I’ve been having this weird problem where during times of high network activity my system will lock up. I think it has something to do with the ipw2200 package or firmware or something. It’s happened with each install of Suse 9.2 and I keep waiting for 9.3 or a new Mandrake or something to see if this can be fixed. I’ve tried upgrading the ipw2200 package several times but there’s something about Suse’s modprobe or something that makes the procedure infinitely more complicated than I’m willing to attempt.

Once it crashed in the middle of a major package installation and my db installation got corrupted. Since db is used to keep track of packages, I’m now having trouble updating anything. I’m too lazy to reinstall again this soon after the last time, so I’m going to see if I can just survive off of old software for now. Having to use obsolete stuff now will just make the next distro upgrade all that much sweeter.

The first Linux distribution I ever installed was Mandrake 7.0. Back when that came out it was a huge deal because it was one of the first distributions to offer wide hardware support. It was installed on a dual-boot laptop that ever after only ran Windows. After that I ran various kinds of RedHat (later Fedora Core), Debian (which ended very quickly), and every version of Mandrake up through 10.1
Nothing has been worth keeping until I installed Suse 9.2 last December. Here are some of the major benefits of it:

1. It runs my Intel ProWireless 2200 BG
2. It has up-to-date versions of both KDE and Gnome
3. It comes stocked with a jack-load of open-source games

So maybe the games aren’t the main reason I’m liking Suse, but they’re the best thing about my computer when I’m away on vacation (my girlfriend likes to play Frozen Bubble and KSnake). And even without them Suse 9.2 is an excellent distribution. I’m still partial to Mandrake but I’ll see what they’ve got up their sleeves with 10.2 before I consider moving back to them.