being saved by the penguin

[quiggley]

alright, I'm new to linux and I've been trying to find a good distro for a beginner. here's my current computer specs if this helps determine what build i need:
AMD Sempron 1.49 GHz, 512 MB ram..anything els i need to put up here?

[DimGR]

www.distrowatch.com

[dannybunkins]

if your willing to not really understand whats going on at first, but really want to understand linux and become a poweruser, I would suggest slackware. I am still a newbie but I understand linux alot better than some of my friends who use mandriva, fedora, or suse, because I use slackware.

another good power user distro is gentoo but I would stay away from that until you have a better understanding of what is going on.

but If you want a nice easy to use linux box I suggest Ubuntu or the kde version of ubuntu called Kubuntu.

-dannybunkins

[jfz]

My current favorite distro, and what I'd recommend to you, is PCLinuxOS (a.k.a., PCLOS). It's free in every sense, only a single ISO download, and boots as a live cd that you can "try before you buy" (or install to the hard drive, in this case) -- that way you learn about any hardware compatibility issues quite early in the process. It uses apt4rpm and Synaptic, so software installation and updating couldn't be easier. It also comes preconfigured with *lots* of multimedia apps and plugins. And, for what's supposed to be beta software, it's at least as stable and usable as any other distro I've experienced. You can start checking it out here:

http://www.pclinuxonline.com/pclos/index.html

[stumbles]

I have to second the vote on PCLOS. I put it on my daughters machine and it is a very complete live-cd. Once you install it to your hard drive, aside from updating any software there's really nothing new you need to install.

Last I looked Texstar even had individual ISOs for ATI or Nvidia cards. Nice touch.

jfz is spot on his assessment. I have found it to be as stable and useful as any other distro out of the box. Not that it comes in a box but you know what I mean :)

[LNXchd]

How many threads about "which distro should I use?" are there going to be? Do a search for it, if nothing else look at the bottom of the main page and you will see that there are 5 threads about different distro's. Now that I have gone off on a tangent.......Debian is a good distro! :D

[XiaoKJ]

MEPIS please....

and read the other threads.