Lycoris is fairly compact, fast and easy to use.

Arch Linux is one of my favs.. and its one of the easiest. you can download it here: http://www.archlinux.org/download.php but I bought a CD from OSDisc.com -- they donate the money to ArchLinux

Do you have tested LINUX MINT(ubuntu customized) or PCLINUXOS(mandriva customized) or SABAYON(gentoo customized) ???


This 3 distros has a lot of pre-installed features, like as:

Linux Mint CD: All codecs, .wma .mp3 .avi .flv .mkv .mpeg... and easy to install softwares.
PClinuxOS CD: The beautifulliest linux, has audio/video codecs too + all drivers
Sabayon DVD: full complete program storage incl. games and fuctionally video effects.



over these 3 distros are a weaknes to make it not the best OS of the world:

Linux Mint CD: supports only 800x600 or 1024x768 screen and has any drivers bugs
PClinuxOS CD: not userfriendly menu and is not easy to install a program without the package manager.
Sabayon DVD: not easy to install softwares, and is an DVD (large iso image)



if do Linux Mint works BERYL to you, and you have a 15" monitor + onboard soundcard, Linux Mint is the best choise!

if you have on linux Mint any driver problem, or have an Printer, PClinuxOS is the best way for solucionate it.

if you like very much sort of pre-installed program, and like beryl but your graphic-card does not supports video effects, on SABAYON you can choose what you want!




other distros that i have tested (suse, mandriva, xandros, ubuntu, Knoppix, Arch, dreamlinux, ulteo, Pardus...) they are userfriendly too, but not so friendly and easy to use than MINT, PClinuxOS, SABAYON...!



greetings,
Kamishiro Mayku

I agree that pclinuxos is a great first distro.

I would also suggest you consider ubuntu, for the following reasons. Although pclinuxos has all of the codecs working out of the box now, you can easily install the necessary codecs in ubuntu. The latest offering, 7.04, prompts you to install codecs if you click on some file for which the codec is not yet installed.

An even bigger reason to use ubuntu is how easy they have made upgrading the distribution from one release to the next using the update manager. You don't have to upgrade to the next release using a CD, as the update manager is basically running debian's apt-get dist-upgrade graphically. A nice aspect of ubuntu's upgrade process is that it will ask fewer configuration questions than debian during the upgrade. If you want to change the configuration afterward, you certainly can, but in asking fewer questions, it will not seem as confusing, and will also prevent you from making a poor choice that renders your system basically unusable. I once had that problem in debian after an upgrade, as I accepted the recommendation to change the xorg configuation to a "probably safe" selection. Afterward, I couldn't start the xserver. Since I didn't have much invested in debian at that point, I tried out Ubuntu, installing 6.04. Looking at a forum entry, I was able to issue a command that prompted the update manager to start the upgrade to 6.10. After that upgrade was finished, the update manager automatically promted me to upgrade to 7.04. The idea of installing once and only once seems fantastic to me.

you guyz are about 2 years late...lol, but any ways your suggestions are good.

I think I may be very alone here, but I feel that Slackware is the easiest. For example, It is one of the oldest distribution out there and secondly, it just does what I want it to. The version of KDE that ships with Slack is completely free of extra applets and branded buttons and window frames (i.e no "so-and-so" special background or special icons or start menu. This makes Slack's version of KDE exactly the same as what the KDE team had intended it it to be. Slackware comes with excellent documentation and a huge book if you wish it (neither SUSE, Novell, or Mandriva have that). I also foundthat Slackware was just pure linux. All of my skills from working on a UNIX mainframe were perfectly appropriate for running a desktop Slackware system (I believe it was version 3.1 back then). Anyway, that's my vote.

Umm, not to dispute you because I think that you're correct that these three are excellent choices for a first distro but I currently run Linux Mint on a laptop with 1400x900 screen res and Mint detected it correctly out of the box with no tweaking needed whatsoever. So I'm not sure I understand your statement that Mint only supports 800x600 and 1024x768 screen resolutions. I certainly haven't found that. It's been one of the tops for hardware support, in my experience.

For me, the problem is the graphic driver. My Nvidia geforce 6500 don't accept more than 1024x768 and don't works (show a white Full-screen) if i open Beryl. And if i install the nvidia drivers with ENVY my linux stops to run and i must reinstall my Operating System again.

Ok, I have decided I am going to try to install mandriva 2009 on my computer in a duel boot with winxp, wife is not willing to try linux of any type form or fashion lol. Does anyone have any input on this situation? Pretty much, I know freespire will not co-exist with winxp, do any of you know if Mandriva has any problems of the sort? Also, I wander if anyone has any documentation or links to documents that will assist m in learning mandriva? Basically, the only thing I do on th computer is gaming. I play halflife team fortress and a game called conqueronlin. I have found out that conque will work with WINE and plan to attempt to learn while I use on Mandriva. Any comments o suggestions of any sort concerning anything to do with Mandriva 2009 will be appriciated.

links to documentation, download links, forums:

http://www.mandriva.com/

seems to coexist with windows xp. I would certainly expect that:

http://forum.mandriva.com/viewtopic....4be9d3af6b1c23

I've tried lots of different distros (Mandriva included). I'd have to recommend Linux Mint as the easiest distro. It really is fantastic.