Which Linux?

[fffanatics 0]

I agree with leiaah. In order to determine which linux distro is the best you just have to try them and see which one works for you. When i first started using linux i tried out fedora core 2 and then mepis and mandrake linux of which none of them i liked or could i figure out how to load them on an external harddrive. So finally, i tried Suse and it solved all my troubles with the external and i love the user interface and its features and how often it gets updated. So just go out and try some. I just dont recommend trying gentoo linux since you dont know much about linux nor making a kernal and all and this would just cause you major frustration

[Unregistered 015 0]

I see there are a lot of recommendations and I have to join. I vote for Knoppix (Live DVD). It's filled with stuff for a begginer. I'm not that unfamiliar with unix/linux systems. I used Red Hat's when it was at version 6.0. Since then I turned back to windoze, but now I sometimes boot knoppix.It comes with probably everything you wil need (including open office). It installs all the drivers (at least on my machine) without you doing any thing. I even can use my adsl connection without any aditional work. Great distro...If you want to do "tricks", however, you might want to get NavyNos, but you'll probablly find it "hard".

[DynamicMan 0]

My favorite used to be Slackware because the directory tree made sense to me and all configuration files were pre-populated and commented for easy learning. But it was/is not the easiest for getting up and going in a graphical environment.

I tried Redhat for awhile but, despite its popularity, I like to keep it simple and Redhat seemed/seems too complex.

Recently I noticed on DistroWatch, a website that tracks virtually all linux distributions, that Ubuntu is now the most popular distribution. So I downloaded it and installed it on my new 64-bit laptop. After a few days using it in a dual-boot configuration with Windows XP I liked it so much that I obliterated XP.

Now I only boot Ubuntu on my laptop. It is not cluttered like other distributions, but has all the essential stuff like OpenOffice.org, Evolution Mail, and Firefox web browser. It also makes it easy to add more packages as you need to. Hope this helps!

DynamicMan