Why expend mental energy pointing out silly typos?

The desktop environment has something to do with it, but by far the biggest factor is the choice of distribution.

If you like KDE then stick with it. Nearly all of the big distros offer you the choice of KDE.

I always recommend to new users that they get something that works first, then start modifying to meet your preferences after a month or two.

It was a joke.

Uh, the seriousness...

try kUbuntu. Runs KDE, and Ubuntu is a very good distro. Easy as well.

After you bothered to read that far down in my post, it's strange that you decided to quote out of context.

In context, my point was about the relationship between (self-perceived) smart and choice of an easy distribution. Specifically that there is no contradiction between them, no reason that you should choose a harder distribution just because you want to think you're smarter or more computer literate.

Out of context, my statement appears to have a totally different meaning: "listen to my opinion because I'm smart". If I cared to convince you I'm smart, I wouldn't be stupid enough to try to do so by a simple unsupported claim.

There are lots of distros out there, many with good software repositories. Unlike many people above, I won't recommend my distro, Gentoo. It is probably among the faster ones, but require you to have some experience with installing and solving problems on a Linux installation first.

Most, if not all, can co-exist with windows by using a dual boot installation. Choose a distro first and then search for how to install it in a dual boot fashion. You'll need a separate partition on your hard drive for Linux.

As a newbie I think you should start one of the big distros:
-Kubuntu is the KDE version of Ubuntu, they also happen to have some good forums to help new people with problems.
-Fedora too is good, it defaults to Gnome, but it has KDE too as an install option. I saw somewhere they might change to KDE by default in the next release.
-OpenSuse. Similar to Fedora, think they already default to KDE. The Novell sponsored one.
Also worth checking is Mandriva, PCLinuxOS (have a good multimedia installation, which might save you time in looking for audio and video codecs', some distros are more nervous about being sued and don't include a lot of codecs support by default) and of course you have already tried Knoppix.

There are also a number of geographically based favourites you might want to look into. E.g. ALT Linux if you are Russian, SkoleLinux (Norwegian), Mandriva is based in France, openSuse, orignally from German Suse that was bought by Novell some years ago now. Depending on where you are, some distros might be more popular then others, which might be good for support.

There are other criteria too. Slackware is the oldest still existing distro, lots of experience and very stable, similarly Debian. In my view they can be a bit slow in getting new software into their repositories, but then again that will benefit stability if that's important for you (not that others are that unstable).

Anyway, just pick one. After a while you learn how to set it up and tweek the options to how you want them anyway. If a particular software package isn't in your chosen distros repository, its not usually that complicated to download and install it yourself.

Good luck.

If you disable the page file in Windows, then reboot, then defragment, before resizing, then you are more likely to resize it to the size you want, and less likely to screw it up.
You can learn the same amount about GNU/Linux from using any distro. Choice of distro is all about personal taste and needs.

Ay, yes, the seriousness (?)
Oh man.

It's all good.

I am pleased to announce that with my meager 256MBs of ram, I have succeeded in running the Mepis 7.0 live cd using the default settings. (the first entry in the GRUB boot screen). Also, the dual boot setup with Win2K works flawlessly. (When you remember to install GRUB in the MBR! DUH!).

Furthermore, to prevent the possibility that I would have to go through the painful process of re-imaging 65GBs of a WinXP installation on a 300GB HDD (using 15 DVDs), the entire Win2K/Mepis setup is contained on a separate 40GB HDD. To change between WinXP and Win2K/Mepis, I simply change the HDD boot order in my system BIOS.

Mind you, I am still looking for other distros.
PCLinuxOS 2007 is on deck.

P.S. I must admit that the Mepis live CD did run somewhat sluggish once firefox was running. It was not too bad, just a noticable decrease in preformance. (no swap space was being used)

Firefox is the monster of all monsters when it comes to eating up RAM. You might consider checking out Konqueror or Opera.

Anyway, congratulations on getting Linux working. I've been using Linux for years and just recently made another switch. Unlike the Windows world, things change pretty quickly with Linux, and with each new release there is a chance that a different distro will better fit your preferences.

I never doubted that default setting would work. And that default setting is fine for using the liveCD to install or repair Linux on a hard drive. And it is fine for running firefox.
But if you want to explore Linux features on a liveCD (to see if you like Mepis and/or to learn Linux), that default setting is not OK. A large variety of features are present that simply fail to work because of that default setting. They don't give any warning message that they won't work nor error message that they didn't. So a beginner would assume he did the wrong thing and/or Linux doesn't have a sensible feature there.
With the aufs boot option (included in the second choice on that menu) all those things work. The results are all thrown away when you reboot. But while Mepis is up it behaves like an installed Linux.
But I think aufs with no swap space and 256Mb of ram is unsound.

liveCD's tend to have strange stalls at points where an installed Linux would have instant response. I'm glad none of that really bothered you.

I'd say Mepis and PCLinuxOS are two of the best choices for newbies with KDE desktop.
They should (just) run on 256MB, but you'd notice a real improvement with 384MB or 516MB. I'd also recommend at least 1GB for swap partition.

Yes, I gave it a little over one gig on the swap partition, and it only showed about 2MB used in swap. Interesting. Does the system go to the swap partition once the RAM starts to get full? I'm not going to change the size of the swap partition, because the more the merrier, especially in my case.
Also, the PCLinuxOS download site appears to be down. Does anyone know of some other reliable mirrors?

I get good speed when downloading it here (just tested it):
http://www.pclinuxos.com/index.php?o...load&Itemid=51