What to install?

[samhainbaphomet]

I have the following distributions:

Mandrake 10.1 (I cannot find any support on the Internet regarding this Distro, which puts me off a little)
Suse Live dvd 9.2 (Won't work live as it cannot detect RAM or something, so I'm worried it will do the same when I install)
Ubuntu Linux (Lagged terribly when I ran it as a Live CD, and I didn't like the look of the GUI)
Knoppix 3.7 (Installation not reccomended)

Mandrake 10.1 Powerpack seems most appealing currently, what do you think? I'm setting up partitions now for a dual boot, hopefully I'll have something sorted out soon.

[Harry Kuhman]

what to install?

You may wish to start here for help in sorting them out.

Mandrake is the old name of the distro now called Mandriva. I wouldn't mess with anything old enough to have the old name.

Ubuntu has many happy users, but I was unimpressed with the LiveCD as a live CD and have not installed it. I see no reason to install it over Debian, which it is based on, unless you find that Debian does not have some hardware support you want and Ubuntu does. If you want the KDE gui and Ubuntu then install Kubuntu instead of Ubuntu, but with Debian you can just install whatever GUI you want.

I advise against installing Knoppix, this is known to cause many problems. If Knoppix works for you as a Live CD and you like what you see, then I suggest, as long as you have a high speed connection, doing a Net-install of Debian Etch. The net-install ISO is a little over 100 meg, boots from CD, detects your high speed connection (as long as you are not foolish enough to run DSL without a router) and installs everything else it needs from the Internet. If you don't have a high speed connection then I suggest obtaining install CD #1 (#1 is fine, you don't need the whole set of 19) and installing from that,

[samhainbaphomet]

Thanks!

Well I attempted to install Suse, but got an error about something being out of sync and a kernel panic so I have no idea what to do with that. Kubuntu sounds interesting

[Harry Kuhman]

Kubuntu sounds interesting

Lots of choices for different people, but as I said before I see no reason to install it over Debian, which it is based on, unless you find that Debian does not have some hardware support you want and Ubuntu does.