Samsung N150 Plus Netbook - openSuSE 11.3
Continuing with installation of various Linux distributions on the N150 Plus, the next step was openSuSE 11.3 - and I realized that I had made a very fortuitous choice when I installed Ubuntu Netbook Edition 10.04 first. I had a problem with the wireless network connection, which I will detail at the end of this entry.
The openSuSE 11.3 KDE Live distribution loaded very easily, as usual. Screen resolution, font sizes and such were all good. The entire installation took about 15 minutes, which is quite typical. Boot time for the installed system is about 45-50 seconds, which is longer than Ubuntu, but still about half of Windows 7. Suspend takes less than 5 seconds (and the Fn-Sleep key combination works for this), and Resume takes less than 10 seconds. All of the hardware seems to work just fine (once the WiFi adapter is configured as described below). I installed the KDE version of openSuSE, which of course is a completely different desktop than the Ubuntu Netbook Edition has. Other than being a bit cramped on the 1024x600 display, the KDE desktop looks just fine on this netbook.
jw
WiFi Adapter Configuration
The wireless network adapter is a Broadcom 4313, which does 802.11 b/g/n. I was surprised when the Ubuntu Hardware Drivers utility only offered to install the Broadcom STA driver (also known as the "wl" driver), but I didn't think much about it at the time. Now I know why - the 4313 does not work with the bcm43 (aka b43) driver. Ubuntu has always offered both drivers, and did a good job of identifying the one which worked with this new adapter; most other distributions only include (or load after installation) the bcm43 driver.
To get the Broadcom wl driver installed on openSuSE, you have to either use a wired network connection to get the package you need, or you can download the package to another system and then move it to the Samsung. Either way, go to the Packman package site, and download broadcom-wl-kmp-default-5.60.48.36_k2.6.34.0_12-7.pm.8.1.i586.rpm. Once you have that package on the Samsung, just double-click it to install, reboot, and you should see wireless networks available. Not too difficult, and I suspect that by the time the next openSuSE release comes out, they will have support for this wireless adapter included.
jw