Linux Newb seeks friendly distro for experience +more?

[alterion]

young linux newb (16) seeks friendly yet sofisticated distro for experience and more.. not afraid to get hands dirty.. enjoys music.. learning how to code and web-browsing.. must be petite (<10GB availible for storage) Hobbies nclude realtek soundcards and belkin wi-fi. Smooth dual booting and not monetery out lay essential. any suggestion? heard good things about ubuntu and debian

[Dougal]

I have fedora core 2 and red hat linux 8 unleashed books here.

£5 + Postage.

[Lee H]

try Linspire

The disc is a Live CD so it can run from the disc and you can find it for free until tomorrow HERE

Linspire was also known as Lindows i.e the linux clone of windows and you can see what it looks like HERE

[ikonia]

alterion - distributions are very subjective to peoples tastes and opinions, something I've found more and more thats a distro for one person is a pain for another.

the best advice I'd give you is look at the main ones first

redhat/fedora
Suse
Debian
Mnadriva
etc

They tend to have the more up to date support built in by default and maintained and have more mature installation processes, which will make dipping your toe in easier. You can always swap and change distributions as you gain more expereience or find features you like/dislike.

If you fancy something a little more "safe" you can look at the liveCD options but I think you'll find them awkward for sustained use

http://www.linuxiso.org has a lot of ISO CD images for the main distro's as do most of the main websites for the distro.s

http://www.tldp.org has some excellent resources for start your learning exercise.

My only other tip is - if your struggling to get a bit of hardware working, before you start smashing the OS to bits trying to make it work - check if the hardware is actually supported, that seems to be one of the more common mistakes for people venturing out, "I can't get blah to work - I 've tried everything" - if its not supported your not going to get anywhere and you could save yourself some pain.

[Koolpc]

Suse is a good Distro. nice and good looking and straight forward to use.

[Byatt]

Fedora Core 4 is pretty good, in my experience, just the right level of hand holding.

[Garf]

I bought Dummies Guide 8in1 book last week. Came with a CD with3 or 4 live distros and Fedora Core 3.

Its been excellent so far. Reccomend the book and Fedora Core 3.

[ikonia]

berfore we start getting into another thread of

"I think X is a good distro"

may I suggest that have a search for the linux distro's threads, there are hundreds of opinions on good distros.

As I said its going to come down to a personal taste at some point. Use main ones at first and you'll come to your own conclusion.

[Matt1eD]

I ditto ikonia, we're all guilty of these threads though . Start with mainstream, I like mandrake/mandriva and ubuntu good user friendly distros with minimal configuration - and the more advanced options are there if you want them.

Oh, thought the personals ad was great!

Addy: If you'd like to get less down and dirty I recommend (dare I day it) Linspire 5, I certainly would put it on PCs for those people I build and just want word processing and email.

[alterion]

hmm ok well.. think i'll try xandros and fedora core .. thanks for all the help it does seem to be a matter of personal tatse with no one "super, all powerful " distro..

[directhex]

it does seem to be a matter of personal tatse with no one "super, all powerful " distro..

well of course there is, the problem is that's where the flame wars start - denial

[Norky]

I'm in love with Ubuntu atm, it's fantastic