What do I do with all this free space???
 

I decided to play around in my windows XP registry. I simply wanted to change the start menu name to something else. Well we all know how userfriendly XP is NOT. Anyways it is all screwed up and I really don't care. I could try and fix it but I decided I don't want XP on this computer anymore. I have XP on my older computer now only for non-3D windows based games I have and so I have an XP system to look at when I help others when they have problems, and there are always problems with Windows.

My computer, which is a little over a year old:
Compaq Presario S6000CL
AMD Atahlon XP (2.08GHZ)
512mb SDRAM, that will be upgraded to the max of 1024mb in a couple of weeks
CD-RW and DVD ROM
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200
Sound Blaster Live
AND.................. Two Hard drives, each is 80GB(160GB total.)

The XP that came with this computer was Bundled with Compaq software and if I had to reinstall it it would use up the whole 80GB hard drive it was installed on. Now that I am not using XP on this computer I have an extra 80GB to play with.

So here is the point of my long winded post. With all of this 160GB hard drive space it seems like a waste to use it on just a few distro's. So I need some ideas on what I am going to do. Even though I have my Linux and BSD favorites I really like them all. I am thinking about installing as many distros as I can with in the limits of the space I have.

What are people preferences when it comes to Linux, BSD or other OS's? What is your favorite distro(s), why is it your favorite and what do you use it for?

This is not a thread to debate what is better then the other. I am only concerned with each persons opinion, not others opinions on why a person is wrong.

Thanks.

Webwolf

My distro choices and why

Ubuntu - For migrating users to linux, also for any laptops.
Gentoo - For my desktops/servers. Customization and I like the package manager.
Slackware - Firewalls/routers. For anything where the system resources are limited.

I use slackware for pretty much everything, server, firewall, desktop, I find it very easy to configure and easy to fix when things go wrong - which isn't very often at all. The package manager might not be as good as others but I compile from source for customisation and then use checkinstall to put it into a slackware package which is adequate for my needs

For a desktop, i prefer Debian and FreeBSD. FreeBSD is my main OS, speed and lots of packages via ports. Most of the server/developper stuff is available after the install(cvs, ssh, gcc, etc.). Ports are updated on a regular basis, i update every 5 months, no need to rush except for security problems or new interesting ports. I heard about pc-bsd, but never tried it, FreeBSD is enough for my needs. I might give openbsd and LFS a try in the near future but just for fun :)

I use Debian on my laptop and at work because it is easy to maintain/update and it goes the same for every server i've got to setup. The concept of repository is new to rpm distros, there are more of them but debian have been using it for a long time so i can trust my apt-get to the end unless i use the unstable branch.

I don't have to download the next Debian Release from 20XX. I will apt-get it. If i want to live on the bleeding edge i use unstable, i want to use a desktop i put sarge, for a server i put stable or sarge.

Install a distro then go software crazy :)

I myself became something of a central file/downloads/backups/software repository for our home network of 10 computers and 5 users becasue I am the only one who runs linux and thus considered secure enough to run a FTP server.

How about installing KnoppMyth and use all that space to record movies?!