Greetings! Due to a series of events that have been happening to me. I have no where else to turn to besides linux/WINE.
Basically my current computer's motherboard requires fancy new IRQ steering. However windows 9X based OS(s) wont load much into the gui because they keep trying to install the old IRQ steering for ISA and PCI. Its an endless loop of installing the old IRQ steering and the motherboard rejecting it. From everything I can gather, without completely reverse engineering windows 95, 98, or ME(and upadating/moding it) its impossible to get it working correctly.
I have tryed countless things over the past 4 months and nothing has worked in the slightest bit. I contacted my motherboard maker and microsoft about it. They both laughed in my face and basically told me tio Fu<k off.
You probably want to know what I want out of the old relic OS(s). Compatibility... Thats all I need, XP and server 2003 refuse to work with the programs I need to use. A friend tryed them out on UNBUNTU with WINE and it worked as good as it does in windows 9X if not better. If I can get the programs I use working on linux I have no reason to continue using windows.

I have barely ventured into windows NT based systems, found nothing of use. Everything I ever needed and wanted is in windows 9X and DOS. I have become quite skilled in both systems, however with both of them reaching their limits. I am now lost as what to do, I havent a clue how to use linux and my friends barely know a thing about it.

With all of that being said, my question to anyone out there reading is: Given my situation, what linux distro would be the best to start with and how should I go about migrating it? I do not mind using a text command console, in using DOS for 14 years, I have gotten used to it. I dont need any fancy GUI, if its atleast as good as DOS shell, its good enough.

Please... anyone... This is my hour need and everything has failed soo far. I am desperate... Microsoft has completely forsaken me...

I don't know what kind of hardware you have, but I like how well Suse detected everything on my computer, and set me up very nicely. It gave me a nice GUI OS, and even though you say that you don't need it, it makes getting started on a Linux box easier. But it won't help you learn Linux.

I built it myself, its specs are below:
CPU: AMD Sempron64 2500+ 256KBl2/128KBl1 socket 754
Mem: 512mbX2 Mushkin Redline XP3200 2-2-2-5 @400
Vidcard: PCI-Express 16X powercolor Radeon X800GT 256mb
Mobo: ABIT NV8
Soundcard: SoundBlaster Live 5.1 SB00060

You'll be happy to know that Xandros comes with the CrossOver Office portion of WINE if you fork over $US10. I don't know if it comes with the bittorrent version. Explore more distros at distrowatch.com, but I think you'll be happy with Ubuntu.

The 2.6 kernel comes by default in both distros and should have capability that you are looking for. But hey, sounds like you are an enterprising individual who would like to learn, so go for Gentoo. You'll learn alot along the installation and will be surprised by the detailed hardware support of Portage. It builds programs optimized for your processor.