how do you know what is best for your needs? ICQ me for help with any computer problems you might have. 270056517 Matt

"needs"? how about your pocketbook, existing hardware, existing software, software expertise, individual or company

You can compare different distros at www.distrowatch.com. Chances are that you will be best off starting with one of the main distros like mandrake, suse or fedora (redhat).

How 'bout I provide info I have? Just replied to a simular post: Knoppix was by far the easiest- boots and runs from a CD, problem was everything ran a little slow. Suse 9.1 had sweet graphics, everything worked at the start except for the dual boot to Xp. Couldn't figure out how to mod the bootloader or how to add programs from Yast(?) without becoming a member. Simular good/bad issues with Mandrake. Super easy in install, most things worked at startup but could only find "last years model" 9.2. Mandrake 10.0 and updates may be for members only. I'm not 100% on this. Can anyone verify? Favorite is Fedora core 2. I use apt-get and yum for extra program install and update. Use yum.comf from: fedorafaq.orq/samples/yum.conf Apt-get from: dag.wieers.com/packages/apt/ FC2 i386 Do yum update, apt-get update then apt-get install synaptic. Synaptic is an easy to use, graphical, update utility.

FYI: You can boot knoppix with the "toram" switch to copy the CD to memory and run it from there, siggnificantly increasing its speed. Mandrake can use urpmi to update without being a community member. Visit http://urpmi.org/easyurpmi/index.php to easily create a config file.