Novell released OpenSuse 10.3 Thursday, its latest free version of the open-source operating system.

For those who need a refresher, OpenSuse is the faster-moving but mostly unsupported version of Linux from Novell and various outside contributors. It competes most directly with Linux versions such as Canonical’s Ubuntu and Red Hat’s Fedora. Novell has tried for years to pit it against Windows as well, even as it cooperates with Microsoft in a legally thorny partnership. Novell’s supported product, Novell’s Suse Linux Enterprise Server, is sold in the form of an annual support subscription.

Like most versions of Linux, OpenSuse has a choice of graphical interfaces. Version 10.3 includes new versions of the two most widely used, GNOME 2.20 and KDE 3.5.7, along with some elements of the forthcoming KDE 4.

Read full story.