I've been using Fedora Core 3 for a couple months now and I am starting to hate it. I use to appreciate its simplicity and usability but that is gone now that I realize how bloated and slow and inefficient it is (it does have its good points yes but the good is overshadowed by the fact that I can wash my car and rotate my tires in the time it takes to boot up).
I'm building a new computer before I head off to college:
AMD Athlon 3500+, A8V-E Deluxe, 1 G ram, 6600 GT GPU, and a sata drive
and I plan to use Linux full time in College instead of Dual Booting Windows (dual booting is the devil). I'm certainly not a newb but at the same time I don't claim to be a linux expert. I want a distro that has all these characteristics (the topmost being of the highest priority):

1. Fast
2. Lightweight
3. Efficient
4. Up To Date
5. Simple
6. Very Compatible (large selection of drivers)

I plan to use XFCE full time no matter what distro i choose, and I'm going to be using my comp mainly for listening to music, typing papers, tinkering, browsing the net, and playing UT2k4 (and the Baldurs Gate series if i can convince them to run).
From the research i've done Ubuntu linux sounds like a good choice (I've also considered Gentoo and Slackware).

What is the distro that best suits my needs?

i would simply suggest slackware!!

While I've found FC3 to be the best distro I've ever tried, I would suggest Slackware (as the above post did), Gentoo or Debian.

I'm going to attempt to merge this thread with the only one you opened in Linux - Distibutions. Please do not post duplicates. Thanks.

John


EDIT:
I can't merge these threads... so instead I'm closing this one.

Carry on your conversation Here.