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I have used Linux off and on for a few years now, and so far Suse has seemed the best. My issues with Linux usually revolve around games and having the latest hardware. Some games do not run, which I can usually live with, but then I go and upgrade some hardware and there is no support for it under Linux.
OK, right off the bat I know that the X-Fi is out, but the mobo has a SoundMAX 7.1 HD daughter card that Linux does support, so I can use that for now and slap the X-Fi back in when support becomes available.
I prefer KDE over Gnome because I like the eye candy and it is closer to what I am used to; Windows. But Enlightnment dr17 looks amazing.
Based on my liking to game, and the hardware that I have, and taking into consideration that I want 64bit, SLI enabled and I am an "experienced noob" when it comes to Linux, what would you people suggest? I want the most robust system, with lot's of eye candy but it has to be fairly easy to use. Is there a better option that Suse?
Games include Half Life 2, Quake 4, UT2004, and COD2. There are some others, but those are the important ones.
I could give Suse another try, but I am willing to try Mepis, Debian, Gentoo(when they get an installer that a noob can figure out), Mandrake, etc... Tried Linspire and it sucked. Ubuntu, I didn't like either.
Well, if you like leading edge hardware, you might like leading edge software to go with it - Fedora Core 4 (soon to be 5). It's less stable if you keep upgrading to the latest release, but the hardware support is very current. You also get to play with the latest software toys (Xen, SELinux, etc.).
Personally, I am a die-hard Gentoo user, but of the distros you mentioned, Suse is the most polished, especially for what you want. It's heavy in terms of resources, but if you go through and shut off services you don't need, it's fine. You will probably get a zillion responses to this post, so this is just my two cents. I don't game in GNU/Linux unless there is a native port, but maybe you have better luck than I do with Wine...
SuSE - is fast once it boots up. Have used InitNG to speed up boot times successfully. I think right now it is going to be your best choice.
Kubuntu - great but not cutting edge in my opinion.
Ubuntu - Excellent for new people learning the ropes. Gnome based.
Fedora - Cutting edge but GNOME based (KDE is available but there is no eyecandy)
Gentoo - Not for newbs. Great if you like control over your distro or if you want to learn more about Linux.
I hated Fedora when I tried it, several times in fact. Seemed too much of a pain to do simple things like mounting some drives and installing NVidia 3D drivers.
Suse has been my favorite, but there is so much stuff out there that I thought perhaps I had missed a few. Keep the suggestions coming though!
That seems strange; Fedora automounts drives (they auto-magically appear on the desktop when plugged in), and installing the Nvidia drivers is just one command.
In any case, from the sound of it one of the more stable distributions (Mandriva or SuSE) may be more suited to your needs. The trade-off, as mentioned above, is that some of the newer hardware/software functionality may not be supported yet.
I think I am gonna sit tight until Suse 10.1 is released and then give that a try. There are tons of bugs in the current Beta release, and so I am not gonna wrestle with that.
I definitely think that you must stay with SuSE. It's the distro that has all that you want, and is quite easy to use. And 10.1 is coming soon so just be patient for some weeks.
BTW, I think that Fedora Core, Ubuntu/Kubuntu, Mandriva are also good options and with some tweaking can give you what you need.
I suggest you to make room in your harddisk for some partitions where you can have one of these distros. It's only when you start using the system that you realize wich one is the adequate for you.
Although I don't use it anymore, Suse 10.0 is quite nice, but waiting for 10.1 will be a good idea. 10.0 had some serious bugs in the usb drive mounting and transfer, which caused usb 1.0 devices to transfer at an incredibly slow rate. Other than that, during the brief time I used it, it was very well put together and very nice.
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