I'm getting tired of looking and trying out every distro only to have some kind of incompatibility. My last try was Fedora 7 64bit. Ok I can blame some of the issues on nothing written for 64bit . I just want a distro which plays well online with Video clips, audio clips, shockwave, Java, etc. I also need mp3, wmv, and avi support. With fedora I can't get it to work with shockwave, mp3 playback and java was horrible. I even followed some tips I found online http://www.gagme.com/greg/linux/f7-... I don't think any of them worked properly. installed xmms and when I now try to play a mp3 it opens a video player and screen goes nuts which requires a reboot. cannot get shockwave to work at all and have terrible problems getting java working. Are there any distros that already incorporate some of these features? I know not mp3 but the rest of the stuff I mentioned. MSI K8N Neo AMD Athlon 64 3200+ @ 2.21ghz 1GB DDR 3200 nVidia 128mb FX 5200 WD 120gb SE NEC ND-3500AG DVD R/RW

The difficulty is that CODECS are used to play many multimedia file formats, therefore as Linux is "FREE" the creators can not afford to pay for these codecs. Freespire2 is the only "FREE" distro to include support out-of-the-box for a vast majority of formats, though not all. If you are willing to pay $50+ then Linspire6.1 (due in a month) has greater support.

I Have used linux. myself and adding multimedia support depends upon adding extra repositories to the software manager, The easiest to add was SUSE , although currently I also use fedora 7 with multimedia support, Mplayer and plugins and the JRE (java runtime environment) are more easily added with the extra repositories, The only problem that becomes frustrating for me is using the proprietary drivers for ATI or Nvidia, graphics cards. If there is a Kernel Update the proprietary drivers then won't work and you have to go through the CLI ( command line Interface ) to get your system up and running again, The suse default website, Has a Plethora , of extra repositories,,, GURU and Packman are Mostly the ones for some of the Neccessary codecs ,,,, Win32 all and Java is also available,,, Forget the name of that one, ,,, Well Have Fun Huh!!! MSI 845e mb 1 gb ram and a p4 2.4n running xp ,win 2000 advanced server and win 98 SE alot to learn and I know so little !!!!

I forgot to mention that I hadn't tried out any 64 bit distro so That may make a difference,, MSI 845e mb 1 gb ram and a p4 2.4n running xp ,win 2000 advanced server and win 98 SE alot to learn and I know so little !!!!

Maybe I should give the 32 bit distro a try. I don't mind a bit of a challenge so i'm gonna stick with free, I would just like usability. Just checking email and looking at bland websites isn't my thing. The way I figure if I get a everyday use Linux machine I can get used to Linux and it should be easier to learn. I've taught myself a lot using windows over the years. MSI K8N Neo AMD Athlon 64 3200+ @ 2.21ghz 1GB DDR 3200 nVidia 128mb FX 5200 WD 120gb SE NEC ND-3500AG DVD R/RW

vlc player should take care of all your video needs. just google it.

Have a look at DreamLinux MultiMedia Edition: http://www.dreamlinux.com.br/englis...