If you want to download a Linux distribution on a dial-up line, that's going to take a while... unless you grab something like Damn Small Linux , which is 50 MB or so. That's a live distribution, live as in runs-from-CD-doesn't-touch-HD. But that really is lightweight. If you want to make it better without getting to much of a burden, you could try SAM , which is Mandrake-based and not as large as Debian-based Knoppix, which is the usual live-CD recommendation for Linux beginners. It can be HD-installed, too. The hardware detection of Knoppix is really brilliant. Showing it off to friends creates Linux converts... A recent article brings a comparison of live-CD distros.
If you are interested in FC2, you may want to consider buying the latest issue if LinuxFormat, which includes a DVD that has Fedora Core 2, full distro, on it - along with a lot of goodies. It beats downloading. Also, there is an issue with making FC2 cooperate with WinXP on a dual-boot - but there is a trick to work around this, and there is a piece in the magazine on how to do this.
As for the comment from phlyersphan, I have been using Mandrake on my main system for a while now - 9.1, 9.2 and now 10.0. <whine>Before that, I tried Red Hat 8.0, but that was a bit of a mess to me</whine>. I find Mandrake to be very straightforward for a UI lover, and I find that this does not exclude anyone from hitting the command line anyway (and this is still often easier). Whenever I install a new distribution, I throw in the whole damn thing and throw most of it away later, when it's been taken for a spin. I use KDE, but using Enlightenment or Black-/FluxBox as Window Managers is huge fun and can only be recommended. It is very different from Windows, light, innovative.

I would recommend Fedora Core 2. I'm running it for some weeks now and I haven't had any serious problems. All my hardware was detected nicely. It's also quite user-friendly.

mandrake move, or knoppix... I used knoppix, i just heard about mandrake move, but mandrake is one of the easiest, so it must be good, Yes, MD10 has issues, but if you know how to "fiddle" with things, you can get it to work, but for now, you might want to stick w/ MD9..... Fedora has even worse issues, if you have a pci graphics card, you wont be able to use it. There's also alot of other issues, but here's the thing, most linux useres agree on this... It doesn't matter what distro you use, as long as you stop giving your $$ to microsoft....

I'm going to download damn small-linux tonight.
Sam is in german, any sam site written in english?
How big of a file is sam and knoppix??

As I recall, SAM is roughly 210 MB (fits on 3" CDs) - a program list is here. There is no english page, as SAM is Nico Reuter's pet project. Knoppix is a full 700 MB CD. But Damn Small Linux is fun (except it doesn't recognize my ethernet card). If you burn it on one of those small Business card CDs, the fetish effect is unmatched, when you pull it out of your shirt pocket.

I'd reccomend SuSE 9.1. I had many problems with Mandrake 9.2 and 10 (screwy package updating from the CDs which almost never worked, ISDN and LAN issues...). I bought SuSE personal on the cheap as a last resort and I wasn't disappointed. It works very well, and by the end of a half-day I had working Internet! The Kinternet applet makes it worth getting over Mandrake IMO. (This applet lets you select different network interfaces and providers, dial-up and hang-up, and it also displays transfer rate graphs!) Hardware is well done with YaST. The installer is good, although the partitioning manager is not as good as Mandrake's.

The only major bother is with the Personal version a lot of development stuff is left out (gcc, make, kdevelop, -devel versions of RPMs, kernel-source), which makes a load of RPM searching on the Internet and dependency fixing neccesary to 'add them in'. The Pro version includes these though. (But it isn't free unfortunately).

I tried to download damn small. I was 3 hours into a 4 hour download (75% downloaded) when i turned my head and didn't click on the box to stay online (the box pops up every 45 mins if your idle)
My next question is... Is there software that can continue a previos download
http://alien2thisworld.net/DamnSmall...mnsmall-0.7.2/ <-here is the site i was downloading from.

SuSE or Mandrake are great options I went through both of them but found myself doing everything from the GUI, which isn't bad, but I wanted to use commands so I installed Slackware 10.0. I'll suggest for you to get used to how the file tree works on linux by using live CDs like Knoppix or Slax and once you feel confortable with the way most of the things are done in Linux, install one of the many distros suggested by LQ buddies like me

hoping to be helpfull
eloyj88

I downloaded dsl and burned it to a cd. Now i can't get it to start. I made the mistake of clicking on wordpad to open the file. My floppy drive is screwed up so i can't made and startup disk for my floppy. Man, i'm a goner!! How do i start it up now??
I found someone that has the book "linux 4 losers" and am going to get it

knoppix
linuxiso.org

It's ironic you say that - I'm using Mandrake 10, and though there are many GUI configuration options in the control panel, I find myself seeking out the how-to's for accomplishing most configuration via the command line (only because I'm more comfortable doing it that way and learning how things work). It's good to have options

Oh, use FC2! I tried RHAT 9, managed to crash it, too poor to pay for software, got FC2 and love it because it comes with EVERYTHING already installed so you can take learning how to manage .rpms later on. Baby steps!

Ok, instructions for the totally clueless that I got from my genuis friend:

Download the .iso files from the fedora core website.

Burn the files AS ISO IMAGES (Burn4Free works nicely) onto cds. The IMAGE part is important- what you downloaded was not the actual install files, but IMAGES of them. You must burn them accordingly, one file per cd.

Fire up the laptop (or desktop, I suppose). Quickly put in cd 1 and reboot. When the load screen first appears, you should see something like "F2- boot setup" and "F12- boot options" or something like that. Press the F12 button really fast before the next screen pops up. You should get a list of options asking where to boot from, choose "CD-DVD drive" or whatever that option says.

It'll ask if you want to check the cds before using them, do all 4. Then, continue on and the FC2 install interface should show up. Answer its questions, it's pretty self-explanatory and there are general options if you're not too sure of your computer's specifics.

When it asks you what you want to install, choose the customize option. This will let you choose which packages you want/need. Get most of them, since you never know what you might need. I skipped the server and some admin stuff, since I'll never use it. Don't choose "install everything" cuz it's MASSIVE and will take forever and tends to fail at the end of cd3. Don't forget to install KDE stuff.

Continue on and let the cds do their thing. It'll take forever; grab a book. You'll have to change cds every once in a while, it'll move on, and then finally it'll come to a user-friendly end and reboot. I forget the particulars, but that usually means that it was so easy I just breezed through and moved on with my life.

Have patience, it took me 5 tries for a successful install, but it's greatness when you hook up to the Net and start chatting on GAIM and listening to cds instantly. And choose a fun screen saver!

Have fun with your system.
Can anyone post a guide for idiots on how to use Semantic (spelling)?