On Mon, 6 Jan 2003, Barry Murdoch wrote: > I have been advised, at Linux.org, that Debian is > perhaps too difficult to configure and use for a > beginner. SuSE, Mandrake, Red Hat and TurboLinux are > recommended as easier. What distribution would > listers recommend I try, keeping in mind I would also > like to try Speakup as the screen reviewer? The advice of a previous poster to "try the distribution for which you can get the most help" is the generally accepted answer, but since you listed some distros, some caveats are appropriate. You should stay with a mainstream distro. TurboLinux is primarily popular in Japan and some asian countries, and SuSE is mostly popular in europe. Neither have much market in North America, so in that area they can be considered minor distros. The advice about Debian is probably accurate, though things are improving with the United Linux initiative, but that is not mature yet. Mandrake is kind of a more bleeding edge distro, originally based on Red Hat, with the usual tradeoff with stability, and the company is now also having financial problems (but that is not unusual these days, even for some well managed enterprises). Let's see, what does that leave? As you might have guessed by now, I use Red Hat. <grin> Also, the advice to use what you have help for applies to local hands on the keyboard help, or something similar. If you don't already have someone who is willing and able to give that kind of help, such could be gotten from a local LUG (linux user's group): there are websites that can help you find one in your local area (they're everywhere). LCR -- L. C. Robinson reply to no_spam+munged_lcr@onewest.net.invalid People buy MicroShaft for compatibility, but get incompatibility and instability instead. This is award winning "innovation". Find out how MS holds your data hostage with "The *Lens*"; see "CyberSnare" at http://www.netaction.org/msoft/cybersnare.html