Hi,

I have been thinking of trying linux on my machine for a while but which distribution would you experts recomend.


I have an AMD Athlon 1.2GHz with 256 MB of Ram (Jetway 663AS mother board and I think a Radeon 8500 video card)
Windows 2000 on it is painfully slow (takes 10 minute to boot up and spend most of its time thrashing the hard drive as most of the mem is constently used up??)

All I need is a web browser, word processing and if possible something to load music on an ipod. would be great if I could have both Win and Linux, while I get used to it

any suggestion on a good, fast, ditribution?

Thanks in advance

As your a begginer I would say ubuntu its not too restricting for when you get advanced. Or Mandrive witch is very user-friendly.

I'd probably recommend Xubuntu 6.10 for you. Nice lightweight desktop thats fully functional.

http://www.xubuntu.com

Then use this FAQ to get alot of things done with minimal fuss...

http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu:Edgy

Then go here and read how to set up your IPod(note, I don't have an IPod, so I'm just assuming these instructions are accurate).....

http://www.codejacked.com/using-your-ipod-on-linux/

IGF

A good distro for newbies is xandros
http://www.xandros.com/

It supports your ipod and it includes crossover office and plugins. The crossover includes popular microsoft programs, also includes itunes. Xandros is not free,
they have different price ranges.

The free distros I recommend are:
http://www.mepis.org/
http://www.freespire.org/
http://www.ubuntu.com/

I don't know it these support your ipod. You need to check
the hardware compatibility list or HCL for short from each website.

Hopefully, Linux will be happier on 256MB than will Windows, but you still might want to consider more RAM---Another 256M for that machine might be fairly affordable.

I used to advocate using Distrowatch + a dart board (seriously), but I am now more prone to pushing the Debian/Ubuntu/Mepis family. ie anything with the apt/deb/synaptic package management scheme. PCLinuxOS also has the same package manager and is very nice.
I would actually start with Mepis.

Take a look at Vector Linux.
Version 5.8 (LATEST)
* Kernel version 2.6.18.5 with popular sata, ide and scsi drivers.
* Glibc-2.3.6
* Xorg-6.9.0 is the default X window system.
* New graphical/text package management with Gslapt and slapt-get.
* New VL-Hot program for automounting usb devices like pendrives and external drives.
* Easy on your system resources, should run fine with a minimum of 128mb of ram
* Reguires 1950 megs of disk space for full install (but you should have more available for additional programs and swap space)
* Laptop support including pcmcia and apm.
* Usb support via Udev
* Most available Linux hardware drivers are included.

I agree with kernel-geek. As a newbie, Mandriva, is an easy to set up and use system. Xandros, was a bit iffy a few years ago. Gentoo requires a net connection to finish the install. Ubuntu is just junk, for me at least. Some time back, Caldera was a very good distro, but now they are into this SCO rubbish.
My advice is to try a few distro's. You will eventually settle for some flavour you like. Don't be afraid to experiment.
Low memory? Whack in a small old hard drive on a separate cable, and dedicate it as a swap drive.
My own system is like this.
An athlon 1.6 Gb machine with only 256 Mb of main memory, 32 Mb of which is dedicated to on board video, but, with an old 2.1 Gb ATA drive dedicated as swap.
Pixellany is correct, Distro watch and a dart board. Use a fork, not a dart, that way you get more choices.
Under Linux there is no one correct distro, there is only the distro you are happiest with. For me, that is Mandriva 2006.

Good luck and best wishes,

Shorty943.

registered Linux user 437639

Kubuntu
http://www.kubuntu.org/

Mandriva
http://frontal2.mandriva.com/en/downloads/mirrors

PCLinuxOS .92
http://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/metalab/dist...glish/preview/
ftp://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/metalab/distr...glish/preview/

This is the distro I use and recommend, Why because it works right out of the box. No need to configure Everything, everything just works. It also comes as a 1 CD install that is a live CD that you can install later if you wish.

BeatrIX
http://www.watsky.net/download.html

Mephis
http://www.mepis.org/

Vector Linux 4.3
http://www.vectorlinux.com/

DSL
http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

Puppy Linux
http://www.puppylinux.org/user/viewpage.php?page_id=3

Slackware
http://www.slackware.com/

BeaFanatIX
http://bea.cabarel.com/

if your still unsure of the distro try these distro choosers:

http://eedok.voidofmind.com/linux/chooser.html
http://www.zegeniestudios.net/ldc/

Jake