I am tired of using windows and decided that it is time to change to linux. But I am by no means an expert of installing an OS from a command line. I would prefer to use a GUI install.

My computer is not an all star. It is a dell latitude c600 650MHz, 128RAM. I want a distro which will run smoothy, and not be sluggish, yet at the same time, I want the kde interface and the full linux interface. Can someone help choose a disto which is right for me?

All modern desktop Linux distributions use GUI installers - it's actually easier in my opinion that re-installing Windows XP.

The top desktop distributions are Fedora Core, Ubuntu, SuSE, and Mandriva. There is a summary of each at DistroWatch. Each distribution has its own characteristics, and no two people click with the same distribution. Since they are free, I suggest you download the current version of each, and try them all out.

I personally like Fedora Core. Many people will direct you to each of the others I mentioned (and likely a dozen more). The only way to know which works the way you are most comfortable is to try them. If you have a specific driver (like a particular distribution is used at work or school), then start with that.

Also, 128MB of RAM is low, even for Windows. I generally recommend at least 512MB for a modern desktop distribution. With the money you save for not having to buy Linux, pick up a couple of sticks of memory. Even if you decide to stay with Windows, you'll be much happier.

Well, any KDE distro or Gnome distro will feel a little sluggish on your machine (but not undoable, as I use KDE on an old Celeron 400Mhz 256MB RAM). But take the quizes in my signature and see which one you might like to try.

Honestly if you find one you like and it's a little sluggish, there are some things you can do to speed it up. Adjust the desktop background to plain, turn off the extra fancy menu stuff, recompile the kernel, etc. That's the nice thing about linux, you can work to tweak it to run faster on an old box. If all else fails, you can install a lightweight desktop (xfce) or window manager (icewm, fluxbox, enlightenment, windowmaker, etc)...

A lot of modern distros are leaning tawrds top heavy eye candy these days. I have a trimmed down Slackware install with a light weight windows manager that runs great on my 400 MHZ w/ 128mb of RAM.

regards,
...drkstr

**edit**
pljvaldez;

Pasco, WA huh? I'm going there this weekend to visit a friend. If you see a tall guy sporting a Slackware shirt walking around, say hi.
**edit**

I currently have the knoppix live cd. Do you know if this includes: icewm, fluxbox, enlightenment, windowmake?

I want to see how they run and how much faster they are to its KDE.
(Yes, I know that live cds are terribly slow, but I will compare the speed of these interfaces to KDE, not the actual speed of the livecd)

KNoppix does include some other window managers. Look here at the cheat codes. At the boot prompt type knoppix desktop=fluxbox (or icewm, larswm, twm, wmaker, xfce)

thanx for that link, I checked out the different interfaces (my cd only had icewm, twm, kde, and fluxbox). They all seemed good except twm. Too complicated!

I was also trying the mandriva one live cd, and I realize that this computers ram combined with its 24x cd drive made this cd barely functional. I tried to use the boot option ": live desktop=icewm". as soon as it finished autodetecting hardware, it asked me for a user name and password. Does anyone know what the default is?

Also, I am considering a dual boot with windows 2000 and mandriva linux (if i can get the live cd to work well). Is it possible for me to do this with my limited knoledge in linux?

Thanks for your help in advance,
-Steven1350

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