Kubuntu LTS and KDE4

Even in 10.3, zypper still has no dependency management that is on par with apt. I saw this
recently at a customer where we upgraded from 10.2 to 10.3 and zypper asked lots of questions
about conflict resolves -- with very annoying several-minute lapses inbetween -- where apt
would have simply proposed to do the Right Thing(tm) in one step.

In any case, either zypper or smart would need that I put work into the update process which
is working now. I would have to investigate how one creates a cron job in the night that
downloads all available updates and sends a notification email (interactive update notifiers
in desktop panels are not acceptable -- my staff will have no need for that, updates are done
by updates), i.e., the functionality of apticron. (And please don't even start to recommend
automatic updates for desktops where work is done every day.) Forthermore, how one blocks
updates of specific packages (e.g., kernel, glibc, X server) while installing the rest
automatically in one sweep, i.e. without the need to turn off their installation in a GUI
interactively for each update anew. (The equivalent to aptitude hold, respectively
hold-configurations in apt4rpm.) Last, but not least, using a shared download cache for all my
systems must be configured -- we have a metered Internet connection.

I'm rather sure that this can all be done -- but it is probably several hours work until I
have a new setup that just does the same thing as the apt-based setup that I have already,
without any conceivable advantage in return for this work. And because that's not the only
area with changes but no improvements, I think about moving from SUSE to another distribution.
Btw, I'm a paying customer since SUSE 5.1 with a running subscription, I didn't just download
OS, after all I wanted to support these folks. Thus, it's not just a short fling with SUSE, I
use them since many years and really think they messed up with the 10.x series.