[Aleksander]

I tried Suse and I have been satisfied...

[mdshort]

Trust me you'll be even more satisfied with Gentoo!

(Since you used to binary distributions, I recommend Debian.)

[Deathwalker]

I prefer Debian myself, but Gentoo isn't too bad.

[mdshort]

Debian and Gentoo are both close to the same package management, except for the fact that Debian uses binary packages, and gentoo compiles everything from source (except for some specifics, such as mozilla or openoffice, which have large compile times thus gentoo offers a binary package mozilla-bin and openoffice-bin.)

[jhunholz]

If you're using Gentoo, why in the world would you installl a binary??? Compiling everything is what gives you such a huge performance boost over any other Linux distro. If you have a hard time waiting for stuff to compile, then I guess Gentoo isn't for you. Or maybe you need to discover the amazingness of distcc!

[alt_ctrl_del]

Fedora Core (I had FC2 for a short while on my box) is pretty good, there's that simple anaconda installer that makes things really easy. But since FC3 is on your list, I wouldn't know what is different. Just make sure that you pick the developer tools at install if they haven't learned from their mistake in FC2 to add it automatically. I didn't check it off first time around and ended up reinstalling because I couldn't compile sources.

[jnev_89]

i have suse 9.1 pro on my comp right now. it's pretty good for a n00b (which i am), but can be kinda unstable. i tried fc3 a couple days ago, didn't like it at all. slackwhere wouldn't install on my system

[Qiranworms]

I have to put in my usual recommendation for Ubuntu.

It is based on Debian and uses a Debian package management system, which by default uses Ubuntu-specific repositories and, even though I recommend adding other Ubuntu repositories such as the Multiverse and Universe becuase you can't do anything without them, I highly recommmend against using Debian repositories.

The great thing about Ubuntu is it's very problem-free in setup, so it's simple to install for most 'newbies', yet is a capable and advanced (and NOT bloated *cough*SuSE, Mandrake, RH!*cough*)...I keep recommending this becuase of how much I like it, and I've had some sort of version of every distro recommended here (and more) with the exception of Gentoo, which isn't exactly as 'newbie friendly'...particularly in the setup.

Yes I'm biased.

[TMan7000]

Most of the responses you age getting are personal chioces. Just try the ones you think sound good. If you don't like them then it doesn't take too long to install another distro.

[T1junkie]

if you are a begining Linux user I would recommend giving ubuntu a whirl, it is a simple install takes roughly 35 keystrokes if you accept all the defaults, its a good distro for a very begining user to learn the general ideas of linux.

for a long term distrobution I recommend Slackware 10, its been around for a long time and has great support, although if you desire to be on the "Bleeding edge" of technology it will require tweaking, Slackware puts a heavier value on what they know works rather than being up to date.