Personally I'd stear clear of any RPM based distributions and aim for
something DEB based - this is more a personal preferance than anything,
but I belive DEBs to be more conveinient and slightly easier to use
than RPMs.<br>
<br>
Off the top of my head this would point you towards Debian, Knoppix (which you said you had problems with) and Unbuntu.<br>
<br>
Personally I use Debian and have switched a new user onto it with
success (their choice too!) although I think Unbuntu may be the more
'user-friendly' option.<br>
<br>
As for MP3 players, your best bet is probably XMMS as it is almost
identical in looks and function to WinAmp (at least until Winamp went
crazy with WinAmp 5) for word document editing you have a plethora of
options, Abiword and OpenOffice being the two that instantly spring to
mind, and as far as having a web server installed - for most (if not
all?) distributions it's simply an option you select on install and
there it is!<br>
<br>
Hope this helped a little - but having said all this, when it comes to
chosing a distribution, you can't really go wrong - most of it comes
down to personal preference (and in a few cases minor specializations
to suit your needs).<br>
<br>
And before I close this email, you may also want to take a look at
Gentoo - personally I haven't used it, so I can't vouch for it - but
those that I know that have rave about it, so it may be worth a look.<br>
<br>
P.S for wireless problems, take a look at ndiswrapper(s) it tends to be the solution<br>
<br>
Cheers and good luck!<br>
Lee<br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 10/14/05, <b class="gmail_sendername"><a href="mailto:dundee-request@mailman.lug.org.uk">dundee-request@mailman.lug.org.uk</a></b> <<a href="mailto:dundee-request@mailman.lug.org.uk">
dundee-request@mailman.lug.org.uk</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">Send dundee mailing list submissions to
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<br>Today's Topics:<br><br> 1. Linux Newbie - Help Choosing Distro (Ry.)<br> 2. Re: Linux Newbie - Help Choosing Distro (Owen Daily)<br> 3. Re: Linux Newbie - Help Choosing Distro (paul)<br><br><br>----------------------------------------------------------------------
<br><br>Message: 1<br>Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2005 05:57:44 -0700 (PDT)<br>From: "Ry." <<a href="mailto:imational@yahoo.com">imational@yahoo.com</a>><br>Subject: [dundee] Linux Newbie - Help Choosing Distro<br>To:
<a href="mailto:dundee@mailman.lug.org.uk">dundee@mailman.lug.org.uk</a><br>Message-ID: <<a href="mailto:20051013125744.1816.qmail@web30808.mail.mud.yahoo.com">20051013125744.1816.qmail@web30808.mail.mud.yahoo.com</a>>
<br>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"<br><br>Hi,
my laptop harddrive packed up and I lost my old OS (XP
Pro). I can't afford to replace the Win OS at moment, so I'd
like some advice on choosing a Linux OS.<br><br>I've had issues with 2
versions so far - using Fedora Core 4, I wasn't able to view the
graphics correctly and therefore couldn't even finish the
installation. Knoppix works and runs fine except one
problem, the laptop touchpad mouse only seems to work for 3/4 of the
screen area. Not sure if I can fix this or not....<br><br>Anyways... I
want an OS that is pretty handy to install, will auto detect most of my
settings (graphics card, mouse, USB, etc), MS Word compatible &
good MP3 player (probably ubiquitous, not sure), and if it had a web
server built in (e.g. apache) that would be the cherry on the cake.<br><br>Any advice would be gratefully received! Thanks a bunch<br><br>Ryan.<br><br><br>---------------------------------<br> Yahoo! Music Unlimited - Access over 1 million songs. Try it free.
