Recommend Distribution of Linux

[YaKuZa]

Can somebody recommend a distribution of Linux with some pros and cons about it. I'm not really looking for any particular features, I just want something reliable, easy to install, etc. Thanks in advance.

 

[IamDavid]

If this is your first experience with Linux I would recomend going with Mandrake.. Simple to set up and configure.. Nothin realy wrong with it except you can't tweak all the options like you could in Red Hat..

 

[SendTrash]

yup, Mandrake 7.2 .... its got one of the better installers

 

[Doomguy]

Start with mandrake and once you're confident with your skills move onto debian.

 

[Rotorvator]

Depends on what you're looking for -
If you want easy setup go with Redhat or Mandrake as recommended by others.
I've been using Slackware for 6+ years now. The installation is much smoother now than it used to be, but it still would require a lot of work if you're not already familiar with Linux (and unix in general). OTOH, it would be a great learning experience. My first slackware install took the better part of a weekend to get everything working (this was back when most cards were still ISA non-PNP & you had to compile IRQ's/whatnot into the kernel). Frustrating at times, but very rewarding once you get your kernel built cleanly with everything working.

Make sure the version of XFree86 that comes with your chosen distro has support for your video card. The latest X release has support for Radeon & GeForce cards, but I don't think many distro's have bumped yet.

Whichever distro you pick, expect to do a lot of digging through doc's and asking for a lot of help to get everything setup correctly.

Fun right?

 

[Packet]

I have tried quite a few of them,
Redhat and Mandrake seam really good for beginers, I found they often ran tons of extra services though
Slackware is alot better than it used to be, its going along fine now.. still seams iffy at points imo
Debian is my fav. but you really want to have previous experiance in Linux before you use it.

I also perfer KDE over Gnome, but I feel thats more of a personal preference more than anything else.