Making your choice of distribution of Linux is not near as big of a deal as it was 3 - 4 years ago, even though for some reason all of the tech guys lead you to think it is.Really i think it is because of pc repair minded political correctness. The ease and interface is not varied by such a greatness that only techy nerdy guys can use one version and regular people can use another. Anything on one distribution can be used on another.
Let's break this into 3 popular core distros.
1.fedora
2.debian
3.novell

On fedora you get the two main players. Mandrake and redhat. You get excellent support on either one, there is a slight difference in the look but not the feel. The installs have gone smooth for me every time and easily on many different machines, from mother board and wifi and video card variations. even the freshest of Linux users can install and use fedora smoothly and easily.

on debian you get a few main players. Knoppix, Linspire, Xandros, and the Ubuntu family.
ubuntu I have to say has the best of all splash screen when it boots up, after that it is really not worth the install.ubuntu is heavy bloated and really limited to what types of installs you can use. pretty much limited to .deb files and source. That operating system is slow, but has some high dollar hype or public viral advertisement. Linspire is a transition os made to make the swap from windows to linux easy. it's alright and makes alot of usage really easy. Knoppix isnt much different but is a bit more pro feeling. Xandros is the ultimate operating system for those who like a fast operating system without bloat-ware,basic file install works easily with .deb and .rpm with no code to type in or lines to edit.

On novell you get suse . and a bunch of add on software. suse is foreground user of .rpm but recently also took in the use of .deb installs. Suse is the mid mark between ubuntu in it's nice looks and excessive bloated addons, and Xandros with it's ease of use and fast performance.

The question you need to ask is "Do I need Performance and speed? or do I need appearance?" if you can not make your mind up on which is more what you want, then go the midway and get suse. after you use suse for a while and get a feel , you might want to think about what you do need and don't need. You could even consider getting the faster operating system and then adding on only the stuff you would like to see on it. to pretty it up.everything on linux is tweakable. 90% of the addons are free. Sourceforge will be your best friend eventually.

The choice is yours and there is nothing to fear about linux and every big distributed version is safe and easy to install and use. They all can be strong tools and beautied up if needed.It really is not a huge ordeal and adaptation comes quick.

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