I have finally committed myself to the migration to Linux. The reason is simply, I'm tired of losing data and personal files every time XP decides to have a hissy fit.

I currently live in a small fishing/farming town in South Korea, it seems that whenever there is a major holiday XP takes it upon itself to go tits up. This time it was on the eve of a five day national holiday for Lunar New Year. Leaving me with no way to find a tech (if I can find one that can work with an English operating system), or to buy a hard drive so that I can do a clean instal on and then recover lost files.

After the last serious crash and clean instal I was motivated to download a Ubuntu Live CD, which is how I am now able to access the net. I also have a Mandriva Live CD that I will play with later.

My question is what distribution do you recommend and your reasoning behind the suggestion. Taking into account that I am an absolute novice when it comes to Linux and my learning curve steep.

Take into account that I apart from the desktop, I also have two laptops (one which my daughter uses solely for watching downloaded television programs on) and the other used mainly for work but is part of a wireless network.

I mainly use the desktop for downloading with torrents, making lesson plans, surfing the net, watching movies, burning CDs and DVDs and such, nothing too strenuous. I already use open source programs where possible, such as OpenOffice and Firefox.

The laptop I occasionally connect to a television at work so students can watch DVD presentations as part of their curriculum.

Your suggestions and reasoning is much appreciated and I thank you in advance.

Regards
Frombie

Ubuntu on the grounds that you already have it. (Ubuntu's live CD is also an install CD, and your internet access looks pretty good.)

Apart from that - whatever turns you on. Linux distros are all pretty mature now, and practically anything you run into will be good for you. People will be suggesting PCLinuxOS or Mint or SimplyMepis... these things enable proprietory stuff out of the box. So you need to think just how much you care about the freedom of our software.

A good overview is at:
http://www.zegeniestudios.net/ldc/

Bear in mind that your first choice will not be your last.
Have fun.

Take a look at the "The Utterly Improbably Huge "Which Distro"SuperMegaThread"" HERE
You should find answers to all your questions. In my personal opinion I would recommend that you begin with Ubuntu. It's robust, it's easy to install and there is a lot of information in the web for when you need help. Be prepared to read a lot.

Cheers,

I selected Mepis primarily because of the MEPIS User Guide http://www.mepis.org/node/6679

The Mepis documentation is generally better than other distributions, especially better for newbies with Windows experience. That User Guide is a good example of that better documentation.

I suggest reading some of the Mepis documentation. Quite a lot of it will be helpful even if you select another distribution, such as Ubuntu. If you share my opinion that it is better documented, you'll probably also like the others ways it is slightly different (I think better) than the other distributions I tried.

The liveCD for Mepis was also more robust across the selection of computers I tested than other combination liveCD/Install distributions. But since you seem to be OK already with the Ubuntu liveCD, that shouldn't be a factor for you.

if the ubuntu live cd works then there is vary good chance that when installed it will still work,
i would recomend dooing that,
you will likley change to somthing elce before you settle down,
i for one still change periodicly after 5 years using linux