"Graphical", "multimedia", and "of course, newbie-friendly"???
Sure... if you're coming from a Unix background!



Stay off the forum Slackware troll.

I'm sorry if I upset you, sepero...

truth is, I've never used Linux, and, except when I played games on those old macs with the 5.1/2 floppies at school, I haven't used used a Unix-based computer, either.

i just looked at the screenshots(from here), visited the homepages for each of the distros, and Slackware was the only one that wouldn't swamp what little system resources my computer has(just click the hardware links for my processor and motherboard, and you'll see what I'm talking about), while still giving me the ability to run a GUI, because, as with my experience with WindowsTM, if you wanted to wanted a program, or the operating system, for that matter, to run right, you had to have system resources that were slightly above the recommended specs.

Unfortunately,

My processor runs at 450 megahertz, 500 megahertz if I overclock it.
My motherboard only has 198 megabytes of ram on it, which I got about half of that out of an old computer that my friend was going to throw out.

its not exactly top of the line...


Red Hat requires 400 Megahertz to just run, whereas (according to someone I know, who heard from the person that installed linux on his machine) your need 500 megahertz to make Red Hat run well, (my processor's upper limit)

couldn't get the system specs on Ubuntu, or Kubuntu, even after searching the sites, (including sitemaps) for 30 mins

Can't even get documention for Suse, (Documentation page 404's)

Couldn't find documentation for Solaris (site's too big for me to try to find it)...info overload...but no sys. requirments...

And again, I apologize for anything offensive I may have said, but rest assured, as soon as I can get a computer that can run all those well enough, I will try those releases...


But one of the main reason's that I chose Slackware (besides the lower sys. req.), is that it installs the Linux core for me, asks me to choose what I want, out of a semi-graphical list, (and i like to personalize my stuff), and if I don't understand something, I can restart setup and just run it in the "newbie mode", and, add to that (according to the setup screenshots from shots.osdir.com) I can choose from seven different GUIs (ranging from, i guess, newbie to intermediate), and once I select a GUI, it sets up the GUI for me. (very newbie-friendly, considering I don't know any Linux terminal commands, which I will learn, of course), and as I have read, KDE is supposed to be very easy to use "...for those who come from a Mac or Windows world", as Lakota typed.

And although it may not have a setup program that sets up in 2 or 3 clicks, Slackware fits my definition of "...a distro that, to use it to its full potential, I am required to learn something new, yet not so techy that I can't be productive with the disto..."

And not only that, but isn't it my choice which distro to get?

After all, aren't all linux distros based on an identical, or semi-identical core, with a GUI frosting covering it, with the GUI usually being, more often than not, KDE, GNOME, or Getoo?
(I did do my research, which is what I always do, before making such an important decision, especially like choosing my Linux operating system, wouldn't you as a proud, and rightfully so, Linux user agree?)

Fianally, I apologize if I said something that offended someone...

Hey,

Here are my Reccomendations,

Mandriva

http://frontal2.mandriva.com/en/downloads/mirrors

Knoppix

http://iso.linuxquestions.org/distro.php?distro=5

PCLinuxOS

http://www.pclinuxonline.com/pclos/html/download.html

enjoy,

Jake

PCLinuxOS

http://www.pclinuxonline.com/pclos/html/download.html

enjoy,

Jake

Seriously, I'm a huge newbie, and this really really works.
You will encounter 0 problems when trying to use this.

Now if only it came with smart package manager...

FWIW, the system requirements for Ubuntu and Kubuntu are quite low. They recommend 32 MB of RAM for a default installation, and 1.8 GB hard drive space. I have run both on an older laptop (550 MHz Celeron, 192GB RAM) with relative ease. (It is not super fast, but it is not slow enough to become annoying.) Ubuntu seems a little more polished than Kubuntu, though.

http://wiki.linuxhelp.net/index.php/Ubuntu

192gb ram?!? sweet jesus lol.

About the interfaces:

A base linux system will run a shell (most likely BASH or similar) which is just like a comand interface (similar to Dos)

However, when you get into GUI's. You have a thingymabob (name defeats me right now) probably X11 or something similar which is basically almost like a graphics core.

Then you have a window manager. These window managers use the Xwindows thing to make yor GUI. Now you normally only have one window manager running at a time. this is your desktop. Now there are loads of different window managers out there and most will run on most linux distros if they have some form of XWindows. So the GUI is determined really by what window manager you have an how you customise it.

personally, my favourite WM is xfce2 (http://www.xfce.org) has almost an Apple feel to it.


dom.

p.s. i think all of the above is correct, feel free to correct anything.

LOL. What a difference one letter makes. It was supposed to be 192 MB (of course).

Thanks much for all the info...
Everyone has been so helpful...

btw, what is a good media player for linux, something that can windows media player formats, mp3, dvd and divx? or do I have to download codecs afterwards?

How do I install said media player and codecs?

Only two days til my school lets out for christmas break...

MPlayer is a movie player you can use to view WMV files and stuff. There are codecs available on that site as well and there should be instructions for installing them. If you're using Slackware, check out www.linuxpackages.net because they might have a pre-built Slack package for MPlayer, instead of you having to compile it from source. You would install it with

# installpkg filename.tgz

after using the "cd" command to change to the directory in which the file resides.

About DVDs, you will need to install extra packages as distros don't include them because of encryption. One such package is libdvdcss, do a search on LQ as I think there are several packages you need (but I really can't remember).

For MP3s, you can use XMMS and I know that comes with Slackware. If you didn't install it when you installed Slack, then you can get it off the CD and use installpkg as above. Edit: XMMS is similar to Winamp.

HTH.

Maybe you better try some Live Cds of the distros if you have faster cdrom and enough memory (than it seems for your old systems equals).
And i would like you to try for live cd and setup one of Pardus. It will be enough for the programs that you say that you need (from and within the really easy installation) .
You can find info about Pardus at the distrowatch site and can see some screenshots of it at the OSdir.com screenshot part.

...

My dad forgot my monitor, keyboard and mouse...

Now I have to wait 'till spring break...



(My computer was in my old home down near New Orleans, and it got ripped apart by the storm. When I went home for Christmas break, my dad was supposed to bring my computer up. Well, he brought the tower...)

I finally install linux...

you were right though, Slackware isn't exactly for former windows users...

I managed to get through the install just fine, rebooted, and.... booted to a terminal that I knew no commmands for...

Spent an hour and a half, and didn't figure out how to boot the GUI...

Woke up the next morning and checked the internet for how to do so, didn't find what i was looking for...

so I tried again, typing the first command off the top of my head, "StartX" and it finally worked.

also, a friend recommended that I try Gentoo, and if my computer will run it, I will try...

Thanks for all the advice...