Moving from the easy, go with the one your comfortable with, I will address some things from Tommy's post, and give my views on some things. First, don't chose a distro based on what apps are installed by default. The lack of mpg123, or some other app is not a reason to chose another distro. First, you can install any app on any distro. Second, you can get rpms for just about any app you find if it is popular in the slightest bit. The RedHat Package Manager (rpm) is one of the two strong points for RedHat. The fact is that you can easily install and uninstall a huge number of apps with this. It will make sure you have the requisite stuff and also keep you from breaking things when you uninstal stuff. Moving from there, my favorite is Debian. It has a package manager that I find more comprehensive then RPM. While the text version of rpm just tells you that a package can't be installed, and what is missing, debian gives you a chance to choose to install any needed package right then and there. It also has good utilities to get updatees on the things you have installed. Again, you can install just about any app with this system. There are converters to use slackware install files and redhat install files. Then there is slackware. It has its own manager to install programs. It has utilities to convert from other formats. It will easily let you install packages whith missing dependencies. This can be good and bad. But this is missing the real heart of slackware. The real heart (and departure) is that slackweare uses a bsd style init while most others use systemV (system 5). What is the difference? hmm, one is bare bones and the other is script deluxe. In a systemv systenm, you will find scripts to start, stop and restart all the services in the /etc/init.d (or /etc/rc.d/init.d) directory. You want to restart your smb services? type "/etc/init.d/smb restart" and it takes care of itself. Slackware, you need to know more about the service and do so manually. Which is better? I prefer systemv. Others prefer bsd. I guess it is like the ice cream debate on what flavor is best. Now going back to my original advice. Go with the one your comfortable with. Thus if you have nothing to go by, ask arround. Use the distro that your buddy who is willing to answer your question at midnight uses. The reason is rather simple, he will be able to give you a much more coherant answer to the system he uses. In fact, use the same version of distro he uses. When you are ready strike out on your own, go for it. ======= Kirk Wood Cpt.Kirk at 1tree.net "When I take action, I'm not going to fire a $2 million missle at a $10 empty tent and hit a camel in the butt. It's going to be decisive." - President George Bush
