Hey everyone, I installed RedHat 7.1 a couple years ago for school and I was still learning back then so I uninstalled it. Now I would like to start using Linux for daily use. I want to play DVDs, MP3s, videos, surfing the net, chat on AIM stuff like that. Basically something similiar to Windows to get me started. I am not familiar with any of the Linux GUIs so the more information the better. I remember there were 2 options for GUI Gnome and KDE I believe, which one would I choose? What distro of Linux is right for me if any? Thanks

Try mepis.org - SimplyMepis should do everything you're looking for.

The best way to get the information you need is to test drive a Live CD. ;) I'm not 100% sure, but I believe that there is a Live CD for Mepis; I do know that there is one for Mandrake called "Mandrake Move", and the Slax I use on my modern but cheap hardware is essentially a stripped down version of Slackware that I pop in my CD drive, reboot, and I'm running Linux. I just take the CD out when I want to run Windows. I believe that any one of the distros I use(and most if not all of the ones I don't) would do pretty much everything you're looking for. Mandrake is probably the most feature-rich and newbie-friendly, but it is also the slowest and bulkiest. DSL would run like greased lightening on your machine, is only a 52MB download, and can be installed to your hard drive later if you choose. Slax is somewhere in between my two extremes. Dim4554: WinXP Home SP2 P4 2.40GhZ, 1GB RAM, 120GB HD PresarioS5000NX: WinXP Home/SLAX, Celeron,384MB RAM,40GB HD DimV400: Win2000/Mandrake 10.1, PII 400Mhz, 128MB RAM, 8GB HD Gateway P5-166: Win95/Darn (sic) Small Linux, PII 166Mhz, 48MB RAM, 2 GB HD

Try Yoper! I have been blown away by this amazing distro. I have used many distros for desktop use and none compare to this for MY needs. It is faster than any other OS, and installs within 15 minutes. Yoper uses KDE and does a great job with it. Everything looks sleek and stylish. It also comes loaded with tons of apps and a very large repository for installation of more apps. It utilizes RPM, which you are probably familiar with, and makes use of the apt-get utilities (RPM Based) which is my favorite packaging system. Give it a try, like I said, it takes less than 15 minutes to install and I believe you won't look back. Haputanlas Happy Yoper User

I second SimplyMepis, which also boots as a live CD. To install use the install me icon on the desktop.

Bear in mind that if you do go for Yoper it will only run on i686 or higher.

Try Linspire. www.linspire.com It is truly easy to use. It looks a lot like Windows, and works as easily as Windows also. The biggest problem with Linux is solved in this distro. CNR [Click aNd Run] is a one click of the mouse method of installing and uninstalling software. Now you can use Linux without being a computer programmer. All of the things you want to do, I've done. I had major difficulties using both Red Hat 7.0 and Red Hat 8.0. I can use Linspire to download MP3s from the usenet, burn them to audio CDs, archive them on data CD-ROMs, play CDs, MP3s, and streaming radio on the computer. To get you started, here are a few Linux programs and their Windows equivilents: Pan = Agent [newsreader] Lsongs = iTunes XMMS = WinAmp K3B = Roxio Easy Cd Creator Open Office = Microsoft Office Easy Write = Wordpad Linspire Browser = Mozilla I wish you all the best.