Which distribution & why ?
 

Hello to everybody ...
[excuse me for my english .... !]

I want to buy a commercial linux distribution. I am between the packages offered from the 3 companies Mandriva, Suse/Novell & Redhat.

The important features of the distribution I want to buy are:
- to be user-friendly
- to support networking efficiently [linux to linux, windows to linux .... -> samba server]
- to be adaptive to the country I am from -> Greece
- to support the most devices possible
- to be fast, secure and reliable generally
- not to cost a fortune !

Do I want too much ? :)

I have visited the official internet sites of the above companies and read carefully the features of the availiable distributions.

Conclusions
- Suse Linux Professional 9.3
- Novell Linux Desktop 9
- Suse Linux Enterprise Server 9

- Mandriva Limited Edition 2005
- Madriva PowerPack
- Madriva PowerPack +

- Redhat -> has only enterprise editions ... can you help me in this point ?

Which distribution to buy and why ?

Thank you !

Have you considered Linspire? It does cost, but not a fortune.

1. to be user-friendly
I'd say Mandriva is the easiest (and most worthless), Redhat and Suse tie for second place

2. to support networking efficiently [linux to linux, windows to linux .... -> samba server]
They all do. They may not included the exact release of samba, but they can be updated to the current version through their update tools. Verify your hardware is linux compatible.

3. to be adaptive to the country I am from -> Greece
I imagine that Redhat and SusE would cover this. Mandriva I'd hope would, but I'm not positive

4. to support the most devices possible
This has nothing to do with the distrobution, but with the kernel. Check out which has the most up to date kernel release, or update the kernel yourself once you decide which one you want.

5. to be fast, secure and reliable generally
Compared to a Windows server, they all have the potential to be more secure/reliable (and are more secure out-of-the-box). Speed will depend on what you are doing with them.

6. not to cost a fortune !
Cost is up to you. There are free versions of Redhat's Enterprise OS called CentOS. So cost is all up to you.
----------------------------------------------------------------
It depends on if you want a desktop or a Server.

My Votes
Maybe for desktop - Suse Linux Professional 9.3
NO - Novell Linux Desktop 9
Yes for Server - Suse Linux Enterprise Server 9

NO - Mandriva Limited Edition 2005
NO - Madriva PowerPack
NO - Madriva PowerPack +

Desktop - Redhat Workstation
Yes for Server - Redhat Enterprise
Yes for Server - CentOS

Basically, install every single one and choose for yourself. I've used SusE, Redhat, and Mandrake all at one point and they eventually screwed me over, so I don't use their tech support any longer. The people hear and at other online communities are friendlier and more willing to help most of the time. If this was for a business where timing is critical, you might think about paying for their tech support, but do they have local numbers for Greece? Slackware and Gentoo are my choices for any situation, but a lot of people think those distrobutions have a rough learing curve, which brings me back to "Try all of them and find out which suits you more. Good luck in your search.