1) what is the consensus among gnome user on what works best for suse between usr-local-bin and ximian ?
I say usr-local-bin. But then, I would ;) You might want to read this: http://lists.suse.com/archive/suse-linux-e/2004-Jan/0355.html
2) how can i remove ximian and install ulb?
Warning: it's quite early and I've not had coffee yet, so this may not
be 100% sensible advice ;)
rpm -qa | grep ximian - this will give you a list of all ximian
installed packages
rpm -e