So I'm about to attempt my first linux trial run, but still am unsure of which way To get started. And this seems to be choosing a distro (unless I am mistaken)

What I am looking to do right off the bat is play a game from 2000 (Tom clancy's rogue spear), use adobe flash supported websites, web browse, burn CDs, use AutoCad, word process and spreadsheets.

I like very clean and simple yet solid displays.

Can anyone point in a thoughtful direction please? Thankyou

j1tter bug

Well, if you want to learn GNU/Linux the right way, as well as understand it, and even learn the proper ways to use it, get Slackware. It's very user involved in administration, but it's the best choice overall for simplicity, ease of usage, and best learning curve.

It has a separate multilib for 32-bit compatibility maintained by AlienBOB (Eric Hameleers) http://www.slackware.com/~alien/multilib/ and 3rd party packages can be obtained from http://www.slackbuilds.org as well as prebuilt repositories maintained by Eric http://www.slackware.com/~alien/ and also Robby Workman http://rlworkman.net/ who does a lot of work at SlackBuilds.org also.

Trust me, it's SUPEREASY to install and use. It might not look it from biased reviews, but it actually is. Plus, you have the Slackware Official forums here as well with a horde of experience Slackware users and even Patrick Volkerding the project manager himself.

It's the oldest maintained distribution, but it's the best hands down.

As for gaming, I've ran a lot of older games on it just fine, some using multilib, and all have worked without a problem. it even has tools to convert .deb, and .rpm packages to Slackware friendly .txz, or .tgz package management formats.

I would agree with ReaperX7 that Slackware is the best Linux distro, however, if you are wanting to play Rogue Spear and use AutoCAD, why do you want to use Linux instead of Windows? If you use Linux, you will need to use WINE to run those, or consider using something like FreeCAD instead of AutoCAD.

FreeCAD works well and you won't need WINE. You will need it for Rogue Spear though, but if you want the best support, as WINE will not replicate hardware accelerated API functionality, you should possibly dual-boot. Windows 7 is a great OS to dual-boot with and supports a lot of games fairly well, even those from the 32-bit era, and if you need 16-bit era games, DOSBox works well too.

Flash has support up to 11.2 on Linux, but you should be okay for about 95% of websites.

FireFox is the defacto standard and comes by default on Slackware.

For Optical Media burning you have Xfburn and K3b (Xfburn is available through Robby's repository and possibly AlienBOBs, and K3b is installed by default).

For productivity there's LibreOffice. It doesn't come standard but there are plenty of packages for it from all the repositories.

haven't tried slackware yet, however after reading so much praise, maybe i should.
i'll just point out crunchbang, again.
it's debian based, it's minimal(istic) in approach as well as in design, yet full-featured and modern, it's been around for years, and it has a lively forum.
if that doesn't suit you either, just look for yourself.

I recommend to dual boot; use Windows for Windows software (rogue spear, flash, autocad, etc.) and Linux for Linux software.

Here is a nice comparison of the top 10 distros: http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major

I personally use and recommend Linux Mint.

I'm a big fan of Debian. Slackware is a good distro if you don't mind doing everything yourself. I want automated dependency resolution, so I could never learn to tolerate Slackware. I reinstall it every few years, enjoy it until I want to install something that isn't included by default, then realize why I never stay with it, and get rid of it again.

Debian can be set up as minimalistic as you like, or can go whole hog and install everything and the kitchen sink.

Although as several said, for running games or AutoCAD, dual boot with Win7 assuming you're currently running that. However, I would suggest looking at alternatives to AutoCAD at least, even if you don't use them as the primary CAD program, gives you the option of doing most things in linux.

Rogue Spear and AutoCAD will work well with Wine
http://www.winehq.org/
but if you've paid for Windows, you might as well keep it. For other software, look at
http://linuxappfinder.com

Slackware is a good distro: very stable and reliable. But it does make for a lot of work compared with more modern distros. You notice the people who recommend it (and complain about all the reviews being biased) are all users, many of whom may never have tried anything else — why should they when they've found the one true way?!

If you like the plain and clear user interfaces, you'll like Mate or Xfce. KDE is a riot of zooming, bouncing eye candy; it is wonderfully configurable, but the documentation is dire. Gnome seems to be in the business of making computers look as if they've turned into smart-phones.

Look at Linux Mint: no-one who installs it ever comes back full of complaint. You could also try PCLinuxOS. That doesn't have versions — once you install, you can continuously update — but it still manages to keep things stable.
http://www.linuxquestions.org/review...p/product/2625
http://www.linuxquestions.org/review...p/product/2672

3 members found this post helpful.

I've actually tried just about ever Debian/Ubuntu clone out there, as well as RedHat/Fedora and their clones like Mandrake/Mandriva, and others like Gentoo, SUSE, etc. to name a few and keep it short and sweet.

To me package management is nice, but equally can be confusing as Hell trying to get what is needed.

For him starting out though into Linux, he should learn the fundamentals and basics of Linux as well and Slackware ironically is the best tool for that, plus Slackware is extremely flexible and configurable to the point that you can add in everything else as you go.

Plus knowing how to self-resolve dependencies will help greatly when you get that oddball package that isn't properly documented and when you build it, it spits out, Error: package XYZ dependency was not found.

Tried the rest, but use the best.
I've got to give David credit where it's due: he never misses a chance to run down Slackware. 10/10 for persistence.

1 members found this post helpful.

Yup, same here. Slackware for Linux, OpenBSD for BSD.

Well, I'm glad someone finally said what I've thought of saying!

I called it a very good distro: that's running it down? And if were setting up a home server, I'd consider using it.

I have over 30 years' experience of computers. I've used operating systems from OS9 to Kolibri. I've tried 113 distros and reviewed most of them. I think that gives me some objective standards and I try to be fair. But with so many fanatical Slackers here, I think some-one needs to inject a touch of reality now and then.

Wow passion.

Thanks for all the input. Even got some beef to go with it.

I have a new laptop coming with windows 8 or 8.1 that I'm going to use for cad and rogue spearing and whatever for now.
I didn't have an option of getting windows 7 instead, oh well.

I have a dell dimension e310 desktop that I am going to install the linux distro on. And all I really intend to do with it is try out linux, and burn cd's.

Red Hat fedora has been holding my attention. But I have an irrational personal bias towards the company (in 8th grade, 1999-2000, during a stock-market class experiment, everyone had an imaginary amount of money to invest, I invested the majority of my money in red hat without knowing much about the company other than the basics of what they did. The stock ended up splitting multiple times. You can see it in there stock long term chart. Consequently, I was the top invested in the class, and won a silver dollar. Pretty huge deal obviously. So I have some sort of nostalgic affinity towards the company. Though I think the fedora project is pretty cool.

However, I think I'm going to go with Slackware. Unless I change my mind in the next week.

It is an old school distro. Has held up to the test of time. Encourages the development of knowledge and skill with linux. Has created a fanatical user following. I think if someone were to ever sacrifice their life for a linux distro, it would probably be a Slackware user. That says something. And it comes default with what you need to get what you want.

I really appreciate everyone who took an interest in my post, and contributed thought and effort.

Mind what you have learned! Save you it can!

So is Debian and so has Debian.
So does Debian.
So does Ubuntu and Mint (they are both derivatives of Debian btw)
Have you ever read through the fanboy posts in Ubuntu Forums or Mint Forums? Each distro has the same oddballs.
Yep it says that Linux is about choice and everyone is free to go with what distro they want to go with.
Most do, Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, etc etc etc just to name a few.

Every reason you have given to try Slackware can be said of many other distros.

You're welcome.