Linux Question:

[insanity]

I'm thinking of making the switch to linux. Anyone care to suggest a good distribution?

[RoyGBiv]

1. What do you want to do?

What are you switching from?

What's your level of computer expertise?

How willing are you to learn a new way of doing things?

Aside from those questions, Ubuntu, SuSE, and or Mandriva are probably best for beginners making a switch from Windows.

Edit: Some thoughts: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=242&topic_id=22322&mesg_id=22334

[insanity]

2. Server app

Well, for one, I have some files on my NTFS partition that I really want to keep (music, mostly) so I'm looking for a smaller distribution. Mainly I want to host a stable DC++/Counter-Strike server that allows me to still do school work. I'm fairly certain that it will be a dualboot.

[Feron]

3. I like Mandriva.

It's easy to install and is oriented towards people completely new to Linux.

http://www.mandriva.com/

Just keep in mind that Mandriva One is the live CD. If you want to install it on your harddrive, then select the Mandriva Linux Free 2009 option on the download page.

Supposedly you can read/write to NTFS partitions now. But at the very least you can read NTFS partitions. If you dual boot, you may want to creat a small FAT32 partition that you can read/write from both operating systems.

[billyskank]

4. Gentoo is a good one for newbies.