9. Conclusions

Either SUSE or the Fedora distribution makes a good fit for a notebook. In all, the relative strengths and merits of each distribution are balanced out by the other, so no single distribution stands out as more advantageous. The openSUSE distribution does provide a well-polished control center (YaST) with a nicely detailed software category selection. Fedora offers YUMEX (as an add-on), a minimalist repository interface by comparison with YaST. Fedora does have native no-frills graphical software selection tools that categorize packages neatly as well, but this interface overlooks notebook-specific categories that openSUSE clearly addresses. openSUSE could be better populated with more mobility tools.

Both Fedora and openSUSE release new versions following the same aggressive schedules, with alpha-quality test media (Fedora Core 6 and openSUSE 10.2) already available for those daring enough to ride the bleeding edge. That said both implementations are currently in excellent shape for installation onto a notebook, so it should be interesting to see how future versions improve on this experience.

Editor's Note: The intrepid authors of this article have been challenged to do another article in which they install Linux on a truly state-of-the-art notebook. They have accepted the challenge and the article will appear on MobilityGuru in the not too distant future.

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