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</a><br><br>------------------------------<br><br>Message: 2<br>Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2005 14:24:44 +0100<br>From: Owen Daily <<a href="mailto:o.daily@dundeecoll.ac.uk">o.daily@dundeecoll.ac.uk</a>><br>Subject: Re: [dundee] Linux Newbie - Help Choosing Distro
<br>To: Tayside Linux User Group <<a href="mailto:dundee@mailman.lug.org.uk">dundee@mailman.lug.org.uk</a>><br>Message-ID: <<a href="mailto:7316B15E-2DEC-4AB2-B373-5AF9BC6CFD6E@dundeecoll.ac.uk">7316B15E-2DEC-4AB2-B373-5AF9BC6CFD6E@dundeecoll.ac.uk
</a>><br>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"<br><br>try puppy linux, tiny (60Mb) and work well.<br><br><a href="http://www.goosee.com/puppy">http://www.goosee.com/puppy</a><br><br>On 13 Oct 2005, at 13:57, Ry. wrote:
<br><br>> Hi, my laptop harddrive packed up and I lost my old OS (XP Pro). I<br>> can't afford to replace the Win OS at moment, so I'd like some<br>> advice on choosing a Linux OS.<br>><br>> I've had issues with 2 versions so far - using Fedora Core 4, I
<br>> wasn't able to view the graphics correctly and therefore couldn't<br>> even finish the installation. Knoppix works and runs fine except<br>> one problem, the laptop touchpad mouse only seems to work for 3/4
<br>> of the screen area. Not sure if I can fix this or not....<br>><br>> Anyways... I want an OS that is pretty handy to install, will auto<br>> detect most of my settings (graphics card, mouse, USB, etc), MS
<br>> Word compatible & good MP3 player (probably ubiquitous, not sure),<br>> and if it had a web server built in (e.g. apache) that would be the<br>> cherry on the cake.<br>><br>> Any advice would be gratefully received! Thanks a bunch
<br>><br>> Ryan.<br>><br>> Yahoo! Music Unlimited - Access over 1 million songs. Try it free.<br>> _______________________________________________<br>> dundee GNU/Linux Users Group mailing list<br>> <a href="mailto:dundee@lists.lug.org.uk">
dundee@lists.lug.org.uk</a> <a href="http://dundee.lug.org.uk">http://dundee.lug.org.uk</a><br>> <a href="http://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/dundee">http://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/dundee</a><br>> Chat on IRC, #tlug on
<a href="http://dundee.lug.org.uk">dundee.lug.org.uk</a><br><br>-----------------------------------------------<br>Owen Daily<br>Graphic Designer<br>Marketing Department<br>Dundee College<br>Kingsway Campus<br>DUNDEE DD3 8LE
<br>Tel: 01382 834834 ext 5345<br>Fax: 01382 858117<br>Email: <a href="mailto:o.daily@dundeecoll.ac.uk">o.daily@dundeecoll.ac.uk</a><br>-----------------------------------------------<br><br><br>-------------- next part --------------
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</a><br><br>------------------------------<br><br>Message: 3<br>Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2005 23:20:17 +0100<br>From: paul <<a href="mailto:paul_lancaster@blueyonder.co.uk">paul_lancaster@blueyonder.co.uk</a>><br>Subject: Re: [dundee] Linux Newbie - Help Choosing Distro
<br>To: Tayside Linux User Group <<a href="mailto:dundee@mailman.lug.org.uk">dundee@mailman.lug.org.uk</a>><br>Message-ID: <<a href="mailto:434EDDA1.3020107@blueyonder.co.uk">434EDDA1.3020107@blueyonder.co.uk</a>
><br>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed<br><br>Mandriva 2005/6 has found most of my hardware on both desktop and a<br>Toshiba Satalite pro laptop.<br>Also had some sucess with Vector Linux 5.1
, on two older laptops and IBM<br>Thinkpad 600e and a Toshiba Tecra 8000.<br>Unfortunately none of them recognised my wireless cards.<br><br>Hope that helps<br><br>Paul<br><br>Ry. wrote:<br><br>> Hi, my laptop harddrive packed up and I lost my old OS (XP Pro). I
<br>> can't afford to replace the Win OS at moment, so I'd like some advice<br>> on choosing a Linux OS.<br>><br>> I've had issues with 2 versions so far - using Fedora Core 4, I wasn't<br>> able to view the graphics correctly and therefore couldn't even finish
<br>> the installation. Knoppix works and runs fine except one problem, the<br>> laptop touchpad mouse only seems to work for 3/4 of the screen area.<br>> Not sure if I can fix this or not....<br>><br>> Anyways... I want an OS that is pretty handy to install, will auto
<br>> detect most of my settings (graphics card, mouse, USB, etc), MS Word<br>> compatible & good MP3 player (probably ubiquitous, not sure), and if<br>> it had a web server built in (e.g. apache) that would be the cherry on
<br>> the cake.<br>><br>> Any advice would be gratefully received! Thanks a bunch<br>><br>> Ryan.<br>><br>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------<br>> Yahoo! Music Unlimited - Access over 1 million songs. Try it free.
<br>> <<a href="http://pa.yahoo.com/*http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=36035/*http://music.yahoo.com/unlimited/">http://pa.yahoo.com/*http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=36035/*http://music.yahoo.com/unlimited/</a>><br>><br>>
<br>>------------------------------------------------------------------------<br>><br>>_______________________________________________<br>>dundee GNU/Linux Users Group mailing list<br>><a href="mailto:dundee@lists.lug.org.uk">
dundee@lists.lug.org.uk</a> <a href="http://dundee.lug.org.uk">http://dundee.lug.org.uk</a><br>><a href="http://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/dundee">http://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/dundee</a><br>>Chat on IRC, #tlug on
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<br>*************************************<br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><generic witty comment>