The next big release of Novell's community-driven SUSE Linux distro is set to land on Thursday. Ahead of that, the firm has released details about what customers can expect from version 11.1, including a new licence in which the EULA has been ditched.

New features include an improved KDE desktop experience and better synchronisation with Apple's iPod and Android G1 phone, said Novell.

It will also come loaded with GNOME 2.24.1, KDE 4.1.3, OpenOffice.org 3.0 and Firefox 3.0.4 software updates.

I've used both Novell and Red Hat support. Frankly, they're both good, and I can't call one better than the other. I will say, however, that I've found both Red Hat and Novell to do a better job than Oracle Linux support team. There is one area, where Novell does do a better job than Red Hat. Novell refers to it cautiously as "mixed platforms," "proprietary software," and "superb interoperability in mixed-source environments." What they're really talking about is that, thanks to Novell's Microsoft partnership, Novell SLES does a better job of working in tandem with Windows Server 2003, 2008 and related server/network services like AD (Active Directory).

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