Which distro (I know, but still need help)

[Zanwar000]

I know this topic has been covered thousands of times but I have tried the Distro Quiz, looked at the topics on this forum, and looked at Wikipedia at some distros for an overview, but I still can't decide. Please recommend a distro that:

-Works on a laptop, Inspiron 1501, with 512mb ram and 60gig hard drive. AMD Turion 2.00 GHz.
-Does not have to be tailored to newbies. I know how to partition and install an OS. But please do not suggest Gentoo as I heard it can take several days.
-Works well for multimedia as well as programming. No gaming, I will dual boot.
-Is lightweight. Isn't bloated with too many add-on software. I have heard of modular distros where you pick what gets on, but haven't found one and I don't know how to build my own.
-Looks nice, don't care which desktop enviroment.
-Is completely free.
-Preferable comes with a partition manager - very low priority though.
-Is stable.

So far I have been looking at: Zenwalk, Freespire, Mandriva (There is also a paid version, is the free version capped in some way? What is the advantage to buying Mandriva?), Ark Linux, and Arch Linux. It would even be a great help if someone could recommend one from that list as I just cannot decide. I would try things like Debian, Fedora, or Slackware but I heard they are complicated. Please do not suggest Ubuntu or it's derivatives.

I have a 60GB hard drive, could you please recommend a good partition setup for a dual boot? I know that Linux cannot write to NTFS so I guess i'll have to have a large FAT32 partition.

Thank you for any help.

[devils casper]

Please do not suggest Ubuntu or it's derivatives.

Why? Ubuntu is one of the best distro and it has almost everything that you are looking for.

I have a 60GB hard drive, could you please recommend a good partition setup for a dual boot? I know that Linux cannot write to NTFS so I guess i'll have to have a large FAT32 partition.

Partition setup depends on you only. Linux doesn't support NTFS write access out of box but you can enable it thorugh ntfs-3g package.





Casper

[techieMoe]

I know this topic has been covered thousands of times but I have tried the Distro Quiz, looked at the topics on this forum, and looked at Wikipedia at some distros for an overview, but I still can't decide.

If you've done all that and still can't decide, we can't help you.

-Works on a laptop, Inspiron 1501, with 512mb ram and 60gig hard drive. AMD Turion 2.00 GHz.
-Does not have to be tailored to newbies. I know how to partition and install an OS. But please do not suggest Gentoo as I heard it can take several days.
-Works well for multimedia as well as programming. No gaming, I will dual boot.
-Is lightweight. Isn't bloated with too many add-on software. I have heard of modular distros where you pick what gets on, but haven't found one and I don't know how to build my own.
-Looks nice, don't care which desktop enviroment.
-Is completely free.
-Preferable comes with a partition manager - very low priority though.
-Is stable.

You've just described 95% of all Linux distributions. If you haven't found one yet that fits all that criteria, you're not looking in the right places. I recommend DistroWatch.

So far I have been looking at: Zenwalk, Freespire, Mandriva (There is also a paid version, is the free version capped in some way? What is the advantage to buying Mandriva?)

The advantage to buying most distributions (Mandriva included) is strictly to have printed manuals and support. There is no technological limitation to the Free version.

Please do not suggest Ubuntu or it's derivatives.

I'm with casper on this one. You might consider giving Ubuntu a try. It's very well supported, and is even relatively easy for people new to Linux. The setup isn't overly complicated (or at least not as bad as Gentoo or plain Debian).

If you have any specific questions about how to do something once you choose a distribution, start up a thread in the appropriate section and we'll do our best to help you out. I'm sorry, but we simply can't say "this or that distro is best for you." Pick one, play with it, see if you like it. If not, try another. Good luck.