What flavor do you suggest? 1

[schase]

Having been a long time windows user - and one open to try alternate items.

What flavor - running what of Linux would you all suggest? "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!"

-Adm. James Farragut

Stuart

 

[Craftor]

Mandrake is lovely *personal preference* - I like the look and feel of it very much.

SuSe is also excellent and you get a lot in the bundle.

I've never really liked RedHat - again just personal pref.

If you want a lot of functionality - I suggest SuSe. Personally I found Mandrake a bit easier to use.

Craftor

 

[schase]

Thanks Craftor. "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!"

-Adm. James Farragut

Stuart

 

[jiman]

use fedora you will feel more a linux user than leaving windows for a OS like them with a Torvalds Kernel...
i suggest away from Suse and Mandrake you are leaving windows for something new not for something like windows...

 

[oppcos]

I would suggest getting the retail SuSE Pro. SuSE provides better hardware recognition and a wide variety of window managers so you can try out all the different graphical flavors of Linux in one distribution. It also provides things like auto-update, good package management, a very fast kernel, and a central control center. The retail version costs $70-$80, but comes with 4 thick manuals that are well written and help you get going. It also comes with something like 90 days free support from Novel, which can be quite valuable.

Before even SuSE though, I would suggest downloading and trying Knoppix which is a live cd so there is no installation involved.

http://www.knoppix.org

Knoppix can also install to your hard drive if you like it which makes it Debian GNU/Linux (about as hardcore "real" Linux as you can get without compiling from scratch). Knoppix also has excellent hardware recognition and comes with lots of software so you can get into quickly.

I haven't tried Fedora Core out because I have had very bad experiences with Red Hat. I have heard positive things though.

 

[skiflyer]

Debian, with the sarge installer.

Completely echo the knoppix suggestion.