Right now, I have gentoo installed and It's working ok. I was ok with modifying the kernel manually and using it's package management system. I ran into a bunch of problems along the way with getting my components to work but it was a great learning experience and the forums were very helpful. I'm wondering if there is a better distro for my purposes though.

I'm looking for a distro that will be able to easily play my multimedia, has repos that are extensive and kept up to date, excellent support, and will allow me to learn linux quickly and gain better compentancy with the commandline.

I think that last two goals conflict with my first goals because basically I want an environment that just works and plays my multimedia with restricted codecs but I also want an environment that forces me to learn the internals of Linux and the command line. My preference is more towards learning Linux, and i'm ok with putting work in to getting things to work, but with Gentoo it seems like a constant struggle.

So is there a single distro that can meet my requirements or would the solution be to install two distros if my goals conflict too much? Is the software support there to be venturing into x86 64 bit territory? Should I just stick with Gentoo?

Debian linux
www.debian.org

Fedora Linux
http://fedoraproject.org

A netinstall of Debian
Slackware
Crux Linux
Arch Linux
Sourcemage - source based distro

Just to name a few.

Is there a particular reason why these particular distros are good for learning?

admas,

There are a couple of options without replacing Gentoo.

You could dual boot Gentoo with a 'justworks' distro so you always have something that works.

You could update your Gentoo no more frequently than monthly, so it works most of the time.
Its very easy to get into daily updates, just because you can.

You can start from a base and build upon it.

Stability. Most of them I've used one time or another are pretty stable.

Command line. I’ve been running Linux awhile and when I first started, I started on the command line.

Direct control over the machine without using fancy graphical user interfaces to hide anything. The ability to administer and maintain your system is left completely up to you.

Many communities to find help.

Thanks everyone for the advice. I decided to keep gentoo and just add a distro to my pc. I am currently triple booting vista, gentoo, and arch linux.

First decide the look and feel you want, your concerned about multimedia then you want something appropriate.

Here are my favorites:

Ultra X Linux Media Editon comes with boxee and sun virtualbox and DVD, CD, burning software, Video players and more.
http://ultraxlinux.org/download.html

Ubuntu 9.04 is great but then you need to add a media center and multimedia support.
http://ubuntu.com

Fedora is a good OS still have to install the apps
http://fedoraproject.org/


I like Ultra X Linux the best because 1 I created it, 2 it has everything in it already.

I you want to try something Puppy based try Mediapup

hi
i just installed pc linux, and really enjoy...its not that difficult to get mplayer working..etc....some linux distros require a quite bit of effort to do this....mint was also fairly easy to get dvd watching configured....but i am very happy with pc linux....here is a link for the latest iso distro....click on your server of choice..download

http://www.pclinuxos.com/index.php?o...iles&Itemid=28-

to get mplayer working-
1.click on the synaptic icon in task bar
2.enter password
3.click on settings
4.i enabled all repositories...
5.after configuring repositories, click on search, and find libdvdcss2, and install this file
6. now open mplayer, and right click on the mplayer box. and click on preferances, click on video..and make x11 driver as default

that is it..now you should be able to use mplayer

have changed my mind....go with sabayon...like it better for multi-media that i did pc linux..

Sabayon is great but very big

Most of these require some effort to activate the multimedia repos but will run very well once done.

Debian
Mandriva
Fedora

For out the box experiences.

Mint Linux - Based on Ubuntu
T%here are others with out the box multimedia but I don't like them.

sabayon......mplayer played a dvd without installing anything..i did get a mv error...but just click ok..and i watched the movie start