Yes, indeed, in the case of Opensuse installing to the hard disk is slow but
OK. Then, configuring the damned ADSL PPPoE via Yast is slower and a little
troublesome. Then, there is the surprise with the repositories, which are rather
poor. for example, vlc cannot be installed. When installing alternative desktop
environments (Gnome or XFCE) via Yast one has to insert the install DVD and they
are installed from there. But OpenSUSE's XFCE is wonderful. I will also test
OpenSUSE's KDE3.5. the other one is a monster.
I gave up Mandriva last year.
I also gave up KDE and Gnome in favour of XFCE, but right now I am using
FVWM-Crystal. I gave up LXDE for good and gave up Enlightenment for good.
Sometimes I will use Openbox.
I will never give up XFCE for good !