[ale] Suse or Red Hat? (yes, yes, i know here we go again...)

[PBoyington at polyengineering.com (Preston Boyington)]

i have a friend that is considering linux and was asking me which distro i thought he should try.?? i don't have experience with Suse and my Red Hat experience stopped at 7.1.?? are they close as far as usability/features (workstation install)?

in my (limited) reading it seems that RH slightly modifies library files.?? is this causing problems somewhere??? i don't know which is better at "plug and play" with things like digital cameras, scanners, dvds, printers, etc. so any input would be helpful.

i am leaning toward RH and installing apt (or even Mandrake) but would be interested in hearing from the Suse users on how their system treats newbie's.?? 

thanks all,
preston