Hello Everyone!

[wingeek]

Hi, I'm a retired/disabled vet who has been a computer hobbyist for many, many moons. I started off with a Tandy CoCo and have grown through many PCs and many flavors of Windows. I have foreseen the day when I will have to switch to Linux.

Let me explain that I am not a total newb at Linux. I have tried several distros: Red Hat, Mandrake/Madriva, Ubuntu, Knoppix, Xandros, Dreamlinux, Vector Linux, and a few others.

I require that any distro have certain out-of-the box capabilities: a) it must access the internet immediately; b) play AVI files (Divx); c) play mp3s; and d) find and access my Windows Shares. The last is the most important, and least lived-up to. I have 3+ TB of data on NTFS volumes; for me to switch over even part-time, I need to access most if not all of that.

In summary, I am currently using Windows, but have seen the light and want to get away from the dark side...but I need help. (Oh, I will have to dual boot for a while until Blizzard ports World of Warcraft to Linux

Thanks in advance...any suggestions (of at least moderately polite nature) are welcome. Convert me, please.

[MASONTX]

Welcome to the world of linux and to the forum. To start your journey go to distrowatch.com and scroll down the right side to the top 100 list. By following the links, you can read up about the different popular distros. When you find one that seems promising, download and burn an ISO disk to try that distro from disk without having to install it to your hard drive. It will run slower from disk than from hard drive, but it will let you play the distro's and see if they meet your needs.
By going to the search function on distrowatch, you can search for sub categories, such as Ubuntu based distro's or distro's designed for newbies or older computers. Take your time and have fun it.

[jheaton5]

Welcome to Linux. May I recommend Debian?