Last time I installed linux was about 4 years ago and it was horid. Used a DOS-type wanabe gui, I had to know every obscure fact about every piece of hardware I was using, had to know how to build things to get them to work, and when it was finally installed didn’t look near as pretty as windows.
Well last week or so I installed SuSE to give it a run. Installation was a pretty looking GUI. I didn’t have to know a single thing about my hardware, everything autodetected that I used : sound,internet,graphics,etc. The worse I had to do was click “OK” while installing. Once SuSE gets going, I log in and everything looks nice on the screen. I download java, click this checkbox that says “Enable 3D acceleration”, and all the webstart demos work for jME. What shocked me was that my FPS was WAY higher than I got in XP. I would run one demo at 120 in XP, and get 300 in SuSE. Or I would get 700 for one simple test, and get 1000 or 1100 in SuSE. I was really impressed.
Everything installed extreamly easy. Just as easy as any windows install. And everything looked really nice too. Dual boot is fine, so I have windows if I need it. If anyone’s thought about Linux, give SuSE a try. It was pretty easy for me.
you can add Mandrake on this list :
I run now on Mandrake, and the install is, like SUSE, very easy.
+1 for mandrake! - Suse is too KDE oriented for me
I use SUSE since 8.x and it improved noticeably with each version so far.
What puzzles me however is your instant 3D one click expirience.
What card do you have and didn’t you have to download drivers ?
nVidia drivers are quite good but not included in the distro, ati’s are not overly ratet on the net on the other hand afaik.
Also your machine specs would be interresting as you seem to get impressive framerates.
I’m now running Suse 9.1 Pro at home.
Like Cep said… Installation was a breeze. Took a little bit to get the latest nVidia drivers installed and working, but it wasn’t bad.
Still haven’t played with jME on it yet (maybe this weekend).
Also, like others are saying and FWIW, I’ve read that Mandrake is easy to install as well.
–K
GeForce 5600. There’s an update program kind of like for windows. It connected to a SuSE server when I was installing and downloaded the latest security patches for me. There was an option for “nVidia drivers” so I clicked that. The rest it did for me.
To put in my two cents on this, SuSE is by far my favorite Linux distrib as well. 
I switched to it back when it was the only linux certified by Oracle and never really looked back. (Except that I’ve had to use a bare bones RedHat for my recent dedicated server… forced by the host company, ah well.)
@cep: ah, ok this online update feature is nice but not for a 56k junkie 
I feel we should compare some frame rates and machine specs and os’s for the jme test apps. What do you think ?
i’ll post some when i get to it.
Uh sorry i forgot to post the mentioned fps … but they seem to increase from day to day anyway 
so i see no point in this right now.
BTW: TestManyChildren seem to rely on some functionality that has gone so it doesn’t run.
java.lang.NoSuchFieldError: isRoot
at com.jme.scene.CloneNode.applyStates(Unknown Source)
It looks like you are mixing old and new jME? I don’t think TestManyChildren (or CloneNode for that matter) are part of jME anymore.
:? … :// … darn cvs handling (!) gave me another shot in the knee