Which one should I run?

Which one do you recomend?

Which one just works and has a lot of free softwae that is easy to install and get?

Which one is reasonably fast?

They are all very good distros, so it will all come down to personal preference. I think you should try them all and then stick with the one that you like or the one that works best for you.

Well if you download and burn Kubuntu you can try it as a live CD before you install it. Then, should you decide to install it, you would have avoided the dependency problems of openSuse and the stability problems of Mandriva. You would also have access to the largest and easiest-to-install software repository. So I guess you can see which way I would jump!

Kubuntu or Mepis.

Mepis is the default at home and it has been totally bulletproof.
Kubuntu went onto my laptop at work with no glitches--**everything** works

I agree with reddazz regarding distribution choice--try them all.

Regarding speed, Mandriva 2007 is the fastest booting distro I have yet encountered. Once you are at the desktop, they are all pretty much the same when running the same desktop environment.

Regarding everything working--well that depends on your particular hardware. For example, I am not aware of any distribution that does a great job of running wireless out of the box, especially if WPA encryption is involved--unless you go back to retail SUSE 10.0. Most stumble on laptop hardware as well, although I think Kubuntu has the edge there--especially if you use the alternate install CD. Playing commercial DVDs is problematic out of the box with most distributions, as is running 3D applications, since ATI and Nvidia's drivers are proprietary and not readily available in non-commercial Linux distributions.

Try Kubuntu or Mandriva, if you want to try some others:

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.

BeatrIX
http://www.watsky.net/download.html

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

Mephis
http://www.mepis.org/

Try Zenwalk. www.zenwalk.org

It's fast!