this was more the direction that had been discussed before. somewhat of a smaller scope than some people have been suggesting, but it's likely it would be more a case of publicity than actual linux innovation.

Is it? I don't know.. I haven't seen a Linux ported version on the shelves - or are they on the cds? I guess i can check up on that when i get back to my room where the cds are.

Linux version is not on the shelves. You buy Windows one and download small archive with binaries. AFAIK the binaries are inluded on the extension cds (don't have them yet so can't check).

Would that be one of the files at the bottom of http://www.planetneverwinter.com/downloads/essential/ ? (sorry everyone for being so off-topic here)

Yes. LinuxClient plus the right sets or Patches. And we're stopping beeing offtopic.

The idea of a new distro sounds nice, and I'm sure the LQ community could come up with something attractive but...

This community is comprised of many varied opinions and deciding which options to include would be a serious undertaking. Including several options as choice would also make the disto convoluted and probably do more to complicate it than to stablize it.

I think the main thing the linux distros lack now is cross-distro similarity. When you dig down into the guts of it Redhat (Fedora/Mandrake) runs so much differently than SuSE or Slackware or Gentoo that it's like learning two different things. Add to this the non standardized GUI helper apps and the variety of package management options and you get a situation where the user of one distro doesn't learn enough about linux in general to effectivly use another one. Many of you here may not worry about this but adding another distro into the mix could very easily complicate the mix.

A new distro based primarily off of an established one might be a good idea, such as a SuSE based distro that then adds features that it currently lacks or doesn't impliment well. Even a RedHat based distro could be built if it were able to establish itself apart from the other RedHat based ones. Slackware could also use a good offshoot, maybe a fully RPM or emerge based version with more features. In summary, take the slickest ideas from existing distros and bundle them into a new one.

It would have to have lots of support for all the things we get posts here for. Add good support for wifi and all the other bleeding edge hardware. Come with many of the useful applications that a PC user runs such as office support, web browsing, chat clients and of course multimedia players. Another possibility would be to impliment GUI frontends for common applications that people have problems with, such as Samba or DNS, that are implimented in a way that supports the configuration files rather than trying to hide them.

I've probably rambled on long enough, in summary I think it's a good idea as long as it's implimented with careful planning so as not to become 'just another distro' that goes the way of all the others.