This may be just asking for trouble, but what distro, Fedora COre 4 or SuSE 9.2, would be a better pick. I know that everyone has there favorite, and I do like SuSE, however would Fedora be a better pick for all around system usage?

There are some issues regarding SuSE, like it does not play DVD out of the box, and I am personally finding, as I did before running SuSE 8.1, that compiling software can be a real pain. When running Ubuntu and Debian these problems did not exisit, however others did.

Anyway, this is not a distro bash, nevertheless it may appear as such.

Fedora does not support any patented technology out of the box so you can't play mp3's for example. Which distribution you use is a matter of personal preference and no can make up your mind for you so just try all the ones your interested in and choose one for normal use

Thanks phil.d.g. The majority of what is said here is known, but thanks for the tip on the mp3's. This helps me out. It would seem that all distros have some issue or another, and the result of this is hunting around for answers. Just out of curiosity, what other distros have the patented technology issues? Also, does anybody else running SuSE have compiling issues? For example, I installed all of the necessary devel packages to build dsniff, but it still failed. This is also true for amarok 1.3, digikam, xine-libs and others. Some have compiled fine, such as GTK-Gnutella 0.95.4, but over all too many failures. I mean let's face it, building source in no magic equation. Perhaps there is a dependency issue with YaST? Not sure.

Anyway, all input is welcomed and thanks for the help.

Here is a little note regarding Fedora Core 4, which when it comes to Fedora I am new at. After downloading the DVD iso and mounting for viewing I noticed that all of RPM's are i386. Is this really reflective to the processor arch? If so then this puts SuSE on the up side. Tell me, how many people out there are really running anything less than a 486, even that. I would image, perhaps wrong, that the least of the systems connected to the internet today would be a 166MHz P2 or equivalent.

If I am wrong please excuse my ignorance.

the rpms will run on any x86 processor, its just that they are optimised for i386, though I always thought FC4 was optimised for i686, oh well.

Distros that have the patent problem are normally the 'commercial' types: Fedora Core, SuSE, I'm not sure about Mandrake, Ubuntu I think doesn't play mp3's, but repositories containing third party packages that will give you the means to play mp3s/DVDs are readily available.

Yeah. I was a little surprised about the i386 arch build. My figuring on this would be the same as SuSE, i586. There will be a "Super SuSE" 10 that is optimized for i686. Something nice regarding SuSE is some of the supporters compile at i686. If memory serves me right, which at best it does not, Ubuntu and Debian are 386 also. Why the low build? Does anyone know?

Well I was going to give Fedora a try, but it would seem that it may be really no different than SuSE with a lower arch build. I would like to stick with SuSE, but compiling seems to be as fun as pulling out finger nails with rusty pliers. Does anyone have any pros for Fedora?

You are right about Ubuntu not playing mp3's by default installation, but it is not much of a problem adding the backports. I reaally enjoyed Ubuntu, and Kubuntu, but I was having DVD system lockups, which SuSE did not correct either. Not such what is going on with that. From what I have read it may be some sound mixer problem, but there is not any answer out there except killing arts. Ah.. more and more research.

I realize that I am asking a lot of question, but I really need some input from other linux users. There seems to be a fork in my computer road.

Well it would seem that I have struck it rich at the Bank of Idiocy. It would seem that my prejudgment regarding compiling under SuSE was incorrect. When building amarok 1.3 I neglected to install the slang devel package. Perhaps I should rego over the other apps that "did not work". My apologies.

You can add DVD support to SuSE with libdvdcss ... I did and it seems to work fine.

Yes all of the DVD support is added, but it would seem that when I play movies the system locks up. One individual suggested trying to use the nv drivers instead of the nvidia drivers, but I have not got around to testing it. Tired of system lock-ups pertaining to the DVD. Another option I have to try is copying all of the VOB files to the HDD and try to view from there. Who knows? This one is a real stumper.

First, I am still new to this, but I have tried most of the distros and have found that I have problems of some sort in each - now this might be my system - although, I have dedicated a 30 gig hard drive just to Linux. I have found so far Fedora 4 has given me the best results in what runs and what doesn't. I would prefer Suse 9.1 for looks and all the additions that come with it. Unfortunately I had one major problem that I could not seem to fix and that was while Suse recognised my CDrecorder and DVD writer I couldn't get any sound out of them. Tried most of the things suggested in the forums but of no avail. I have said all that to say this. In my humble and ignorant user opinion Suse and Fedora are great OS and either one could be the right one for you as long as the main devices work for what your need is. Good luck in your choices.

There usually are issues with distro installation, but in the end they can most often be sorted out. I have been using, SuSE for a number of years, except my six month encounter with Ubuntu/Kubuntu, which are nice debian based distros. SuSE offers some nice friendly features, such as YaST, nevertheless there is the DVD issue on my system. Burns great, does pretty much everything great, but playing movies.... how long and then lockup. Last week I have recompiled my kernel using the Athlon/Duron arch, and maybe this will help. Although I am not very hopeful regarding this; I am going to try it out in the near future. I am not particularly fond of system lockups.

One of the most common understandings with the linux world, open source, is the freedom of choice. Distros inparticular. Everyone has their favorite distro, GUI interface and the like. There are so many choices available with linux, and this is one of the many attractions linux has to offer. For example, my son who uses Debian testing, has a 1.4Ghz Athlon XP based system, and he likes to run fluxbox on it. Boy does the interface scream at that speed and with 512 of PC3300 DDR RAM.

Oneday, when I get an extra box, I would like to see Fedora Core4. This will take me back when I use to use Red Hat 6.0 and Mandrake 6.0. That was a while ago.