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Linux distro

I know this question has been asked about 100 times already, but I know this forum is very helpful. I've recently acquired a decent laptop (considering it was free) that consists of Intel Centrino technology (1.5-2.0 GHz and about 256MB of RAM. I'd like to know a good KDE-Based distro that would fare good on a laptop like that. I've tried Mandrake and I could never get my cable modem working correctly with that distribution...Fedora Core 2, which from my experience seemed to have stability problems, and Debian (which is gnome-based, at least I believe). While I enjoyed debian, I'd like to get acquainted with a few other distros before buckling down and choosing a final os.
I'm not really using this as anything special, as I have no need for a server of anykind, and I'm using Windows for gaming. My only use would just to get a better feel for the inner workings of Linux (I'd rather get used to compiling things..etc. instead of relying on certain package managers..such as Yast and the like). That and I am beginning to program.
Any help would be much appreciated. 🙂
 
There is nothing stopping you from compiling your own regardless of the distro that you use. It is just an added convenience that there are pre package with great package managers to solve the dependencies.

I?m currently running SUSE 9.2 and had to roll a few of my own packages last night to install because SuSE didn?t have them. And, I?m still have to roll another dozen or more packages for dependencies, therefore I?m removing SuSE off my primary machine and reinstall Debian for the added convenience of having 8700 packages available to me at any given moment (SuSE only have about 1000 prepackage RPM).

PS. You also don?t have to use Yast for Suse if you want because Apt-get can be deploy, and also straight RMP ?i will also work.

Best is to install several distros and find out for yourself which one fit your fancy.

DistroWatch.com
 
There are three other major distros that you can try. Gentoo, Slackware, and SuSE.

SuSE will be fairly fedora/mandrake-ish, and Gentoo will be more like debian.

Gentoo and debian both have great package distribution/management programs in place.

I run gentoo myself and have learned a lot about linux from it that mandrake and fedora sort of "hid" from me.

If you really want a newer experience, try getting a BSD.
 
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