Hello out there!

Actually I'm using with my dell inspiron 6000 the mandriva 2006 distro. i'm really happy with that one. most things i needed out of the box.

But mandriva 2006 free edition use old software versions (i.e. openoffice). i know i could compile the new software version from the source, but if you install 20 applications from the source and installed also 50 libraries to install the application, then sometime you will use the overview. I really like and enjoy mandriva's softwaremanagement urpmi. It's definitly the way how it sould be handled for normal user. But the software repository isn't so big (yes i know easyuprmi) and not acutal.

so i'm looking for a new distro with a big, acutal repository and a good compatibility to my inspiron 6000 (bluetooth and wireless).

i'm looking forward to hear your comments about other distros and what experience you made?

thank you.
sincerely xiral

Here are my suggestions.

Debian Etch (over 14,000 packages). There ain't much you won't find with debian.

Vector SOHO (slackware based very fast and configures wireless out of the box. The SOHO version includes openoffice. Vector Standard does not, however it can be installed later as slackware has many many packages as well)



Peace V

I have just installed FC4 on my Inspiron 9300, everything worked fine as far as I could tell, no probs.
Downloaded the ati driver and installed no problem.
Installed wireless ipw2200 via yum easy as that. Got updated repos from here first tho.

If you are into learning via the command line and have time and energy. Check out Arch Linux. Arch is i686 optimized and also has a very nice package management system called pacman. I've got Inspiron 600m and Slackware comfortably sitting in it.

Tux,

I had Ubuntu 4.10 on my Inspiron 8600. Everything worked out of the box and it was very easy to set up. Try that out.

Even better Tyr Ubuntu 5.10

Works fine

Yeah, I heard Breezy Badger was much better.

i took ubuntu 5.10

ubuntu bases on debian and the developer work together. It also has over 14.000 packages.

It's a very user friendly installation. I unterstand why ubuntu kicked this year mandriva from the pole position (distro-watch).

what i like the most about ubuntu. the starterguide integrated in the help system of gnome, this was something i always missed in mandriva (or i just never found it).

so thank you for your replies.
sincerely xiral