1. So you want a distro for snappy web surfing, multi-media, etc with a decent amount of apps that won't slow down your rig and is user friendly ?

2. You don't like the command line, so I assume you have a windows partition somewhere on your system.

3. You find ubuntu excessive to your needs, so do I and will never use half the software that comes with it. I prefer to use a lightweight distro that offers speed but still retains either a KDE or Gnome desktop, so for me that rules out the superlight distros like Damn Small Linux, Featherlight Linux, etc.

4. If your rig can boot from a USB stick then I recommend PendriveLinux 2008, it's based on Mandriva / PCLinuxOS so there's plenty of RPM software packages available for download should you need them. It uses the Synaptic Packet Manager, so there's no need for the command line to install new software.

5. From windows It installs directly to a USB stick with 3 clicks, there's no need to burn a CD, there's no need to overwrite your windows boot record, it does not touch your windows partition, just boot from the USB stick and your taken to a KDE desktop and before I forget to mention it, it's very fast compared to Ubuntu or Mint or anything else that I've tried including my Windows setup.

6. Now here's the good bit, It saves your changes back on to the USB stick, so you can remove the stick and plug it back into any suitable PC and everything's still there.

7. I use Firefox as the default web browser, there's Amarok for your music, Mplayer to view all those HD movie trailers on the Apple website, all codecs are pre-installed, video drivers are pre-installed, on a 1GB USB stick there's approx 700MB of software available with 250MB reserved to save any changes, I had no need to add any additional software. If you find that you like this distro but would like to add even more software just buy a bigger USB stick, the persistent loop file where changes are saved on the stick is adjustable from 250MB to 2GB.

8. As you can guess I really do like this distro and would recommend it to anyone who doesn't need a full blown linux installation.

Pendrivelinux 2008 to USB using windows
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/2008/02...-from-windows/

Pendrivelinux 2008 to USB using linux
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/2008/02...ll-from-linux/

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check out Sidux. I think you will be amazed.

Try Mandriva. It's easy to set up and you get avoid bloat as it allows you to select your software packages while you are installing. It's still not the fastest booter, though. If you do need fast, you'll need to consider one of the compile-your-own systems (Gentoo, Arch, Crux, FreeBSD, LFS).

Thank you for all of your advise about speedy distributions. I will probably give Slackware a try this summer when I am on vacation. In the meantime, I will try Puppy. I just noticed that Puppy has community version with just a web browser. I will probably also give this a try.

Thank you again for your thoughfull replies.