Hi, all. My name is Bobbo, a mid-20's American guy (yes, a stupid gringo, haha). I see there's plenty of members from places that aren't America, so maybe I'll talk to y'all through the forum.

Anywho, I used Linux for the first time about 15 years ago. My dad introduced it to me when we finally replaced our first post-IBM PC (A no-name 486dx2) and we plopped Red Hat on it. Over the next couple of years, I used it to play games and some other stuff, but never really got hard-core into it.

Now, my dad is gone and I want to get back into it. Looking for something simple (web, e-mail, Open Office), and for helping out with the SETI programs and that sort of thing when I'm not using it. I want to build my own on the cheap, just like Dad and I did back in the day. So, I'll be posting questions on low-resource-intensive distros and programs to do what I want to do, and compatability stuff to start with.

That's about it for now. Thanks for reading.
--Bobbo

Welcome to LQ.

I think you will find that Linux has come a long way in 15 years. I know it has in the five years I've used it, and I liked it at first glance back then. Observations from my personal experience.

You want simple: Ubuntu, Mint, CentOS (yeah, I know CentOS is known as a server distro, but it installs really easily and is simple to set up). Mandriva was also easy to set up, but I haven't toyed with it for several years.

Highly customizable: Arch, Gentoo. (I haven't used either regularly, but I have played with them).

Rock solid never breaks: Slackware, Debian.

Build your own: Linux from Scratch.

Small: Tiny Core, Puppy.

I've never used Fedora. I tried OpenSuse. It worked fine but did not appeal to me.

I started with Slackware and I think it's a good starting point.

Once you understand Slack, no other distro can intimidate you, because you will know what you are doing. It's still my first choice (Debian is my second).

Best wishes.