I'm brand new to Linux. Don't have it installed yet. But I'm shopping around and need help choosing a distribution.
Mostly, I'll be doing web development (LAMP, plan to play with some XML, java (maybe C#?) eventually)
I don't plan to host my own sites, but one of my reasons for switching to linux is that it's becoming a royal pain to develop in a windows environment and then have to reconfigure my scripts for hosting on a linux platform.
Which brings me to my next point. I want to spend my time fiddling with my scripts, not my OS. So I need a distribution that will be stable, and low maintenance.
Also, I need to file share via wilan with 2 other windows machines (2000, and XP)

Is there a distribution out there that you can recommend? Why or why not?
What else do I need to know?
Thanks in advance for your help and advice!


PS- I'm running an AMD chip (1.8Ghz, 512GB ram) don't know what else you need to know, but apparently that might matter?

ubuntu is nice for those new to linux. set up XAMPP.

Any distro will do what you want all you have to do is instal the right programs: Mandriva is quite good for web development: http://frontal2.mandriva.com/en/downloads/mirrors

here are a few you might also want to check out:

Kubuntu
http://www.kubuntu.org/


PCLinuxOS .92
http://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/metalab/dist...glish/preview/
ftp://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/metalab/distr...glish/preview/

This is the distro I use and recommend, Why because it works right out of the box. No need to configure Everything, everything just works. It also comes as a 1 CD install that is a live CD that you can install later if you wish.

BeatrIX
http://www.watsky.net/download.html

This Distro is small fast and effective, the ultimite Workers CD

Blag
http://www.blagblagblag.org/download/

is A one CD install of Fedora Core

Mephis
http://www.mepis.org/

also SUSE: http://en.opensuse.org/Welcome_to_openSUSE.org

Slackware: http://www.slackware.com/

Fedora Core: http://fedora.redhat.com/

Jake