Which Distro Should I get?

[LinuxRevolution]

Hi everyone,

I recently purchased a computer. It has :

-Intel Core 2 Duo E4500

-2GB RAM

-NVIDIA 8600GT 512MB

-1600GB Hard Drive

I want to make the move to linux because I'm bored with XP. I need the following:

-Fast booting
-Easy Nvidia driver installation (as in easy for noobs.)
-Video Player for all common formats including (mp4, rmv, avi, dat)
-Music Player for all formats such as MP3.
-Should also be able to sync to my ipod
-Easy Networking--with windows machines. Should be able to get drivers easily.
-AND VERY IMPORTANTLY--NO LAG--

If you need any more information, just ask.

Thanks in Advance.

P.S. Dont tell me I'm an idiot for not getting the 8800. I know I'm an idiot.

[bigtomrodney]

I think any of the modern mainstream distros should be able to deal with your needs, particularly Ubuntu (8.04), Fedora (9) and openSUSE (11).

There's nothing idiotic about buying the 8600, that's still a pretty good card and a big step up from an onboard intel

[thinkfree]

Even if a distro doesn't provide all the softwares which you want in default setup, you can download and install them from repositeries. Try OpenSuse. As per my experience, Ubuntu 8.04 is a little slow.

[MetalheadGautham]

I recommend Linux Mint Elyssa for your system. I guess it would fullfill all your needs, and can provide a good upgrade path later to Sidux, which I recommend that you install after around 1 year of experience with Mint.

There is NOTHING idiotic about buying the 8600GT, which is a quite impressive budget card, actually. You should just have gone for the 256MB GDDR3 version instead of 512MB since the 512MB is not at all used to its potential by the 8600GT.

[i92guboj]

There's no best distro. You will need to check yourself and see what fits you better. Download some distros, try them, and make a decission based on your own criteria.

All the distros have mostly the same potential, it's all linux after all. But you might find that some of them are more or less friendly, it all depends on your knowledge, habits and mental model.

-Fast booting

Most distros can boot fast enough. You can remove init services that you will not be using to improve it a bit. You could as well try to replace your BIOS firmware with coreboot (only for fearless people) and you can as well try to replace the init system of your distro with einit or initng (not trivial either).

-Easy Nvidia driver installation (as in easy for noobs.)

There's nothing complicated about it, but some distros might offer some facilities that others do not. However, most distros nowadays should have no problem at all to get running the propietary nvidia drivers.

-Video Player for all common formats including (mp4, rmv, avi, dat)
-Music Player for all formats such as MP3.

If it's media, most likely mplayer can play it. There are lots of graphical frontends to it, like smplayer, kmplayer... Xine has a better support for dvd, though. There are fronteds for xine like kaffeine. There's also vlc (general), oggle (dvd), mpd (music and playlists), and many others.

-Should also be able to sync to my ipod

I am no expert in iPods, I don't own one. But I think that amarok has a good support for iPods. It certainly is a kick-ass application in which regards music collections and playlists. Though a bit too heavy in my opinion (not that it doesn't deserve the weight, though, I think it's a killer app).

-Easy Networking--with windows machines. Should be able to get drivers easily.

That depends on the network device you own.

-AND VERY IMPORTANTLY--NO LAG--

As in network-lag or as in responsiveness of your desktop?

For the former, it all depends on your provider mostly, unless there's a hardware or driver issue.

For the later, you shouldn't have a problem, unless there's any specific issue. Of course, it all depends on the apps you are using and your hardware as well. If you use very heavy applications and you are short of ram, then you are going to have performance problems no matter the distro you use.

EDIT: Fixed the end of the post.

[Daan]

-Should also be able to sync to my ipod

Since you're changing to Linux you might also be interested with taking charge of your Ipod and install firmware that lets you decide on your directory structure: Rockbox - Open Source Jukebox Firmware

I use the simple command like this to get my music to my mp3 player (no ipod):

$ synctree -n ~/music/in/sfv_ok/ /media/DaanPlayer/music/new

I'm not sure if that's the same as syncing your player through some iTune-like GUI application, but it's easy.

Welcome to Linux!

[oz]

Which Distro Should I get?

I'm thinking that probably just about any out of the top 100 at DistroWatch.com (column on far right) would work pretty well, but one of those out of the top 10 or 20 would narrow it down some.

You can check the link in my signature for lots of good information on running Linux and some distro quizzes for helping to choose a distro.

Hope it works out well with your new hardware.

[LinuxRevolution]

Thanks for the help guys. I am going to try Opensuse 11. Just one thing, is my computer 64 bit? I have a Intel Core 2 Duo Processor

Could you reply ASAP?]

BTW, Thanks for all your help.

[oz]

Yes, it supports 64-bit technology:

Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor - Specifications

Intel® 64 Architecture