Hello, all

well, I am starting to get my footing with different *nix distros, and I think I know what I am looking for in one for my main machine, but not sure what has everything I want... I have played with Ubuntu, kubuntu, lubuntu, mint, ultimate linux, backtrack, fuduntu, opensuse, and was thinking about fedora as the next possibility...

What I like:
I prefer apt over yum, and like the symantec pacage manager over all the others.
I like the desktop to use KDE, over gnome, tho I also like the one with lubuntu, but I like desktop widgets for weather and calander..
I need compattibility with a mixed wifi network, with printing and filesharing with windows 7, xp and windows 2000 machines.
I like being able to just plug in external hard drives and usb memory without having alot of steps involved in accessing them.
I like K3B and the option for several dvd authoring tools with good menu creation.
I like gimpshop, but it is getting outdated without recent updates, but I am not quite comforable with the gimp yet for an alternative to photoshop.
Still looking for a good WYSIWYG html editor, updated to support html5 and the new techniques to replace flash.
I like it to run well woth only 1 gig ram and a 2 gig swap space.
I do web design, graphics editing, and am starting to get into video editing for youtube and home movies.
I do some security editing as part of my work, and while backtrack is excellent for that, it has far more tools than is necessary for my needs, mostly wireless security evaluations.
Libre office is fine for my office support software.
I prefer using chrome or chromium exclusively, and do not like firefox, so I prefer a distro without firefox preinstalled...
I need it to work out of the box with wireless networking without much configuration, as I don't have access to a wired connection during install. (kubuntu couldn't update anything during install, had to reconfigure /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-ath_pci.conf to allow my atheros wifi card)

the games I play are mostly facebook based, so no problems with that, tho playing doom again with chocolate doom is pretty awesome, I miss the old school shootem up fun :P

would like a ps2 emulator to play from original dvd's as well, just so I can play while the kiddos are watching tv...

and I love eye candy, but with limited resources, ultimate linux was beautiful but so slow I couldn't run it without fustration, so I want something pretty while resource friendly, and prefer a screen that doesn't feel like I am running a mac from 5 years ago...

any suggestions on a distro that has most of what I am looking for that I can install what I want from there, or any suggested alternatives to the software I have mentioned are also welcome.

Thanks alot, I may mnot post alot, but I have learned a ton from reading the posts on this site and greatly appreciate the knowledge I have gained from you all!

-OCO-

When you say "limited resources," how limited do you mean?

My first thought, if you prefer apt-get, is to install Debian, download and install KDE, and use KDE for your DE.

Kompozer is a fairly decent HTML editor, but works best when used in conjunction with a text editor (their "edit source" screen is lacking).

The main machine I am working off of is an acer aspire 4720Z, it is a dual core 1.6 ghz intel processor, 533 mhz FSB, Intel GL960 Express chipset with 1 gig physical ram, with a shattered screen so it is attached to an external monitor, keyboard and mouse, and it shares ram with video processor. it uses an atheros ar5bxb63 802.11 b/g internal wireless card for internet access... the limit in resources is with system memory, and I am guessing if I use a 2 or 4 gig swap drive, that will help some, but I could be misunderstanding swap space usage, my understanding is it is like virtual memory in windows... this brings me to another question, if I make it dual boot with 2 different *nix distros, focusing one on security testing and the other on website development, video and audio editing, and daily use, can they share the same swap space, or do I set up 2 separate swap drives?

I also plan to set up another machine that is a much better machine later, my mom's dell laptop, but she won't let me convert her until I prove I know it well enough to fix anything she breaks, but I think ultimate linux will work well for her with all the eye candy, all she does is facebook and surf the net so anything will work for her :P

Thanks again!
-OcO-

I have a five-year old Acer Travelmate with 1 GB of RAM. It performs quite nicely, though there can be a little lag when starting a new program when multi-tasking.

I suspect that more than 1 GB swap would be wasted. Swap is nice, but it isn't the same as RAM.

That machine should run any contemporary Linux distro, but the heavier desktop environments, such as Unity and KDE, might show noticeable lag.

I would suggest a window manager or a lightweight desktop such as LXDE or XFCE over a desktop. You don't have to look for, say, an XFCE distro; you can always install the window manager or desktop of choice after you install the distro.

Personally, I like Fluxbox. It doesn't look like much out-of-the-box, but it's quite versatile and, with a little study, you can ramp up the eye candy quite nicely.