I'm planning to (finally) install Linux to my desktop computer but now I have the difficulty of choice...

So let's start with the computer specs:

Asus A8N-SLI motherboard (nForce4 chipset)
AMD Athlon64 3000+ CPU
2GB of RAM
ATI Radeon x800 XL GPU (128MB memory, PCIE)
CD/DVD+-RW drive
floppy drive
160GB HDD (NTLDR is located on this disk)
200GB HDD (Windows XP is located on this disk)
Linux will be installed on a 40GB disk

...plus some extra hardware:

PCI USB 2.0 extension card (don't remember the model)
Artec T14 DVB receiver stick
Epson EPL-5900L printer
old 'n' crappy IBM webcam (possibly based on Xirlink camera module)

Then some requirements for the distro...

-I have used Linux only once when I used live-Xubuntu & GParted to edit some disk partitions but otherwise I'm a Linux newbie.

-I could say that I'm almost an expert with Windows and computers in general.

-The distro must be stable and reliable, it must not crash and hang.

-It must be fast and responsive unlike Windows which has been in use for a long time. I will not tolerate any stuttering.

-It must be configurable and must not have too much restrictions. However, it should still work without massive extra configuration. (Almost) all systems settings should be modifyable and not hidden like in Windows (especially Vista/7).

-It must have good hardware support. It would be great to get all that extra hardware to work with Linux too. I will not tolerate major hardware problems (networking doesn't work, sound chip doesn't work etc...).

-I'm not afraid of the command line but I still prefer tools with GUI.

-64bit (x86_64) version is a good thing but not necessary (only 2GB RAM)

I have read some information about different distributions and I think that OpenSuse would be a good choice. But does it work smoothly with that an old computer? I also heard that it's not the stablest distro. Plus the fact that Microsoft is somehow mentioned with it doesn't arouse much confidence...

Debian seems to be a good distro too but is it too hard for newbies?

Or maybe one of those lightweight distros? (Vector, Zenwalk, Puppy...)

Every piece of help highly appreciated...

That's not an old computer by Linux standards! I'm using an AMD Sempron 2600 with 1GB of RAM and it will run anything.

Over the years I've used, tested, or tried to use 46 distros. The ones that worked 'out of the box' were
Gnome desktop: CentOS, Debian, Mint
KDE desktop: Mandriva, Mepis, PCLinuxOS
Xfce desktop: CrunchBang, Salix, Vector, ZevenOS

Of those, the most stable (and hence the ones with older software) were CentOS, Debian, Salix. The most cutting edge was PCLinuxOS.

The easiest to install and set up were Mint, Mepis, PCLinuxOS. The most complicated were CentOS and Debian.

Good luck, and have fun!

Go for Linux Mint Debian Edition and you will be charmingly surprised.
Good luck.

Mint, PCLinuxOS

Thanks for your answers. Both PCLOS and Mint Debian edition sound good but are they stable if they're so "cutting edge"? I'm really tired of badly finished and buggy software.

Hello and Welcome to LinuxQuestions Ormu,

I've been using Linux Mint Debian Edition in combination with the latest Liquorix kernel (now at 2.6.39-1) and although LMDE is a rolling release I've found it quite stable. Haven't encountered anything yet that couldn't be fixed.

Looking forward to your participation in the forums. Have fun with Linux.

Kind regards,

Eric

Quite right. 3 months with LMDE now and so far it's been utterly stable.
Oh yeah, gnome bluetooth was a pain, I removed it and installed Blueman from the package manager and boy, that does the job very well.

Good luck.

I used Debian unstable before I changed to Slackware, and have set up a few boxes for friends with LMDE. In my experience I would not recommend to setup LMDE if you want a stable distribution, I had massive problems with that.
I would rather recommend to not use any rolling release distribution if you want a stable system, especially if you are new to Linux.
In this case I would recommend to use a distribution with a somewhat longer release cycle (not Ubuntu/Fedora), like Debian, CentOS, Scientific Linux, Slackware.

Keeping in mind that this recommendation is for a newbie, I'd rather not suggest CentOS, SL, Slackware but yeah Debian for once. Just IMHO.

for a newbie , i suggest gowning with ubuntu

Notes:
with 2G of ram, you are in a relatively good position; you are not forced to go with a 'lite' distribution, or go for for one of the more lightweight GUIs. You could choose one of the lightweights, if you preferred to, but you are not constrained in the way that someone with, eg, 256 M of ram would be.

