Well Ive about had it with being totaly dissatisfied with my OS.

I also find my self enrolled in computer science classes this year and thus feel the need for a stable fully tweaked OS is ever more prelevant.

Now ive done my homework and yea everybody is raving about ubuntu or opensuse. I tried the lives and the installs a while back but I had a problem with the over dependence of package management.

Now don't get me wrong they are both awsome demonstrations of why windows needs to start really paying attention. but I feel it isn't fully tweakable.

now as it stands i got a winxp pro sp3 install thats stripped to holyhell services wise and effects/componets running on a hp dc7600 small formfactor with +2gb of aftermarket ram

(ill also be getting a geforce 8400 512mb gddr low profile pci-e 16x card tomarrow hope it's supported)

I basically spend my time learing LUA, C, C++, and would like to get into Perl I also get down on World of Warcraft.

I also like the immunity to all the bullC** viruses out there

I have heard rumors of WOW now running better via the recent Wine builds then in winxp pro with geforce cards.

and as far as ive read a linux system handles memory much better then any win os so thats a plus for video and programming right?

and i can totaly tweak it if I do a linux from scratch build have Only what I need/want and kernel basicaly tuned to my hardware no extra crap?

is all this correct?

That's a lot of stuff......

IMHO, what you need to do is install Linux and start working with it. In the process, you will discover many of the answers to your questions.

Some preview:
Linux is more tweakable than Windows.
Linux sometimes NEEDS more tweaking than Windows.
While there are some things you cannot do on Linux, in general--Linux will do more than Windows. For example, there is probably now more SW for Linux.

Well based upon that first statement, you should try Slackware or LFS. Slackware will take a lot less time to install, but it will be somewhat less custom in that you don't compile all the packages yourself with optimizations. Slackware does not include any dependency management, that's left to you, but this is good because it stays out of your way. You could also try Gentoo if you cared a lot about optimization and squeezing those last few bits of performance out of the CPU.

No need for rumors on WOW, take a look here:
http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManage...ation&iId=1922

The performance of your system depends a lot on you and your choices. You can have a system that is very light and functional and fast, or you can have a system that is more bloated but has more special desktop effects if you like that kind of thing. As opposed to Window$ you have many more choices. If you are dissatisfied with a particular aspect of your system, look for an alternative and use that.

If the 'isn't fully tweakable' part is your real problem (...my guess is that it is, but there is a lot more stuff in your post), then it would probably better if you described what it is that you want to tweak, because I'm betting that you just don't (yet) know how to do it.

All of the appearance is tweakable (either within a GUI or by changing GUI), all of the services are so I'm not sure what else you want.

...choice between the proprietary driver and 'plain' Xorg - proprietary will probably give you more 3d performance if you get it working correctly. xorg is probably easier, more pure (free as in free) if it 'just works' which it should.

I wouldn't start from LFS...That makes a very abrupt learning curve. Even Slackware or Gentoo would be a bit much for most people as a first step in Linux and they are probably a shallower learning curve than LFS. I'd advise (& bear in mind that if you ignore my advice and get up and running smoothly, you'll have done a good thing and deserve congratulations) that you try, for a while, a 'consumer' distro and think about something a bit more 'geeky' while you use that for a while.

I don't have an OS suggestion but I will offer a tidbit: Learn Linux / Unix while you are young. You'll be so glad you did on down the road & you'll understand your OS better than you ever did before. It is a real plus plus IMHO.

Well after more research and the recent replys.

I am quickly coming to the point in the road ... that point in the road where you feel really stupid for trying to remained latched onto billys teet!

after my initial post i was like wait wtf! windows is no different then these package manager dependent precompiled distros...and really they are not they far off from each other

aside from software beign open source if you use any of the main distros.. ubuntu/suse debian whatever in the end most new users end up becoming comfey with the emerge functions or apt-get or rpm's

in the end because your using precompiles executables or packages...is it really THAT different from using the drivers or software builds that MS thinks is best with their OS?

as such I have decided to go with a LFS build the ability to audit everything down to the source is very VERY appealing to me.

I have found nothing entirely to cryptic about LFS but that may be to my more technical personality.

Though this thread didn't get nearly enough 3rd party data and responces that I was exepecting it still was none the less helpfull.

that being said I look forward to posting the results of my dive into the nix world later this month after some more hardware research

the good thing on that equally related note is all my hardware seems to be FULLY supported so I guess that puts me slighty ahead of the game as far as switching over is concerned.

I just need to absorb a few documents and get a better grasp of nix vs win
as far as differences go

but all in all looks like im on the diving board and about to jump into the water

Alright, good luck, and don't give up. If LFS proves to be too difficult or time-consuming, I say try Slackware next.