SimplyMepis is the only free distro ive tried that works so nicely out of the box, comes with all the plugins already installed like flash, java, mp3 plugins, etc etc

what distro comes with all these already preinstalled, and uses gnome as the default desktop environment...prefer the latest gnome 2.8. It doesnt have to be a live cd distro, something i could install on the hard drive with no problem.

in other words i want a distro that i dont have to configure too much. i could just boot it up for the first time and start doing my thing.

why be so quick to dump mepis?

i've not run it, so i don't know if it comes with gnome, but couldn't you just apt for it?

Hmmm .... oddly enough, there doesn't seem to be such a thing. Two most solid Gnome desktops around are probably Ubuntu and Fedora, but neither of them comes with multimedia and plugins installed out of the box. Mind you, it isn't *that* hard to add it yourself. Anyhow, you could try Aurox - I haven't used it myself, but it is supposed to be basically Fedora with multimedia support. There is also Blag, but it is a bit older now, it is based on Fedora Core 2 I think and it doesn't have the latest Gnome. Oh yeah, you could also check out Progeny Debian - I'm not sure what multimedia/plugins support it provides, but it definitely has Gnome 2.8 as default desktop.
Frankly, if Mepis already works for you, I would try just adding Gnome to Mepis...

I'd go for Ubuntu, but as mentioned above you may need to to a bit of tinkering to get all the packages you want and your system settings right.

Ubuntu no way. The only thing that goes next to Mepis is Knoppix and Kanotix

Why not install Gnome 2.8 on SimplyMepis?

If you like gnome there's BeatrIX that comes default gnome 2.8 optimized for slow pcs. And its a live-cd so you can try first. Its the alternative to ubuntu I use BeatrIX instead of ubuntu , and especially on my slow pc doesn't run well with Ubuntu. I might try Ubuntu again on my laptop or via vmware