The good news is, I just installed Suse Linux 10

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

The bad news is, it took almost 3 hours from start to finish (including the live update).

So far it seems to be a kick-ass, clean system. I HAS to be good- KDE now uses Firefox as its default browser!

Gonna be fun playing around with it.

[datasuspect]

1. what mainstream apps does that support?

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

2. A wide range of open-source apps

The Gimp (a Photoshop for Linux) is popular, as is Open Office. I'm just now getting into it, so I don't know what or where the best proggies are, but I'm sure others here can help out.

Linux has become a viable alternative to Windoze on the PC. It's just gonna keep getting better.

But don't take my word for it-- I still miss OS/2 Warp... :rofl:

[RoyGBiv]

15. Gimp is cool ...

It takes some getting used to, especially if you're accustomed to Photoshop, but it's really slick. The things a talented graphic artist (i.e., not me) can do with it amaze me sometimes, but even I've done some neat stuff with it.

OpenOffice is also good if you really need a full-fledged office suite. I don't, so it seems bloated to me. I use AbiWord, also included as an option in the distro, as a word processor and haven't had a problem with it.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

3. just did an Ubuntu... took less than an hour

but if it works, that's great!

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

4. Took so long 'cause I had a 40gb drive and I chose all the options

I figured why not. I didn't wanna leave anything out!

[AntiCoup2K4]

6. Three hours on a 40Gig drive?

Doesn't sound right. I did SuSE 9.3 with everything on a 120 Gig drive and it only took about 45 minutes.

How much RAM do you have?

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

8. 10.0 is a step up from 9.3

I installed it on my +2800 mobo with 1gb ram on board. As I said, I installed just about all the optional extra packages, with the exception of the development stuff. I obtained the complete DVD version ISO online and burned it to a dual layer DVD. The ISO was about 8.5gb in size.

[AntiCoup2K4]

9. 8.5 gigs without the development stuff?

Damn, that IS a lot of shit.

[hobo_baggins]

5. hehe, you should try installing gentoo...

damn thing took me way longer.

[AntiCoup2K4]

7. That shit completely crashed on me.

Gave up and went back to Ubuntu.

[Porcupine]

10. Ok, help an Idiot. I need a Linux package for an old computer

I just want my kids to get on the net. Basic browsing only. That and a word processor so they can type homework. Can somebody point me to a site thay helps me rescue this old Windoze machine.

Last time I got it on the net aliens took over it, downoaded 4000 pop-up porn pages and a big lizard said Zooool. Or something close to it. So I erased the hard drive and tried to instal a linux disk but...... I'm an idiot.

link please?

[Crazy Guggenheim]

11. Ubuntu.

http://www.ubuntulinux.org/download/

[Crazy Guggenheim]

12. Also. Are you still having the Popup issues?

[Porcupine]

17. Nah, wiped the drive with a Linux install disk.

Then that crashed and I ran out of options. Now that I have a spare line to the Net I can futz with the original.

[RoyGBiv]

13. For starters ...

Try here for a collection of distros: http://www.linuxiso.org/

You can read a bit about them, follow links to the official sites, or just download some disc images to burn to a CD for installation purposes.

I started with a Knoppix Live CD. I downloaded the single disc ISO, burned it, turned off my computer, then booted from the CD drive. This let me play with it and see how I liked it, and Knoppix Live tends to work well with pretty much anything. On some machines I've had to turn off USB port detection to get it to boot, but the rest of the boot process went without a hitch. SUSE, Ubuntu, and a few others also have a LiveCD version, links available at the above site.

What distribution (distro) did you try before, and what problem(s) did you have?

Other than that, it helps to know what to suggest if we know your basic hardware configuration. The only real problem with Linux from my perspective is the lack of driver support for some hardware, printers especially. If you have anything exotic or anything from a company that absolutely, positively refuses to support OpenSource on any level (I'm talking to you, Lexmark), you'll have issues. Some USB port configurations, dial-up modems, and networking could be issues you face for the type of use you're wanting. I say that not to discourage you, just to prepare you for some worst-case scenarios, and having said all this, the irony is that getting Linux to function well on older machines is often easier than on newer machines.

So, anyway, what are the specs on your computer?

[Porcupine]

16. I think it's a 233 Mhz Pentium II

I can't tell without cracking the box. I tried to install Suse Linux from a disk I can't find right now. It installed and booted but later refused to boot. Somebody gave me the ancient Mac that I'm now using so it got shoved into a corner.

[RoyGBiv]

14. Been a lot of updates ...

I got it the day it was released, and there were already a half-dozen updates. I had just installed a shiny, new 250GB hard drive, so I did the same thing you did: Install ALL. It didn't take 3 hours, but the live update portion only took about 5 minutes at that time. Since then, there's even been a kernel update, which is rather large all by itself.

Let me know your experiences. I've been using it exclusively for two months now except for the playing around I've done with other distros on a separate partition. I had a few issues at first, having come from a fully tweaked 9.3, but I've got most of it worked out now.