help with a new OS
 

Im thinking about installing a different OS on my old computer. About 5 years back I installed red hat (6 or 7?) on my computer with a partition just to check it out.. but i could never get the drivers for my DSL modem to work.. and my net company had no support for linux.. so i never really used it other then to play around a little.

but now i have two computers and my old one mostly sits there.. so i want to dive into a different OS again. I have done some studying and have sorta narrowed it down to three options (but i would be willing to look at others.. such as fedora)

Ubuntu
openSUSE
FreeBSD

Im wondering if anyone has any experience with these OS's and which would be best for a semi-n00b like myself. I am leaning towards SUSE but im open to suggestions... and my least favorite is FreeBSD just because it seems to be more geared towards developers/programers/scientists and im not really any of those.

One thing im confused about.. why is the ubuntu .iso 696MB and it fits on one disc.. while the openSUSE .iso is either 6 CDs or 1 DVD as far as i can tell they both seem very similar in software packages

anyway.. any guidance would be helpful. For the most part this is just a project.. something to get my feet wet with.. in all actuality the system wont be used for anything important

Ubuntu would probably be the most noob friendly one out there right now. As far as the one or 6 disk thing, I like the smaller distros anyway, as you can then just go out and download and install what you really want/need, anyway, and not be cluttered with a bunch of programs you'll never use.

like lurgid I would suggest ubunutu as it is one of the most noob friendly linux distros out... fedora core 5 is also another noob friendly linux distro... suse is very nice and clean as well. It is all preference I guess. Ubuntu uses gnome environment while suse uses KDE... if you are really into how KDE looks you can try kubuntu which is just ubuntu using the KDE environment. If you were installing it just to play I would say try kororaa which is another nice clean distro that comes with xgl :)

freebsd is not for you, don't mess with it.

I know both gnome and KDE from my previous experience with linux.. I dont really have a preferance for either.. Im not a total linux n00b but im not far from it.

I looked at Kororaa but it seems thier XGL version has been removed because of a GPL violation..

http://kororaa.org/static.php?page=xgl-livecd

Also it seems novell has released XGL support for SUSE.. which is why i was leaning towards it.

http://www.novell.com/linux/xglrelease/

I have a bunch of different versions of ubuntu you max I even have it for mac. I have the 64 bit version also for PC. I think ubuntu is the one to try or knoppix I like those 2 the best.

I dont know jack shit about linux, but my 500mhz computer runs Ubuntu, and it and I get along just fine. It is very easy to pick up on. And if you feel you have learned basic Ubuntu inside and out, you can expand upon it and make it more advanced.

I have ubuntu running on my I-Mac right now I am thinking about getting the 32 bit version going on another PC I am going to get so I can make it a firewall PC on my network I have at home. But yeah ubuntu is really easy to get and they will mail you all the different versions if you want them or you can just DL them but you know all that.