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The first thing that I had to do in switching to Linux is to decide on which distro to use. In the past I've used several distros in text-only mode but I've only had limited experience with the running the Gnome or KDE graphical environments. The distro that I have the most experience with is Debian. I currently have 3 servers running Debian. I chose it mostly for security reasons. I felt that it was the most secure of the popular distros and I liked it's automatic handling of security updates.

In thinking about a desktop Linux I had a very different set of criteria. I had two main goals:

• have a desktop that I would be happy with without having to tweak it too much
• experiment with a desktop that I could provide to people that I support

Obviously these are two very different goals but a common thread is that the desktop must be easy to use. Ideally it should also be easy to transition to from Windows.

I won't go into my whole thought process of choosing SuSE but it came from listening to other people's thoughts on good desktop distros and from my own trial an error. In truth, my selection really depended on which distro I got far enough with to not bother looking any further.