Hello,

Actually, they're called "Distributions", or the slang term for it is "Distro". The subject of which one to use is discussed many times in this forum, so I suggest you check out the following threads for some advice:

• http://www.daniweb.com/techtalkforums/thread58325.html
• http://www.daniweb.com/techtalkforums/thread55262.html
• http://www.daniweb.com/techtalkforums/thread50830.html

Hope this helps

hi,

thanx alot mate, the links were really useful

here the lowdown on the free (gratis) distros:

Suse is broken
Fedora is too buggy and has a short lifespan
Mandriva is kinda naff
Gentoo is to hard
Slackware has bad software managerment

Personally i like debian based systems like Ubuntu - grab a copy of Ubuntu Edgy 6.01 Desktop Version and you will not be disappointed

I agree, Ubuntu is where you'll want to go in terms of a Desktop configuration. The advantage they have over the other distros is this: Money. They are financed and can offer, outside community contribution, a better support base. This, in turn, means a more out-of-the-box distro.

and ubuntu offers shipit, where you can be mailed free cds (good if you have dial up or a download cap)

thanx alot guys, now i have a pretty good idea about them

appreciated

the things you download are .iso disk images (there kinda like zip files) and you need a tool to burn them to cds, you dont just burn it like a file.

there are plenty of threads here to help you with this

also when you first try linux its a good idea (unless you have a spare pc) to insall it onto a virtual machine/emulator such as Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 (Free!). this lets you run linux from your XP system and means theres no way to break your PC if you are new to things (you need 750mb+ ram to use it really though)

There's no reason to limit yourself to one distrobution for the rest of our life. I agree that Ubuntu is quite stable and there are a lot of people who really enjoy it. I've used Mandrake (then its later silly form, Mandriva), Red Hat and Fedora distrobutions as well. There are up- and down-sides to all of them.

The best idea is to try more than one, play with it for a couple weeks and see which you like most. If you can't do that, say for bandwidth related reasons when a typical full distrobution is multiple CDs, try one of the portable version. Mandrake had its Mandrake Move. Boot off the CD and use the OS without actually installing anything to disk.

You have options. :-) Explore them a bit.

would reccomend CentOS if you want stable software that runs on lower end PCS and it has a long release cycle (many years) so you dont have to upgrade distribution all the time.