Linux - Ubuntu
 

I recently downloaded (via torrent) Knoppix, Gentoo, and Unbuntu.. I'm trying to find what is the right "user friendly" linux for me. I found Gentoo is nice, Knoppix seems to have some polish and Unbuntu found one external drive and my NIC card.

Yes, I'm aware that I, when I learn how, can configure my NIC card to work in Ubuntu, same thing with XMMS. That player is simply amazing, doesn't Mac have anything like that.. (that goes into a seperate post. :) )

My question(s) is for a noob (smile) like myself what Linux distro is good/great to start with?

PCLinuxOS.......very user friendly,and lots of free apps in it's repos,it's easy to install ....or you canrun it as livecd.

Ok, but the best for a Windows convert is Xandros, by far. Not a live CD, you've got to install as a dual boot to really get the feeling of this wonderful O/S. Why it's so good is it's got all the drivers, mounts all the drives, no need to learn all the little tricks that Linux requires us to learn with other distros.

I have a love hate relationship with Linux. I get it installed and then find out it won't run my most needed and favorite programs: Active Sync, for one. Etc.

Meanwhile, I'm slowly getting drawn into Vista. Sometimes I wish a Bill Gates alter ego would excite program writers to write stuff for Linux.

I'll try PCLinux. I understand completely that this is a learning curve, I feel stumped on how to get mp3 working in Ubuntu. I've run the configure file in Terminal.. that compiles the code to make a binary for the system, still my system is not reading a decoder for LAME mp3. I downloaded the codec from sourceforge too.

PCLinux, ill give a try !!

Thx GUys !

Just cam out with Ubuntu 7.10. It's a live version. I've been meaning to give this a try. I take it this runs from cd and no installation is needed.

Yes, you can run Ubunto 7.10 from the CD. Gives you a choice to run or install. It runs great and includes the new free word/spreadsheet/graphics suite, as well as Firefox. Very nice.

Ubuntu 8 has a shiney new UI to play around with, however the shared directories sort-of went away. I might go back to Ubuntu 7.

i've been running ubuntu for while now and I really like. for a while I found that was just switching distros all the time trying to find the perfect one that would be an easy switch for me. I finally decided just to stick with one (ubuntu in this case) and learn it. so far so good. the only real problem I ran into was I didn't have to restart my computer ever and when I finally did after several weeks I had completely forgotten my user name and password for logging in. luckily its super easy to reset.

anyway yeah my word of advice, just find one and stick with it. once you get to know linux more you can change distros and have a more educated decision.

rad