I have run Redhat at several versions, 5,6,7. I have run Suse at like 5 and even mandrake 7. Howerver, I am not proficient in linux yet. I just try other versions and play for a bit. Now its been a few years since I played but I am getting the urge. My question is WHAT TO GET?? What comes with the best USER tools. I am not a developer or anything so nothing tuff Suse looks like it has a cool pool game Redhat seems to be the norm, and Mandrake looks like its got all the goodies?? help me out..

What to say? Stick with those 3, and you'll
never become proficient with Linux ;) ...

And "good tools" and "becoming proficient"
is a cotradiction in terms. To become proficient,
emacs or vi (or pico, ...) is your tool.

My recommendation is Slackware, Debian
or Gentoo (in this order :})

Cheers,
Tink

It all comes down to personal preference. Me, I've become fond of ALT Linux Junior. It's the only distro. that I've tried that successfully set up Xine right "out of the box." It also installs and sets up Samba and Lin Neighborhood during installation, and I like the application manager, Synaptic, over Mandrake's RPM manager and Debian's Apt-get.

About the only install problem I had was setting up Internet sharing. That took a bit of manual labour with iptables.

For a Linux beginner (or even an experienced user looking for a distro that handles all of the little things), I'd suggest giving Junior 2.2 a try.

It's at http://www.altlinux.com

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i run Redhat9, Mandrake9.1, and Slack9

Redhat9: easy to install, user friendly (some tools though require some work) very good for network and internet and office, has a very professional feeling

Mandrake9: very very easy to install, somewhat newbie childish feeling at first (that is not professional feel), very good user tools, very user friendly, very good all around

Slack9: the ultimate in linux using, requires u to know what you're doing, teaches u a lot, fairly easy to install, fairly good user tools, very advanced feeling but my new personal preference

Go Slackers ;)

Cheers,
Tink

Mandrake 9.1 - easy to install - easy to use - lots of software.

You can check out all the major Linux distributions and more at Distrowatch - currently around 140 of them :

Click here to go to Distrowatch

my favorite right now: Jamd

Hi Yowwww

What's JAMD like ? - Are there any noteworthy differences between that and Red Hat 9?

Skyline

oh tons!

speed is the main difference, I have heard people that use Gentoo say that they can't tell the difference between them in terms of quickness.

see my jamd guide for more details, it is on the link below.

feel free to ask anything you like, I have been using it for a while now and couldn't be happier with it.