I decided to jump into linux after years of just being a passive computer user..back in the 80's i created software in dos using forth as my languauge of choice....nothing worked under windows so i lost interest

15 years later i'm interested again....bought a p4pe-x asus motherboard 512k etc without an operating system....and purchased a copy of sun's JDS....sound, usb ports, modem, printer...nothing is recognized..

found out modem has no drivers, usb ports are being recognized as there but my hp 812c printer is not responding, have no sound etc etc etc

reading many posts i have found that many folks have problems such as these in linux...and am working on finding solutions.

sun has been some help....but they seem to be as lost as i am....they sold me this system...like it would boot up like windows....lol....yeah right

my question is....(and this is from reading many of your posts)....would i have been better off starting with Mandrake....does the Mandrake system recognize the hardware better.....???

i'm determined to run linux....i won't upgrade my win98 computer to xp...no more microsoft.....

please comment...i'm getting frustrated

this is the first place i've found that seems to have some of the answers....

Thanks in advance

not so GoinEasy9

i'm using SUSE9.0Pro in our business right now, and it did VERY good at detecting a lot of old hardware perfectly. the only exception is a Wireless Lan PCI card that is some difficulty, so using ethernet till it is resolved. we have 2 computers (both on ASUS boards) running ONLY Linux (SUSE) and two that dual boot (one to RH, the other to Mandrake).

I think Mandrake is very good, as well, with the added benefit of a free download available. I would strongly suggest you download Mandrake 9.2 or 10.0(not a final release as of this writing i believe) and give it a try. they provide the CD images online that you can burn with any CD burner. If it detects everything fine and you like it, then support them by purchasing a full distro if you feel so inclined.

As a small business owner, i really appreciate the software update capabilites in the current distro's. they make keeping up with security/compatibility patches quite easy.

Summary? "Try Mandrake 9.2 for free, unless you don't mind sacrificing $70.00 to experiment with Suse9.0 Pro. Both should do an excellent job."

Good Luck
(i'm not a programmer etc BTW. i'm trying to learn more about Linux, but don't have a coder background. if you have a programming background i can't help but think you will absolutely LOVE linux.)

Thanks Present.....you really did help.....i think i'm gonna try Mandrake...thanks for your time....

no problem at all. this forum has been a profound help to me when i have technical problems, since i'm not much of a geek. whenever i see a thread that i can meaningfully contribute to, i try to give back a bit.

i'm really much more on the receiving end as i learn more about linux myself. it's a kick to be able to help :-D post a thread here if all goes well and let us know mandrake installed fine ;-)

:edited: ps... if you are not on broadband, you might want to use a download manager that supports download-recovery for the download(s) (google search should turn up a few that don't have "spyware" included). 600+ mb would be a real pain to have to "restart" after a day or so on dail-up.