What Linux OS should i get?
I am trying to learning c+ and i game a lot.
I just want to be free of the maze of windows.
a friend of mine had this cd called noppic's or some thing,it was like a linux demo. i really liked the set up of the OS.
now that i want linux, i learn there are so meny differnt types of it. Red hat, Debian, SuSE, and what not.
i just dont know witch one is best for me.
and no, returning to windows is not an opption

Well Dese,

Their are several Linux distributions fhat would be good for a beginner. You might check out Mandrake or Fedora which is the descendant of Red Hat. They both are easy to install.

As far as games, most of the games that run under Windows don't have a Linux counterpart. Their is a program called wine where you can run some Windows programs. However, some don't work and it is a pain to try to get working.

For C++ you'll want to download Anjuta
http://anjuta.sourceforge.net

Good luck

BTW, you may want to check out these sites.

http://www.distrowatch.com

http://www.linuxgames.com/
http://www.newbreedsoftware.com/
http://www.icewalkers.com/
http://www.happypenguin.org/

That's knoppix. It's a peace of art I tell you. You have 2 gig's worth of software on that cd. Hardware is configured automatically. It detected all my hardware correctly, although it did'nt have all the drivers to get them working. So I didn't have sound and 3d acceleration. But other then that.... .
I do indeed suggest you download your self a copy of knoppix. You might have some problems booting from cd. Just read the readme file on the disk, and you should be able to resolve them. Or else people this site will gladly help you if they can.
Knoppix doesn't touch your harddrive unless you tell it to, but you will have a full linux desktop on your computer running straight from cd. For this reason, it might be a little slow. If you like it, you can install it on your harddrive.
Best of luck..

ps1: knoppix : www.knoppix.org
ps2: You will need broadband internet connection, but you probebly figured that. Needless to say you will also need an cd burning device.