[Qgis-user] QGIS windows v's linux from a newbie perspective

[Darren Norris]

Dear all,

 From a QGIS user (newbie) perspective which OS (Vista or openSUSE 11.1) 
will be easiest to install and maintain (put me in the same basket as 
one of the undergraduates with Agustin Loboto 
http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/qgis-user/2009-March/004872.html ) .

I need QGIS for visualising and also editing / creating vector data held 
in GRASS (QGIS must have GRASS / python plugin) / MySQL (via eVIS -I 
have instructions how to install eVIS from source on openSUSE).

Apologies for a slightly general question (long winded email) but I am 
hoping there are users who can share experiences to enable me to decide 
which OS will meet my needs best.
I am starting a little GIS project with a tight deadline. I would like 
to do all this via open source. To deliver project results I would need 
GRASS, QGIS, MySQL and R to play nicely together.
However many recent discussions have left me unsure about
1) whether using this combination of free software is a wise move at 
this time (based on a tight deadline and poor dial up connection I am 
not able to spend days reading forums or reinstalling / trying different 
installer settings / software versions) and
2) on which OS will it be the simplest to install and maintain.

Just a short outline of what I will be doing:
I can go 2 routes Vista or openSUSE. The work is for a single user (me) 
on a 32 bit laptop 2GB ram, 1.83 GHz processor.
I will be mapping vector data (points = species locations, lines / 
polygons = survey transects and hydrology - rivers etc) to classified 
landsat images.
I will probably use GRASS for the majority of GIS work (small scale)- 
one landsat scene at a time for image processing, hydrological analysis 
etc. Here I will also need R for additional spatial analysis so maybe 
windows isn't an option but that's for another list! 
http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/grass-stats/2009-February/000919.html .

Many thanks for taking the time to read this far and for any thoughts....
Darren