HI ...
i am new on the linux world
i have a alienware loptop Alienware Area 51-M 5500

i love gaming i do a lot o gaming

i ma sick of windows simple sick of it

i wona change to linux some of my friends have linux and they say thet it works perfect .

so please advise my which Distro schould i bay a easy one and thet it is good for gaming ,music,and movies ...

My loptop is ALIENWARE AREA51-M 5500

2GB DDR PC-3200 at 400MHz - 2x1024 SO-DIMMs
Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor w/ HT Technology Extreme Edition 3.2GHz 800MHz FSB w/ 2.5mb Cache
Creative Sound Blaster® Audigy® 2 NX USB External
SiS648FX + SiS963L AGP8X Chipset
ATI RADEON 9800 128mb DDR.

and i use both wireless and cable connections for my internet...

Well, the best "distro" for games is still Windows.

Given your system specs, virtually any distro should run on that. For a new user, who wants a "point and click" interface, I generally recommend Mandrake or Suse. If you are willing to dig a bit, and really learn how things work, I would suggest Slackware or Gentoo.

OTOH, you say you have friends that use Linux. What do *they* use? They will be an important source of help for you, so using the same distro would make things easier.

Games? Cedega is a lil project to get windows games running on Linux, its a pay per month service as far as i know and I can't vouch for if its any use but if your interested:
http://www.transgaming.com/
I'd say Gentoo too, it takes some time to get goin but the manuals are ace and the end system is worth the graft.
Good luck whatever you chose!

thnx for the replay
my friends use REDHAT... they said thet REDHAT is not for my write now later schure but now for now no ...

hi...
i am new on Linux world ...
i need help i have a Alienware Area51-m 5500
i am a crazy gamer
Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor w/ HT Technology Extreme Edition 3.2GHz 800MHz FSB w/ 2.5 mb Cache
2GB DDR PC-3200 at 400MHz - 2x1024 SO-DIMMs
ATI Radeon 9800 (128 mb ddr)
SiS648FX + SiS963L AGP8X Chipset
so please advise my which linux schould i bye and which will be the best for me and my loptop... i am a

Unfortunately, all you can do is read the reviews and make a decision based on that.

Different distributions have different strengths and some even taylor to specific desires.

Gentoo for instance, a bit of the new kid on the block, is fairly infamous for its compile and optimze upbringing.

I hear very good things about Suse and they are certainly gaining some age and wisdom.

I can't think of the words to describe the slackware approach to life, but they are definately a veteran distribution. I personally started out on slackware back in the age of the floppy.

Mandrake, which emerged from a young RedHat is touted as being an easy distribution to use. When I first tried it, it was indeed a better RedHat, but that is the advantage to not necessarily starting from scratch.

Now, Debian, is quite the veteran distro and they hold some great standards when it comes to their distribution. They have two flavours, stable and a newer branch (Woody?). Debian has some nice features and nearly anything you could want is provided in some repository ready to go.

Me, I've been using RedHat since version 6 (with a couple of legacy 5.2 systems at the time). At this point, I'm using their quasi-community out reach version called Fedora Core (3).

I can't say for certain there are any bests here. I like fedora, I'm familiar with it, but I don't truely feel it's complete without friendly third party package providers. (systems which provide pre-packaged applications installed through a utility. I believe Debian was the first to offer this via the apt utilities)

If you are a gamer, Gentoo would probably offer that little bit of edge we all want, but I'm not too familiar with the user friendliness of the system. (Note, I'm going to be going through my Gentoo trials soon... so who knows I may be a home desktop convert soon, but my servers will still run Fedora)

Games in general is a bit of an iffy subject. Being a gamer myself, we don't really get a huge selection, but generally some of the larger titles come our way. It can be a headache on occassion.

I personally recommend the friend route to determine a distro. If you happen to have a friend who is already using it then that is usually the best way to get started. Forums such as this one can be a great help, but early on the human touch is sometimes helpful.

Both of these "which distro" threads have been merged.

There are some livecds specially made for games, like Games Knoppix, Kurumin Games, and GoblinX also has some games included, like Battle for Wesnoth, Cube, Chromium...
You can try first a livecd... then choose a distro to install...