My specs and wants. Which distro/apps?

[DarkChristian]

I would like a bit of advice about which distribution and applications would be best for my fairly specific needs/wants. I have gotten tired of windows and picked up morphix/kde recently, and I have enjoyed it, but I'm not sure it's right for me. I want something fully customizable, with some decent eye candy, but I also want it to run fast. If I had to decide between speed and graphics, I would rather have speed. I have been considering Debian, as it sounds versatile enough to get the job done, but I'm not decided by any means.

Software: I need a very powerful word processor (I'm a budding novelist), a vector graphics editor and a sprite graphics editor for my webcomics, some flash animation software to work on animated movies, a winamp-like mp3 player, something to play movie files on, and the ability to play a few games. I'm not a hardcore gamer, but I would like to play through Myst 3 if possible.

My specs (stats taken from bootup dialog):
Asus A7V133-C ACPI Bios Revision 1009
AMD Athlon XP 2.4 GHz
Seagate 4.3 Gb hard drive (which I'll probably be getting rid of) (ST 34311A)
A 30Gb Hard Drive (WDC WD 300BB-00AUA1)
768 Mb Ram (3 256Mb sticks of Dram, PC-133)
A generic floppy drive
NVidia GeForce 2 MX 400, 64Mb
A CD-RW (CRW-5224A) 52x24x52x
KDS Avitron monitor
ASound Pro PCI sound card (version ASP009)
A Canon Canoscan N650U scanner
2D/3D smart keyboard PC98 (ergonomic keyboard with interesting software)
And a Lexmark Z22 printer

I also have a Rio Diamond MP3 player, but I haven't used it much, since I can't find software that supports it. Anyway, your help would be greatly appreciated.

[TheSpeedoBeast]

For your distro, debian, slackware, gentoo, and any of their variants would probably suit your needs; as for software, I am not sure on all of them, but for the ones that I know, this is what I would suggest:
Word processor- Openoffice, abiword
Mp3 player- XMMS is almost an exact winamp clone, i think it is even skinnable with winamp skins
Games- If WINE of transgaming doesnt work, you either have to go and buy linux-compatible games, or you are outta luck...

Also check this site out for any ideas: http://linuxshop.ru/linuxbegin/win-lin-soft-en/table.shtml

[DarkChristian]

That definitely gives me a good place to start. Commence downloading... :)

[TheSpeedoBeast]

Not a problem; I find that website to be one of the best places to find equivalents for linux from windows around, so use it liberally :)

[jeremymh]

I only recently made the switch. After much trial I've built myself a nice list of regular programs.

Originally posted by DarkChristian
If I had to decide between speed and graphics, I would rather have speed.

The latest stable gnome is quite fast and a very well built enviroment - I would recommend it as a great mix of looks, features and speed. - far better balanced than kde, imo.

If that isn't extreme enough, fluxbox is brilliantly fast (seemingly instant startup) and lightweight. Configuration isn't rocket science, either. (although often overlooked - edit the text files in ~/.fluxbox/menu to configure the menu items)

Personally, for home use I wouldn't recommend the stable branch of debian - the software is immensly stable, but also old. If you aren't running a mission critical server then It'd be better to go with a system that follows the application developers thoughts of stable (if debian, go with the "unstable" version). I'd recommend slackware because it's reasonably fast and you will learn plenty (such as compilling programs from source). It comes with many of the main programs, such as xmms. Gentoo is also highly recommended, It just has a fairly long installation - probably a good second distro, once you start gaining the feel for linux.

Also - Grab mozilla firebird if you have never tried it. I made the switch from IE to firebird long before the switch from Windows the linux. Highly recommended browser.

Grab the gimp for image editing. 1.3.22 is the current unstable/testing version but it has a far friendly/nicer interface than the current stable version (1.2.something) - and uses gtk2 (faster, prettier than gtk). Stability hasn't been an issue for me so far, but I still have the stable version (by default they install to seperate places) that came with slackware in the case of needing to switch back.

