Hi all. I currently have a PC I built myself, and am looking to install Linux on it. It currently runs Win XP Home. Anyway, while looking, I was overwhelmed by the Linux distros out there. What distros would y'all recommend. I want to be able to play some of my Windows games (like Soldier of Furtune II, etc.) on Linux if possible. I have an Intel Centrino D Dual Core 3.0 ghz processor, 1 gb DDR2 SDR Ram, NVIDIA graphics card with 256 MB memory, and I'll eventually want to put sli-delux on this. Now, the drivers that came with my motherboard (Asus P5N32) aren't so much of a problem, since they came with Linux drivers, however, I do have the NVIDIA graphics card, NEC ND=3550A DVD burner, and an intel 56k modem (yes, I'm still on dialup).

Anyway, I guess I have three things I'm looking in a distro (given the hardware I have), games, multimedia (I'm used to WinAMP, and have K-llte Codec Pack), and office suite (I'm used to MS Office, but can use oo.O or whatever is out there that's similar to Word and Excel and can access my Word/Excel documents).

So, with that, any recomendations that might get me started off in the right direction would be nice. Thanks in advance

William

any distro would work, but i don't know about the gaming stuff. for starting out, i would recommend Fedora 5 or ubuntu. there are a couple of good setup guides out there for multimedia and extras on FC5, including these two:
http://www.fedorafaq.org/
http://stanton-finley.net/fedora_cor...ion_notes.html

i think ubuntu has some forums and a wiki, as well as an "unofficial starter guide":
http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Dapper and of course there's always LQ. the key to success is to be patient and follow the documentation. ask a question when you get stuck and can't find the answer in the documentation, LQ archives, or google.

gl

Generally, Windows software (including games) won't run natively under Linux. Some ID games do have Linux versions (Quake 3, Quake 4, Doom 3 for example). Unfortunately, Soldier of Fortune II does not. You might want to look at Cedega, which lets you run Windows games under Linux.

So I'm a big Suse fan. I think that it's true linux with the easy enviroment that some of the other distro's offer. You can download the OpenSuse 10.0 or 10.1 (I always stay one behind the curve) from their website, http://www.opensuse.com . With the auto download and update feature that they have you can get the Nvidia 'drivers'. Umm lets see what else.
For winamp i would recommend useing xmms.
Any KDE or gnome gui will give you Open Office and or with KDE K-Office
hope it helps

For your setup I will also recommend Suse 10.x as it is very "multimedia" oriented.

Linux format magazine currently has a special Suse starter issue,... they have it at my local Barnes & Noble. It's got some good setup guides and ALOT of useful info, it also includes the full Suse 10.1 install, not sure where your at but consider checking it out if you can find it..

Later

Try PCLinuxOS,as it has a version for gaming called Supergamer that you can torrent(large one,3.6 or so GBs,but worth it)It has alot of games included(150+)and runs great.