I'm in need of suggestions of what distro to throw onto the newest addition to my home entertainment center.

My last resort will be Gentoo. I just don't want to spend the time required for Gentoo on this multimedia box. I just want to install and go with minimal configuration and pain... and is *stable*...

Details...

Athlon XP 2200+
Oodles of DDR
Nvidia 5500FX with S-Video to Yamaha receiver
TV/FM Radio/video IN card with remote (dish network receiver connects via coax)
Audigy 2 with optical cable to Yamaha receiver
Logitech wireless multimedia keyboard w/ accompanying USB mouse
Linksys WMP54G (rt2500 chip, essid is WEP encrypted)

I'm hoping that I won't need to compile ANYTHING from source on this box. Just binary packages.

KDE will be the environment to make use of amaroK 1.3.7. Multimedia is stored elsewhere on network (no GTK on this box).

It's running Ark right now but KDE keeps crashing and it's loaded with gcc 4.0 (i prefer 3.4 at the moment).

Thanks

have you tried kubuntu? arch linux is also quite good, but the install on arch can be a bit difficult if you're like me and don't have patience to compile your own kernel.

Thanks. I'd heard good things about both. I'll give them a try!