Have fun.

[DarkChristian]

I appreciate the help. Unfortunately, I don't have internet access on my system, and my fiancee's computer has just gone in for repair and won't be out for three-four weeks. So I may have to buy a magazine with Gentoo in it or something. I need something to work for me in the short term, and Morphix isn't it. I'm having trouble doing things I should be able to do without any difficulty whatsoever.

Anyway, I am thankful for all the assistance. Being so new to it, I know as much about Linux as most people know about Windows. I love to learn, so I know Linux is right up my alley. It just isn't yet what I know it can be for me. Wow, that was wordy.

If anyone else has anything to add, I'd love to hear it. All the advice I can get will aid me in my quest.

Now I just have to figure out what to do with all the information I've gotten so far. :D

[Sepero]

Newbie friendly, no install required:
Knoppix (http://www.distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=knoppix)
Gnoppix (http://www.distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=gnoppix)
Morphix (http://www.distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=morphix)

Newbie friendly installs:
Mandrake (http://www.distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=mandrake)
Suse (http://www.distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=suse)
Lindows (http://www.distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=lindows)

More Experienced Linux distros:
Debian (http://www.distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=debian)
Slackware (http://www.distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=slackware)

Advanced distros:
Gentoo (http://www.distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=gentoo)
Vector (http://www.distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=vector)
LFS (http://www.distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=lfs)

[DarkChristian]

Thank you! Much obliged. :)

[DarkChristian]

I started with RH9, then tried Mandrake 9.1 (now with even bigger training wheels ;)) and slackware (log in as root, create new user, startx... wait a sec, how do I switch from fluxbox to gnome? gah! Many difficulties resulting from lack of knowledge there...) and I think I want to try gentoo now.

Anyone have any advice or want to try talking me out of it?

Should I take the plunge or just upgrade to RH9, playing it safe until I know more about the command line?

[jeremymh]

Actually, gentoo was my first experience with linux/unix. It does take a lot more work than other distros in installation, as you manually set up most things. But the difference is that I found gentoo to have very good documentation. Every step and every decision that you need to make is usually in the manuals. Follow the install guide, then work your way through their desktop, audio... etc guides.

My only experience with linux before trying gentoo was reading the beginners guide for command line stuff at linux.com.

While I don't use gentoo anymore, I found it to be a great learning experience - So I recommend it, if you have the time. (compiling kde/gnome and other large things takes quite a while)

[xdakorx]

Dude im telling screw slackware the pkg system is good but you have to deal with dep alot. Deb is hard to install plus its only i386 so it can only be so fat and gentoo takes forever to install you should use.............Archlinux (archlinux.org) Has a nice okg system easy to keep upgraded a simple installer a friendly messege board and its compiled for i686 go arch!

[Hayl]

xdakorx,

Slackware uses -mcpu=i686, not i386

From their website:Slackware Linux can run on 486 systems all the way up to the latest x86 machines (but uses -mcpu=i686 optimization for best performance on i686-class machines like the P3, P4, and Duron/Athlon).

[DarkChristian]

Well, I guess you could say I've gotten nervous. I don't think I'm ready yet for gentoo. I'll go with Redhat 9 for a while, then probably go with gentoo when I'm more comfortable with Linux. In the meantime, I need something quick and functional so I can work on my projects.

Thanks for the suggestions. :)

[sploo22]

I believe most recent kernels (e.g. 2.4.22, possibly earlier) support your Rio Diamond, I've seen it in the configuration dialog. You'll also need the appropriate software from http://rio500.sourceforge.net/

[AdamZ]

For a fast desktop, I'd recommend XFce4. It's gtk or gtk2, I can't remember, has quick startup, looks relatively nice, and is very easy to use and configure. The only problem I ever had with it is that it wouldn't automatically start xscreensaver, and it's an easy fix (add xscreensaver -nosplash to the startup script)