How we did it

We tested SuSE 9.1 i386 version on three servers: an MPC/NetFrame 1U rack server with dual 3.06MHz Xeon processors, an HP DL360G3 with a similar, and an HP DL580 with 4 2.4GHz CPUs.

We also tested the AMD64 version on a 'whitebox' system consisting of a 2.8GHz AMD64 CPU with an MSI motherboard, 4G byte of dynamic RAM, and Serial Advanced Technology Attachment disk drive.

We tested all versions on a network consisting of a Gigabit Ethernet switched backbone and checked logon compatibility with the following server operating systems: Windows 2003 Enterprise Edition, Apple OpenDarwin OS/X 10.3, Red Hat Linux Enterprise 3.0, NetWare 6.5, NetBSD 1.6.0, and Windows NT Server 4.0, as well as Apple OS/X clients (Powerbook G4, G4 desktop, Titanium G4), Windows XP/2000/98SE clients (Compaq Presario 700US notebooks, IBM ThinkPad 600E notebook, Sony Vaio notebook, several HP/Compaq desktops and several whitebox desktops); GNU/Linux 2.4.17 kernel Mandrake 9, Xandros 3, Debian Potato clients (Presario 700US, several whitebox desktops).

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We tested SuSE 9.1 i386 version on three servers: an MPC/NetFrame 1U rack server with dual 3.06MHz Xeon processors, an HP DL360G3 with a similar, and an HP DL580 with 4 2.4GHz CPUs.

We also tested the AMD64 version on a 'whitebox' system consisting of a 2.8GHz AMD64 CPU with an MSI motherboard, 4G byte of dynamic RAM, and Serial Advanced Technology Attachment disk drive.

We tested all versions on a network consisting of a Gigabit Ethernet switched backbone and checked logon compatibility with the following server operating systems: Windows 2003 Enterprise Edition, Apple OpenDarwin OS/X 10.3, Red Hat Linux Enterprise 3.0, NetWare 6.5, NetBSD 1.6.0, and Windows NT Server 4.0, as well as Apple OS/X clients (Powerbook G4, G4 desktop, Titanium G4), Windows XP/2000/98SE clients (Compaq Presario 700US notebooks, IBM ThinkPad 600E notebook, Sony Vaio notebook, several HP/Compaq desktops and several whitebox desktops); GNU/Linux 2.4.17 kernel Mandrake 9, Xandros 3, Debian Potato clients (Presario 700US, several whitebox desktops).

We examined version continuity among the distribution applications for each of the three tested platforms (i86, AMD64, and PPC). We also tested version levels among the applications, as well as the current vs. shipped level of several service applications, all of which were behind but patched at our installation update time.

We used Spirent Communications' WebAvalanche benchmarks to conduct our Web performance tests. We ran tests to determine the number of transactions processed per second, as well as the maximum number of TCP connections per second and found them to be good for this class of processor/speed.

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