Hello

I have had a little bit of experience with
linux for a bout a day or two. I am interested
in it and getting the best distribution for my needs.

I am willing to pay but I prefer free if possible.

What I am looking for, is something that has:
1. Good multimedia capability for watching DVDs
and playing Music
2. Something that can be used at the office
with appointment time keeping.
3. Editing Photo's
4. Basic Word Stuff
5. Perhaps something in the future
if i get Comfortable with using Linux,
as to set up a document server for my
home and office network
6. Something that is somewhat straight forward
to use. Also I don't care if it has a color installation
and I know to partition my drive.


I am basically wanting something that can
take over Windows.

I look Forward to your Suggestions

Thanks

Fedora or Mandrake (now "Mandriva"...), probably. Have a look a http://www.distrowatch.com - it's tailor-made for questions like this

What rose_bud said... plus you can look at suse, ubuntu, or mepis as good starter distros.

Since I gave a pretty short answer before:

- The Gimp for photo/image editing. Think Photoshop, and you'll be fairly close. The functionality's the same, the interface is different.

- OpenOffice for all your MS Office-like needs. I'm *really* looking forward to version 2, though...(it's currently in beta)

- Watching DVD's, I haven't a clue, since I don't do it (on my computer, anyway). No doubt someone here does, though For music, there's the always-excellent Xmms. Think of it as Winamp, but with better keyboard commands.

- I'm not sure about the appointment one. KDE (a very popular window manager* which almost any distro has at this point. I think it's even Fedora's default and I know for a fact that it's SuSE's) has an application called KOrganizer. It's probably what you're looking for.

- Fileserver...any distro has you covered there. Take a look into Samba to give yourself a headstart.

- Straightforward to use for someone who's perhaps not quite an experienced user yet...yeah, Fedora or Mandrake are still my suggestions. Although personally I'll swear by Slackware 'til the day I die *grin*

*Some other questions may have been answered in this thread. I bring it up specifically to solve the "what on earth is a window manager?" issue, but some other applications and potential pitfalls are discussed also.

Welcome!

Thank You For the Input

Although I am still Wondering
if Mandriva is Pay or Free.
I do not like the crowed feel of their
site which has discouraged me from
thinking that they are any good to use.

For Photo's that I take and edit at home
I use Jasc Paint Shop Pro 8. Is the gimp
something like this program?

I'm thinking that I should go
with mepis it seems to do a lot according to
another linux website.

Is there anything that Mepis might limit me from doing
that I might want it to do?


Also
for appointment keeping I am using the Palm
Software. I Much like the interface that it gives
for me to keep track of people coming to see
me.

Ubuntu according this this one site
does not have server capability's
Is this true?

I forgot to ask
Would Debian be a good Choice?
There are just so many Distributions on the
LinuxDistro site.

Thank You

Debian - good, solid distro with a well-known package management system, but the installer is *murder* (no, I don't mean in terms of partitioning, commandline interface, and I'm not meaning to doubt your skills. I mean they ask you to choose every single individual package you want installed, and to resolve your own dependancies via a truly horrible interface that has never seen the inside of a UI Design 101 class. I am *far* from being a linux newbie, but I got halfway through that nightmare and hard-rebooted my system. Windows was quite honestly preferable to that thing).

Mepis - I haven't the faintest, never so much as heard of it. Their website is awful as far as getting information about their distro, and I couldn't find a list of packages, so your guess is as good as mine as to their capabilities. They say it's debian-based, so if they fixed the installer it could be decent.

Mandriva is good, although I agree with your estimation of their website. It's very crowded, because they're really trying to sell the Enterprise and Server versions of their OS. If you download it (it is freely released, yes, although they'd much prefer you to pay for it, I'm sure. Most distros are pretty hard up for cash), do it from www.linuxiso.org, not from their site.

I don't know what would interface with PalmOS....you'd have to google that one, I'm thinking. (I did, and this site came up. It might be helpful...?)

About your photo editing software - I've never heard of it, but that doesn't mean much. I suggest you look around the Gimp website and determine for yourself whether or not they're similar. The Gimp is Photoshop for linux; it's an image editing program, not specifically for photos/digital cameras/what have you. The interface can definitely take some getting used to. All the options can be found via a single right-click menu, although they're available from the menu bar of the main window. I find it more intuitive, some more educated UI people vehemently disagree with me. It's all subjective :-)

Ubuntu may or may not have anything by default, but you can always install any given piece of software. The most-used server by far is Apache.

I would say that the bottom line is any distribution will do what you want. You just
need to find one that your comfortable with. Again though, other than certain setup
tools and file paths all distributions are basically the same.

Hope that helps.

Zack

What version of Debian did you use? You do know Sarge doesn't use the horrible woody installer but a easier one right? Debian installs are painless now.

Thanks For All of the input
that you guy's have given
and also for that linux
palm website. I am sure
that it well be very useful
when I have Linux installed.


I am thinking that I should go
with Debian. They have been out the
longest. Although I want something
that is up to date. I know that they
have just set up a new distribution
but the one before that was 3 years
ago.


Also I put that gimp program on my
Windows PC it does not look bad.
Just some getting use to.


What do you guy's currently use
and would it be suitable for what I
want done with it.

Thanks

Debian is great, but you might consider Ubuntu.
Ubuntu is based on debian. Its rock solid, user forums and wikis are great, and it
does a lot of the leg work for you. By that i mean it automatically sets up your
cd-rom and usb stick, sound card, video stuff. its much much like a fully set
up and configured debian system. but without much of the headache for a newbie.
all the office apps and multimedia and stuff is loaded by default.
good stuff.
there are some codecs that you will have to get from another source, but the wiki
and FAQ get you right there easily.
you would have to do the same from debian.

just a thought.

oh, and its also free = like debian.

cheers

Mepis is a Debian based distro. It comes out of the box with multimedia ready to use.

This was maybe a month ago, if that much, and I used the latest on linuxiso.org (3.0r4). So whichever that is, that's the one I tried

I highly recommend : Knoppix

Easy, can start from a cd
When you like, you can install it.
Knoppix is a Debian like.
It has apt to install software.
It uses KDE as desktop.
Very simple to use and has a lot fo softwares in it !

Yeah thats woody, that is 3 years old.

linuxiso.org doesn't have the newest versions such as Mandriva LE 2005 - I suggest you find somewhere else or get it from an ftp mirror.

Migulic