman do it for them.

This has been asked over and over, is this the year of the linux desktop?  No, just like apple, except for laptops and other assorted "TOYS" that apple puts out,  Linux is best suited for the "informed" end user who is trying to find his/her place in a creative environment.  From web developing to CGI, linux is ready, when will everyone else? 
  Even Gaming could fit nicely with Linux, if only companies like EA could see that the future is "rolling your own console" It's not like linux couldn't handle it, It can and very nicely. You CAN NOT tell me that an OS which can create the most stunning visual effects in Hollywood couldn't handle the 3D environements game developers would throw at it. This is a question of hardware.  Threw this one in for the gamers.

D. KDE 4 needs some refinment. You can believe my horror when I went to compress a file with a right click and saw now options! I fixed the problem with a bit of searching, but still, no out of the box right click menus for compression?

E. better laptop performance, how many of us have had that "funky" mouse behavior while running our beloved SuSE on a laptop? clicking where it shouldn't, jumping cursors, or a difficult time cut and pasting on web based forms?

I can't help but wonder if windows 7 will be the last for MS based on its ancient models or if the old salesman of MS (i.e. Balmer or is that BALLMER?) will dry up and blow away so that the devs at MS can concentrate on the future.  They already know that open source is the model of the future, the deployment costs, the ability to run several virtual servers with little or no down time, etc etc.
  To me Windows 7 will be the OS which will stave off market share loss until they come up with something which will allow for more customers, bring virus vulnarability under control, and which can be the flagship OS for the company well into the future. The way they are going to do this is take a page from Apple's playbook.  They know they can save millions, if not billions, by letting a community push the envelope for them without an army of developers stumbling around ancient code which should be put to sleep.
  I bet if you were to take senior developers at MS and say, "look, you can take this software and point it in the direction which seems more realistic for the long gevity of the product." what would they do?  I could see them wanting to roll MS technologies onto a platform which is much more flexible in its deployment, perhaps, and I shudder to think of this, but perhaps, an open source kernel, linux or bsd, would be their choice.