The nForce chipset and x800 are potentially more problematic; some distros will do a better job of detecting this hardware and auto-configuring it to the max than others. Plain vanilla drivers for the ATI ought not to be a problem, but if you feel that need to get the max performance out of it, a bit of fiddling seems inevitable.

Probably the best advice is to to try a few Live CDs and start from a short list, rather than deciding on a distro in advance of trying.


Then some requirements for the distro...

Sorry, but being a windows expert is probably a disadvantage rather than an advantage initially. You'll probably spend some time trying to make Linux work like Windows and that is not constructive. See LNW (Linux is not Windows).

Having said that, out of the 'big two' GUIs, KDE takes more of a Windows-like approach than Gnome, so usually Windows refugees find it easier to adapt to than Gnome (opposite is true for Mac refugees). Usually.

All this is possible, but, you have to ask whether you know enough to get there, or will you make errors that obstruct these objectives? In general, Linux installations don't degrade over time (unless you get something seriously misconfigured) in the way that Windows can do, where every time that you install a program you are taking a small risk with the stability of your installation.

Hidden? Well, Linux is usually easy to work with (I'd actually say easier than Windows) once you get used to it, and you learn to work its way, rather than forcing it to work in a different way. If you want to force it to work like some other OS, you'll probably never be happy. In any case, part of this is a GUI issue, which, strictly isn't Linux, and part of it is Linux and underlying software, and I'm not quite sure which of those we are discussing.

(Summary: easy when you get used to it; rather more trying when you are first getting used to it, which is too much for some people.)

Some wireless is more difficult than others. Newbies usually run in to the problem that there are several layers (driver, NM/Wicd, general network settings (gateways, DNS, mDNS, etc) and however hard you work at the wrong layer, it ain't going to help. Sound can also be a fiddle, but some distros will get probably this working with your hardware 'out of the box' and others won't. I don't expect my computer to deliver sound, so this is a simplifying assumption, for me.


That certainly isn't a low spec computer for Linux; you may find that XFCE or LXDE is more to your taste than KDE (or not...a personal taste issue). KDE may just be a little heavy given your very definite preferences, I don't know - try it and see. Fortunately a wide range of GUIs is supported under OS, so you can try them all.

For Suse, it has its own, unique, admin tool (yast) and, if you like that, you'll probably like Suse, if you don't, you probably won't.

Unclear what the Microsoft deal would have to do with anything; in the (wrong-headed) attempt of the old management (Novell, rather than Attachmate), Suse/Novell did a commercial deal with Microsoft, to try to get a leg up into the enterprise business. This was widely disliked (and attracted a number of what I consider to be a number of wrong-headed and irrational comments), but I can't see what that would have to do with how much you like to use the distro.

For a newbie, I'd suggest that you prefer a Debian derivative (Mepis, Mint or even Ubuntu) rather than Debian itself. Think about this again in, say, six months, if you'd rather get your hands dirty.

May I suggest Pardus ?
It is very simple to run and is, by far, my favorite KDE distro .

Kaptan makes configuring your system at first boot-up a breeze .

The only downside, is the community is mostly Turkish or German so it can be slightly difficult to troubleshoot, but if I remember correctly, you can contact the Pardus maintainers for help .

I vote with exoshwarze above!
I'm a newbie to Linux and Pardus is serving me very well.
My setup is also very similar to yours.
After making the same inquiries you are making now, I went with Pardus and have not regretted it at all.
Use the default setup at install. Choose the "Lancelot" start menu when asked. Open the "add or remove software" Package Manager and run the update for thousands more programs.
For windoze programs you might find you miss, install "wine" and "winetricks" from the package manager or it allows you to install a "virtualbox" where you can run a complete windoze install within Pardus.
Enjoy!

I find Debian very easy to install. Of course, being a relative newbie, I use the easy method; automatic install. If you are speaking about expert install, it would be a surprise to me if Debian is more difficult than other distibutions, but I am ignorant on the matter.

i use linux mint 11 at the moment, when i install, the first thing i do is get dvd playback running on a movie player,....linux mint 11 was not too bad, i had to install 3 things in the terminal....and configure the sound preferances ....other distro,s can be a real pain to get dvd playback...some i cannot even get it working, though i can about 50% of them working....mint also has an online forum too, real that you can chat on