I work as a computer tech, and we recycle thousands of computers each year. Our boss wants to set up and sell Linux systems too. He has basicly all the components made upto P4. We have hundreds of sound cards , video carsd etc. Can anyone recommend which components would offer the best Linux experience . SUSE was installed last friday for a man. He paid 25 dollers for his computer. What should we pull out and put together? We have a hugh inventory of recycled hardware thats just going to waste. Its being sold as scrap. I am hoping to begin selling used computers with Linux installed using the best hardware we have. But I don't know enough about Linux to know what that hardware is.

The best thing you can do is look at HCL's ( hardware compatibility lists ). Each distro has them, since users will report what works, and what does not work on a distro.

If you are trying to sell this, pick one or two main line distros to offer. May I suggest you look at Mandriva. Their hardware support out of the box is as good as I've seen. There are others that are close, not better.

Each area of the system has its problem manufactures. Video cards and audio cards are good examples. Wifi cards are a nightmare. Most issues show up after an install. Ie, the xserver won't start.

Do some reading on this forum, there are lots of examples of the types of problems people have. Hardware support for linux is outstanding, considering the tens of thousands of cards and chip sets available. Knowing what driver to load is a huge problem for a knob.

Have a look through the Tutorial section on this board. Lots of good stuff there to help with problems.

Any new user to linux has a learning curve. So, you will have some learning to do. Take the time, it is worth the effort.

Ubuntu is a very good starting distro, and Xubuntu is a good lightweight variant. It'll work well on pretty much any system that is at least a pentium II. Xubuntu is an official ubuntu variant. It is basically ubuntu but with a lighter desktop environment installed. I prefer it on all machines! As far as which hardware works best, compatibility lists are good. Since all linuxes use the same kernel (some have newer versions than others), pretty much anything the kernel supports will work. Ubuntu keeps things very well up to date.