I recently purchased a laptop and am waiting for its arrival, i have been interested in Linux for a few years but dont know anyone personally to ask these questions.

I do not know what version of linux to use and really dont know what the best are. Everyone seems to have a different opinion

I am a college student studying broadcast production. I edit alot of audio, and video, watch alot of movies, listen to alot of music. I spend upwards of 12 hours a day on a computer and need to have alot of options not only for school,and work but also for entertainment purposes. Computers are my life. I do download alot of video and audio and i upload graphics and animations to servers. I am on both an ethernet server as well as wireless.

With that said i need a system that is very function but also very user friendly as i dont deal well with my system crashing.

Does anyone have any recommendations for a linux system that is high in content and laptop / dummie friendly.

(currently running windows xp)

Forgot to mention that it is a Dell laptop running windows 2000. but i dont know anything else about it as it was a "blind ebay bid"

You could try Ubuntu, Fedora, openSuSE, SimplyMEPIS, PCLinuxOS

Hello and welcome to LQ.

What distro you choose depends on what applications you use. If you're accustomed to working with Cineon, DPX or OpenEXR then the applications you choose may not be included in your distro of choice and you'll have to install 'em manually. Some software (like from Discreet?) may be packaged for specific distributions (RHEL or alike) which may make conversion (alien?) troublesome in case you're chosing an apt-based distribution. All things considered foraying into GNU/Linux territory will require an investment on your side (time, patience, effort) since the learning curve can be steep. I wouldn't want to advertise using GNU/Linux as a hasslefree & easy ride especially not with respect to video editing. Next to that (in my humble opinion) a laptop isn't as powerful as a proper workstation and you can't upgrade most hardware (or upgrade easily). This can be a problem if it comes with an ancient and exotic graphics card that only runs 800*600 with a slow F/OSS driver.

Enough warning flares dropped, here's some distro's you might want to read about: http://dynebolic.org/, http://ubuntustudio.org/, http://grafpup.org/, http://www.elivecd.org/, http://www.chainsawlinux.com/faq.html (don't know if it's even out yet).

Welcome to LQ!
My "getting started" link below might be useful.

If you are heavily into the multimedia part, your interests may be best served by something like 64studio or ArtistX, both of which are geared towards professional audio/video producers. You can install it alone or in addition to a more generalized distribution. Visit distrowatch.com for a general idea of what is available.

Thank You for the help and advice. I am extremly interested in linux and I am thinking now that i will load it onto the laptop and do a sort of learn as i go. Adding and modifying as i go and keep the audio/video here on the desktop until i am comfortable. thankyou for the help.

Pixellany, i stumbled onto your links very late last night while combing your forum, very helpful information!

I would definitly recommend Ubuntu Studio. It has great open source graphics/video/audio production tools bundled right in, and is based off the world's most user-friendly distro Ubuntu! It has a nice interface, which is always good Ubuntu's site is here and Ubuntu Studio's site is here. Good luck, and welcome to the world of Linux!