Parallels on OSX and OpenSUSE 10.1 experimenting

I have been trying out SuSE 10.1 on my iMac with the Release Candidate version of Parallels. Parallels is awesome, there is nothing like being able to play with (and blow away) Linux and Windows at almost full speed directly within OSX. On the PowerPC I have used Virtual PC and the Intel iMac has also gone through Bootcamp but Parallels is far and away a better solution for most tasks (you would not want to run games through Parallels).
From a website design perspective it really eases the testing of html/css in all four major environments (Windows Explorer, Firefox, Linux Konquerer and OSX Safari).

One new default feature in OpenSUSE 10.1 that is really very cool is AppArmor. It makes the task of securing server and client based applications simple through the automatic creation of application-based rules (i.e. Firefox can execute these files, modify these files and access these devices). The SUSE Diary has a nicely written tutorial introducing the application and describing how to easily create rulesets.

Through proper use it can protect systems from zero day exploits and just stop users from doing dumb things. It is definitely a huge feature that will appeal to corporate users, rather than messing around with file permission and access levels directly, you just tell the kernel what you want the application to be able to do and it looks after it from there. In theory these rulesets can be managed centrally from Zen (they are just simple text files) but I don't think Novell have released details on this.

Also the Jem Report have a useful article describing how to get your OpenSUSE 10.1 install up to speed with all the packages you may need (Java, mp3, etc.). OpenSUSE have begun to make this task easier with their 'Add-On' CD but still it is nice to have a single document that lists all the optional features available.