Take on the 'Guin

OK, I figured I'd be having some free time so I decided to dive into the Linux world again. The last time I touched it was several years ago when I had to use cc to compile something. At that time I didn't even bother to load GUI, partially because the computer was like from grandpa's attic. This time, a P4 2.4G with 512 MB RDRAM, over 200 G HDD space, FX5200 ultra driving dual 17" LCD, Soundblaster Live, dual optical drive (DVD + CDRW), blah, blah, I felt I was ready.

First thing to do was of course Google, finding the distros with good reputations among the gurus. After some brief readings (to the upper limit of my patience, which is not that up), I started to download Live versions to test on my computer, namely, SUSE 9.3 Live and UBUNTU 5.04 live. The downloading was at about 300-400 KB/s over my cable modem, took couple hours, while I was eating dinner, fixing my bike, etc.

(Linux penguin image location: http://www.isc.tamu.edu/~lewing/linux/sit3-shine.7.gif)