Re: "...rank it the 5th-most-read-about..."
Ububntu seems to historically get lots of press on lots of sites, though maybe that's changed in the last year or two, and in terms of what was delivered, I never understood the fuss much.
Very few people seem to write about (Open)Suse; it was a pleasant surprise to see a Suse review here at our very own El Reg last year [1].
Distrowatch has it as the 5th most read about in the last 6 months.
Never understood why it gets so little mainstream coverage. Maybe because it works out of the box, is set up with all the options most people might need (and the others probably aren't far away). It has done so pretty much ever since I first tried it a decade and more ago (Suse 8?), when I liked it so much I paid for a boxed set, with properly printed hardcopy documentation.
A Linux that works, straight off the ISO (and before that, straight off the network install).
In the past I've tried alternatives, Mandrake/Mandriva included, RedHat/Fedora/Scientific on a couple of occasions, and more recently Ubuntu (obviously) and Mint a couple of times, and even more recently, Raspbian (obviously). Not seen any reason yet to move off Suse, though Raspbian has its own particular attractions on its own home territory. Suse does what I need it to do, does it easily and reliably.
If you're an IT department you can buy pre-qualified hardware certified to run Suse from outfits like CPQ (now HP). You can probably even buy a support contract if you wish.
But even if that's not your game, there's a fair chance that Suse would work for you.
No connection with them, other than a long term satisfied user.
[1] http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11/06/opensuse_tumbles_into_town/
"if you're looking for a solid, stable system that won't let you down openSUSE 13.2 fits the bill."
Caution: contains systemd.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
