Hi,

Forgive me if you finds this in a wrong section. I'm a newbie converted from Windows. While I'm settled to KDE over GNOME as DE, but I'm kind of confused over the distro's.
I've tried live CDs of OpenSuse, Kubuntu, PCLinuxOS and MEPIS and felt first three were amazing. I don't mind using rpm or deb as long as applications are available in respective repositories.

Are all (most useful/popular) applications available in these distro's repository? I've read that debian/ubuntu repo contains more than 20K apps, so does that mean opensuse/pclinuxos distro user's really missing them in action?
Or in other way, Is there application which is really useful but only available to a particular repositories?

Additionally, which of these repositories are usually most responsive to latest softwares?

I really regret that It took 7 Years to move to Linux, but better late than never...But now I'm flooded with myriads of options in Linux, the beauty of freedom, the beauty of choice...
Please enlighten me!!

openSUSE have a dedicated tool (from 11.2, included in Yast) called webpin to search for packages:
http://packages.opensuse-community.org/
googling I found this for ubuntu:
http://packages.ubuntu.com/
and for fedora:
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/packages/
etcetera
In my experience, fedora, openSUSE and debian (including its derivatives like *buntu) all have really good repositories.
But be careful if you ask which one is better, that kind of question always end in a war scenario
For me, openSUSE have the best repository management tool: yast. But this is for me, I mean, in my opinion: as they say, "your mileage may vary"

I also agree with opensuse, not necessarily because it has the largest number of packages in the default repository, but it has a large number of specialized official repositories with up-to-date versions of a huge variety of packages. But that is just my take on it.

@RGB thanks for this info... It seems that they are more or less same in terms of number of useful apps..
@TheBlackCat - Would you mind telling me these official repos? do u mean packman? or google repos?

You can find them here:
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/

Everything besides the "Home" section contain packages created and maintained by openSUSE.

I'm currently using ubuntu with all its repositories. It's a rather decent amount of apps, I think and ppa's really expand it by a lot if need be.

Opensuse is pretty good too, but so are fedora and of course debian.

I am also looking at arch recently, but I got so ridiculously comfortable with things just working 'out of the box' with the *buntus, I need to adjust a little. Also the dokumentation is alot harder to find.

The problem with ubuntu PPA's is that they are user-contributed, which means you need to trust the user before you use them (I don't trust most users, so I avoid using such repositories usually). That is why I liked openSUSE, it has a massive number of specialized applications provided directly by openSUSE, which means as long as you trust openSUSE you can also trust the repositories. It also has similar personal repositories, but is rare that I need them.

Not exactly true, the Kubuntu PPAs are made by the Kubuntu Motus, e.g. developers, so you can hardly be more official

I'd say Arch with KDEmod. But that's just me, try it and use it if you like
Also check project-chakra for preconfigured Arch with KDEmod, but it's still in alpha stage.

If you don't mind to get your hands "dirty" and want to really learn about Linux then try Gentoo.
It's definitely not a point and click to install distro.
On the other hand the docs and user forums are unsurpassed .
Installing takes quite a bit of time though.
Gerard.

Thanks all...
@Primoz.. it seems like my distro hopping ended at Chakra project(arch+kdemod). I have been using its Alpha 5 Preview 5 (latest -with kde 4.4.1- available at http://chakra-project.org/bbs/viewtopic.php?pid=15924) for the past 3 days, and I gotta say, its simply flying.. I never knew that KDE can be that fast in any form. I felt it is faster than other distros (Kubuntu, PCLinuxOS, Mint KDE, MEPIS, openSUSE) I tried.
Its repositories got a good number of apps and I like its AUR concept, which is an user maintained repository where you can maintain your favorite/useful apps with simple steps.
Also being a rolling release, Chakra will keep updated with a simple pacman command and I need not worry about fresh installation all the time whenever a new release is available like for some distros. Also as I said earlier I don't bother (couldn't find any reason) about packaging application as long as apps are available and easy to install and there you got really good package management app - Shaman(written in Qt) which is fast and so responsive.
I have to say, these are my "strictly personal" opinion.
But I felt few glitches, which is expected from an Alpha release. As its final release is due somewhere end of this year, I have to live/test/contribute(in whatever way I can) with its alphas and betas...but its worth trying. Keep an eye on this promising distro !

I have just installed Chakra Linux on two of my machines. It is the fastest implementation of KDE I have ever used. It is significantly faster than Kubuntu. As other users have said, it is still in alpha stage and not necessarily ready for prime time. However, the potential is there. I also agree that the rolling release nature of Chakra is excellent. You don't have to blow up your system to have the latest and greatest. I also find it to be more stable than Kubuntu. Things seem to just work. Yes, it is more work to get it set up when compared to something like Ubuntu but it does offer benefits in return. When it reaches beta status give it a try.