Compared to CentOS, it is really easy to use common desktop environments. I can’t say about very niche ones, but I use XFCE, which works well out of the box. YaST is the convenient GUI where settings and some common tools are located. It is more than adequate: not perfect but much better than a myriad of small setup programs or the abomination that is whatever Windows does. The package manager (zypper in the command-line, or a YaST module for the GUI) is a bit different but not revolutionary and still RPM-based.
Compared to Ubuntu, it tends to be more conservative and better tested on server or workstation hardware. What finally drove me away from Ubuntu was a very painful episode when the SAS driver would freeze randomly about 4 times out of 10 when loading. It is also far less opinionated than Canonical regarding which desktop you should use. The main drawback is that OpenSUSE Leap is supported for 2 years, so no equivalent to Ubuntu’s LTS releases.
OpenSUSE also uses systemd, but this should not be a shock for someone coming from Red Hat. It works decently with nVidia’s proprietary driver. Well, as decently as this garbage can run, anyway. I haven’t tested Wayland, as AFAIK XFCE still requires X.
Compared to Ubuntu, it tends to be more conservative and better tested on server or workstation hardware. What finally drove me away from Ubuntu was a very painful episode when the SAS driver would freeze randomly about 4 times out of 10 when loading. It is also far less opinionated than Canonical regarding which desktop you should use. The main drawback is that OpenSUSE Leap is supported for 2 years, so no equivalent to Ubuntu’s LTS releases.
OpenSUSE also uses systemd, but this should not be a shock for someone coming from Red Hat. It works decently with nVidia’s proprietary driver. Well, as decently as this garbage can run, anyway. I haven’t tested Wayland, as AFAIK XFCE still requires X.