Which Linux for my needs?..New PC build

[bigkiddos]

Hi,

I am a newbie to Linux. I currently run Windows XP most of the time. I tried Vista and Windows 7, but refuse to keep paying everytime they release a "upgrade" for 100 bucks.

Anyways, I have used Ubuntu, Fedora and Suse before. I just built a new AMD quad core, 64 bit, 4 GB RAM, 500 watts power supply with a GTS 250 graphics card. My display is a HDTV.

So here is what I would like to know. Which Linux should I install? A friend of mine told me to try out "Linux Ultimate Edition 2.3"

I would use this for:

Basic Home/Family use (net, office apps, pictures, video)
Some gaming (although I have some questions later on drivers etc)
HTPC - (in the future I would like to use it as a DVR and playback on my HDTV.)

If this post is in the wrong place feel free to move it.

In the meantime im going to browse the forums.

Thanks

[reed9]

Linux Ultimate Edition 2.3 is based on Ubuntu 9.04 "Jaunty Jackalope", but with everything and the kitchen sink thrown in. I personally can't stand having all that cruft and bloatware, but some people do like it. Sabayon Linux is like that as well. Lots of flash and glitz.

I generally do recommend Ubuntu or an Ubuntu derivative for new users. (Linux Mint is a good one to try.)

I took a brief look around the web, since I wasn't familiar with your graphics card. It looks like support for the GTS 250 was just added by nvidia for linux in the latest driver release, 180.51,that came out in April. As such, most distros will not have the driver in their repositories, so unless you run a bleeding edge distro like Arch, it will probably take some jiggling to get it installed and working properly. The latest nvidia in the Jaunty repos is 180.44.

Any of the main distros and many distros off the beaten path will meet your requirements for home use, gaming, and media center. Some are more suited out of the box, or in ease of configuration, but it's pretty much up to you and how much you're willing to tinker.

Since you have a fair bit of power in that machine, you might like to check out a KDE distro. KDE4 has a lot of eye candy and flash going for it. Though, I would not use Kubuntu. Most accounts list it as one of the poorest KDE implementations. Linux Mint KDE edition should be good. The latest Pardus release is lesser known but getting good reviews as well.

[bigkiddos]

Thanks for the reply. I have not tried KDE4 or Arch. Arch sounds alittle more complicated based on the little bit I read right now. Am I right about that assumption?

I like eye candy to an extent but the most important factor to me is getting everything to work and suiting my needs. I have not ran Linux on this system before and my old system was a stock PC without a graphics card. It just used the motherboard graphics.

One thing that drove me nuts about Windows was looking for/installing/getting drivers to work. So that would definately be a factor in my decision.

[reed9]

Arch is definitely more complicated to install and setup than other distros. I don't recommend it for newcomers, unless you're willing to spend a lot of time learning and getting things right.

There is a project based on Arch, called Chakra, but it's still in alpha, I think, so I'm not sure how stable it is.

One thing that drove me nuts about Windows was looking for/installing/getting drivers to work. So that would definately be a factor in my decision.

For the most part, if a piece of hardware works with linux, it will work out of the box. The vast majority of drivers are included in the kernel. The exceptions are proprietary (ie, non-free) drivers, such as those from ATI or Nvidia. There are open source drivers for those graphics cards, but certain things, like 3D acceleration, tend to require the vendor driver. In most distros it's very easy to install them, however. Ubuntu and Linux Mint make it especially easy. Though, again, for your card, you will probably have to jump through some hoops to get the driver installed, since it's so new.

The other common exception is wireless drivers, especially those for broadcom cards. Also usually pretty easy to get working, but frequently they don't work out of the box.