Hi
I would like to point to the Discussion thread which we had in November 2006. I have forcibly new hardware, do development work but for embedded and my internal applications and not for etch.
I prefer stable, because I am not in a position (capability and time) to pinpoint to problems and do not want my business performance be interrupted in the public by "but it did work until the upgrade". Think of making a presentation ..... Think of people YOU have to pay.
It was pretty tough to switch from SusE 7.3 to debian sarge, which installed and ran relatively flawless on my older hw. (desktop + server, xterminals, project begun in Nov 2004, end in April 2006)
Why not OpenSuSE : because I just run away from SuSE , with its constant changes and frequent updates. And now it is embraced by the Dollar freak anaconda and will be choked to death and swallowed. My experience with all multimillion $ US vampyrs: dont get even close! The vacuum cleaners of information and they dont leak anythink out.
Why not ubuntu : I want a root password for security. Only single users may do so, If you run the risk of having someone else sitting on your keyboards : dont do it.
Grüss Gott