hey,

i'v dabbled a little with linux in the past but would like to take the plunge and install linux on my new laptop (dell 700m). i know this is a big step for a newbie but i can afford to take some time with it and i'd rather start of with linux than using windows and copying accross later.

i forsee the 1280X800 screen, intel proset 22000 b/g wireless and apm/acpi to be the greatest hurdles and have been reading up on them, but i still have a lot of questions. the first is, which distro? i have fedora 2, suse personal 9.1 and slackware 10.0 on disk sitting next to me, but i don't mind downloading something else if its going to make life easier in the long run.

my other question is about the best sources of info/howto/guidance? i have discovered tldp.org, faqs.org etc but i'm having trouble figuring out what is relavent.

any advise is greatly appreciated

nu_kid

Welcome to LQ. There really is no "best distro", and my advice would be to simply try all of the candidates you listed, then decide for yourself which one seems to best fit your needs and preferences. As you say, if you have some time to play with things, this would be the best approach.

As for which web resource is the best for answering Linux questions, I'd say you already found it Good luck with it -- J.W.

I agree with J.W. ... just try them all out (maybe not, there are too many). I've downloaded several and am trying them out to see which ones I like. I'd check out www.distrowatch.com or www.linuxiso.org and see which ones you like. I personally have enjoyed working with Mandrake and SuSe. Red Hat/Fedora Core are used by many. Check out those sites and try some of them. I'm going to be trying out Ubuntu, Xandros, Turbolinux, Libranet, Progeny, Sun JDS, and Connectiva. Have to finish downloading a couple of those ISO files....I'll let you know which ones I like...from a somewhat noob's perspective.

Ruben

As always when laptops are considered, see here:
http://www.linux-laptop.org/

Yves.

Of course you can check out the reviews section to see if anyone has posted any info on using a distro on that machine, as well as the HCL.

I'd probably start with one of the live distros, specifically, knoppix. They seem to have awesome hardware recognition, and in the case of knoppix, is able to be installed to the HD afterward.

Cool