I am interested in setting up a Linux machine at my home and I have very little idea on how to go about it. I work in IT at Hamilton College and am very familiar with Windows XP and Mac OS X (I am definetely more for the Mac). I would consider myself as a somewhat advanced user. I am not a big fan of the Windows look-and-feel. I am a huge fan of the user interface for Mac OS X. I have heard that you can install some versions of Linux so that it has a somewhat OS X look and feel.

I will likely be installing Linux on a Dell Optiplex GX110, hopefully with a 1 GHz PIII, 20 GB HD, and at least 384 MB of RAM.

I have looked at some distributions of Linux and I'll probably use either Redhat 9 or SuSE 8.2. Which would you recommend? What technical and practical advantages/disadvantages do they have? I don't plan on doing any advanced stuff until I get more familiar with the OS. I'll just be doing word processing, spreadsheets, web surfing, listening to music, burning CD's etc.

Any input would be greatly appreciated

Welcome and I hope Linux provides all you need

To answer your question Suse and Red Hat are relatively simple distro's to start out with they have the whole handholding thing sorted (I started on Red Hat 7.2). So try one out also Mandrake is very user friendly.

Choosing a distro that suits you is like trying on a pair of gloves, you keep trying them on until one fits and feels comfortable. However those that you mentioned are fine, just take the plunge and try what you want to if its not what you wanted try another.

Enjoy

I am keenly interested in a user interface that is similar to Mac OS X. I heard that there was one. What is it? Do Redhat and SuSE offer it?

User Interface wise there are many options, basically the two most common gui's are KDE and Gnome. I believe both can be skinned to look and feel like both Windows and Mac OS X. Im sure KDE can anyway.

And to answer your question just about every distro contains at leas one X based desktop and generally they contain two or maybe more. I suggest starting by installing KDE and giving it a whirl, he first time you boot and load it KDE will let you specify the look and feel and I am almost 100% sure that theres a preset for a Mac feel and look.

Dai

Get a taste with the run from CD Knoppix.