[Kirbalicious]

Ok. Yes, I am a total n00b to Linux. I've got copies of Fedora Core 3, Suse 9.1, and Mandrake 10.1. Tried them all; Suse shut me out completely, Mandrake was nice but was lacking in the terminal, and Fedora couldn;t get my drivers right. Yes, i still have windows, no I do not wish to use it anymore because of all the problems it's given me (please don't ask what those are either). So therefore I'm looking for advice from the Linux gods that reside here in techsupportguy...best distro for a n00b. Easy to use, will recognize all my drivers (even my sound card. realtek AC97), can compile and install rpm and tarballs without using an outside compiler, has music cd and mp3 support, good messenger built in, and just a distro that's overall got lots of awesome packages built right in, easy to figure out terminal (that's what my main goal on Linux is, to learn to use the terminal fluently), and just a good distro. Any and all suggestions, comments,etc. are appreciated. Thanks guys!

[CouchMaster]

http://distrowatch.com/ - Page Hit Ranking
You can start at the top and work your way down.
I just read a really cool review on PCLinuxOS - it sounds like it might be right up your alley...

[Kirbalicious]

I like the ideea, but I really want something that'll install to my HD, not live...I really wish I knew how to fix my driver issues in Fedora, cause i really like it...

[jakoval]

PCLOS has excellent hardware support. It also has an install routine so you can do a HD install. Many of the liveCD's do nowadays. They're really the best way to test hardware support.

Run it live - if it sees and sets up all your hardware and you feel comfortable in it, then you can go for the install. If it chokes on some of your hardware or doesn't feel right even after you've worked with it a while, then try another distro.

** - edit - Interesting overview of some liveCD's here:
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=9569

[tsunam]

Originally Posted by Kirbalicious

I like the ideea, but I really want something that'll install to my HD, not live...I really wish I knew how to fix my driver issues in Fedora, cause i really like it...

Perfect time to learn . You'll get more satisfaction from fixing it and using something you like, and you'll have learned a lot in the process. We'll even help and lead you to where you need to be

[Kirbalicious]

Well, my first problem I;ve already got a thread for, it's the one with the sound card issues in FC3...yea that's me. Can;t find this sndconfig anywhere, and i really wish that there was a device manager that I could use to fix it...(relying on my windows knowledge again, f which none will help me)Any and all help is appreciated as usual!