Alright I have used linux for about a week I downloaded Suse 9.1 Personal and I was wanting to go out and buy something with more functionality, I dont really know what would be good to get since I am so new with this so if someone can give me some ideas I would really appreciate it!

don't buy anything if you have broadband (or know someone who does).

I'd suggest one of the Debian based distros. Their package management is pretty good.

People always say Redhat is the best distro to start with. I didn't like Redhat and started using Slackware as my first linux OS. Even though Slackware has a rep to be harder to start off with. I think its better to learn from a real linux OS then from anything like Redhat.
you can download slackware from here:
www.slackware.com

here is also a great guide to help you install slackware. Its a bit dated in versions but works just the same for slack 10.

http://tinyurl.com/2akvx

cheers

Mandrake is full featured but I found it to be a little buggy. A great distro for a new person to learn on. There is tons of software for it.
http://easyurpmi.zarb.org/


Fedora works great but lacks some essential software like the ability to play .mp3's. Fedora also departs from other Linux distros in the way it does things. The missing software is available.
http://rpm.livna.org/fedora/3/i386/RPMS.stable/

Slackware is fast, stable and solid. It is not as user friendly to install or get software for. Although I think compiling for yourself is easier than .rpm dependency problems. Slack uses binaries that you can compile for your own machine.

Debian is not at all user friendly to install, but comes with 7 cd's of software, most everything that you could want. Stable but not the latest versions of software that their is.

Knoppix has great hardware detection and can be installed to HD.

Gentoo can be made fast and slick with just the software that you use. No bloat. You will have to learn Linux before attempting a Gentoo installation.

In short, you'll have to install a few and see what fulfills your needs.

http://www.linuxiso.org

Good luck. Take some time to check them out. You'll have a machine that works for you, that you controll.

Two links you might be interested in

http://distrowatch.com/ -> major distributions
http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reports/1266/1/

Sheng-Chieh

I would suggest just getting a distro and sticking with it. Doesn't really matter which one. I personally started out with RedHat, and was quite pleased with it. Check it out. www.distrowatch is a great site, as mentioned above.

Usually a nice, fast, clean distro to start with, would be Slackware.

Since no one else has mentioned them -- How about one of the BSDs? The BSDs are shining examples of nice, fast and clean. They're not linux though (if that matters to you).

Your'e going to get different opinions on this from everyone. You're going to have to find your own distro that fits you best

I say try out Gentoo. It is a bit harder to install but the updates are pretty easy once you get over the install hump.

My $.02 worth.

Later

Fedora Core 3 is really great! You'll have to get mp3/wma functionality from Freshrpms. But otherwise I like it.

I would recommend Fedora core 3 it amazing been using it for about 3 weeks