A Fast Distro For My Laptop

[BlahBlah_X]

I am a beginner to Linux but I have used it a bit and researched a lot.

I need a distro for my laptop. Its specs are:

1.8ghz Pentium 4 Processor
260mb RAM
40 GB Hard drive
ATI Mobility Radeon 7500

I need a distro that:

-has multimedia out of the box or easily available
-has a control panel and a graphical installer
-uses XFCE, KDE, Gnome, or E17
-Is relatively user friendly but will let me get my hands dirty
-Is reasonably fast
-Resolves dependencies

I was thinking about Linux Mint, Foresight, Pardus, or Ark. Are those good? Suggestions of other distros are welcome.

[tech_man]

Do you have high speed internet?

[BlahBlah_X]

Yes I do. And I have a dvd burner handy.

[tech_man]

I think Debian would be ideal. You get your hands dirty installing the OS and the software you want. And it is very customizable. It also isn't that hard for a newbie to install and it really teaches some good fundamentals.

EDIT: Be warned though, right after you install there is no Desktop Environment, you install everything yourself, but that very easy to accomplish.

[BlahBlah_X]

I don't think Debian is for me. I have tried it but would rather use something else.

[tech_man]

^^ How about Ubuntu or one of its derivatives?

[BlahBlah_X]

Yeah thats why Mint is on the list of ideas.

I like KDE, and I have heard Ark and Pardus use it much quicker than other distros.

Foresight has the cool new Conary thing going on.

[bluesheet]

I am using Slackware 10.1 + XFCE on my twos laptops.

Compaq PRESARIO 1900 (P3 45MHz, 192MB RAM, 20G HDD) and
IBM X20 (P3 650, 192MB RAM, 30G HDD)

Very smooth, didn't feel lag...

[BlahBlah_X]

I don't think Slackware is for newbies. I would like to try it later in time.

[devils casper]

i suggest you to try as many as you can and find out yourself. nobody can tell you which distro is best for you. check here too.
Locked.