Ok, I'm the first to admit I know nothing about Linux, but I picked up a book (Point and Click Linux) last night in Borders and am interested enough to see what all the noise is about.
I have an old PC that I can play around with and dedicate to a MEPIS install, but I'm hoping someone can give me a few reasons why I should initially choose MEPIS. What other options do I have? Any other recomendations for someone who knows NOTHING about Linux but is keen to learn.

Thanks in advance for your help/advice!

Steve

Hi and welcome!

I would suggest you to go to www.distrowatch.org and go to the LiveCD section. There you will find a list with the names of Linux distributions that can be run from a CD without the need of installing them. Great way to test and to see for yourself what is Linux about.

Also browse the forums and see what other people are saying about the distros they use.

As for Mepis, well it was the first distro that I was able to run without any problems in my laptop. Now Ive become a distrojunkie but Mepis still is number 1 on my list.

tristeve, good advice from poluxmx but just to add to that with regard to mepis take a look at www.mepis.org and www.mepislovers.org as well as here.
also at mepislovers there is a very useful wiki http://www.mepislovers-wiki.org/inde...itle=Main_Page and along with that some good install how to's are located at http://www.mepisguides.com/

finally have fun learning

Forgive me for starting a 'my distro's better than yours' thread, but I would check out the Ubuntu Live CD for ease of use. If you like it, install it and than follow the advice on ubuntuguide.org to get everything working. It is very simple and it's the only distro I've tried in 3 years that has recognised all of my hardware upon install

Firstly make sure that your "old PC" can handle any linux distro. Mepis needs min: 4G hdd and 128MB RAM to work properly. If you have this as a minimum then try out the Mepis 3.3.1 livecd before installing to test your hardware, modem, printer etc. You can also try any other live cd and see which one is right for you.
Mine was Mepis and Kanotix, after trying SUSE, Fedora 3, Ubuntu.

As Mepis comes all ready to go, including the multimedia support that you must add afterwards with Ubuntu, I feel it's an excellent choice for a first distro.

The installation is graphical and very automated, you only have to answer a couple of easy questions. Besides, as it's a LiveCD version, you can run it from the CD to make sure it supports your hardware before having to install it.

Not knocking Ubuntu, I just think Mepis is a better choice as a first time install. Once you get your feet wet with Linux and learn a bit, it's easy enough to test out other distros to see how you like them.

I started with linux with, cough, Caldera 1.0 and the first release of REd Hat (Do I show my age?!).

MEPIS is EASY to install, recognized and configured all but ONE (sound recording) on my old Dell PII-450. Runs smoothly even with the "high demand" GUI.

I like the debian base (can you say Apt-get) but that is a personal choice.

I found the default application list to be complete and more than sufficient for my needs. No need to go pick through a list to make sure you have a decent xxx player or some yyy application.

You can surely add others later, but a linux newb will like a very nice and easy install (really, this is the biggest issue with #nix installs) and the not having to configure items once the system is installed.

Give the liveCD of this and other distros a shot and simply pick which YOU like the best. Remember, it is all linux and the appearance (default desktop) can be changed on any of the distros you are likely to choose.

Have fun!

My take on this is your statement that you want to learn about Linux. Do you actually want to learn, or do you want to dabble?

I use Mepis and think it is great, as well as Ubuntu and have used a large number of Distros out there.

If you only want to dabble go with one of the newbie easy ones. If you really want to learn how it works get one of the base Distros. Slack,Debian,RH-Fedora,Gentoo,or even FreeBSD. Get their manuals and documentation and learn how to set up your own system.

I am a many years Slacker.
My take FWIW.