I have a Gateway Solo 9300, and I am new at Linux. I want to have my computer be as fast as possible, and I only need to be able to access the internet via my NETGEAR 54 mbps Wireless PC Card (Model#-WG511 v2; Made In Tawain). I had a little bit of trouble with Mandriva, and I just want to start from scratch. Thanks for all your help!

I think the vital thing is to mention the exact amount of RAM as well as exact type of CPU. If it doesn't have at least 256 MB, it is highly unlikely you will be able to run any of the larger distros with KDE or GNOME. At first sight, it looks as if you would be better off looking for a light-weight distro or at least using a light-weight desktop (XFCE, Fluxbox, ...) if you do settle on the larger ones.

I have a Pentium III 560 mhz, with 288 mb ram

OK, that amount of RAM should be fine to run the richer desktops, only they won't be as fast as they could be. If you insist on maximum speed, of course, it would be better to use a light-weight. Xubuntu comes to mind: it's a version of Ubuntu that uses XFCE by default, which makes it a lot less demanding than regular Ubuntu. I always think XFCE looks a bit drab, though, but there are many ways it can be customized. If you're a bit adventurous, you could install any other distro (including Ubuntu) and try Gnome or KDE so you can figure out whether they are too slow or not; then you can still install XFCE or Fluxbox. Or you could install all of them (temporarily or permanently) so you can decide which to use when you log into your system. I wouldn't install openSuse, though. It's probably the slowest of all that I have used so far.

Btw, mind telling us what went wrong with Mandriva?

The drivers I needed for my wireless card were wayyy to difficult for me to try and get!

Wireless tends to be rather problematic with all distros afaik. I don't use one of those so I'm afraid I can't be much help there. Whenever I'm in doubt about a piece of hardware, I type it into google along with the name of any distro I may be interested in. That way you find out really soon what works and what doesn't.

Kubuntu
http://www.kubuntu.org/


Mandriva
http://www.mandriva.com/community/mandrivaone


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.

Mephis
http://www.mepis.org/


Blag
http://www.blagblagblag.org/download/