When I get the 30giger going this current HDD will soon hold RedHat 5.2 (Legit paid for copy, never used was still in the box.) If I like it then it will go onto a larger HDD and then maybe see some server use.

I would strongly recomend that you not use Redhat 5.2. That's an ancient version. You'd probably be lucky to have a variant of the 2.0 kernel. You probably wouldn't even have support for any of your hardware. Just download one of the latest versions of Linx. I think Mandrake has the nicest installer out there, very Windows-esk.

Posted by Kenshin I would strongly recomend that you not use Redhat 5.2. That's an ancient version. You'd probably be lucky to have a variant of the 2.0 kernel. You probably wouldn't even have support for any of your hardware. Just download one of the latest versions of Linx. I think Mandrake has the nicest installer out there, very Windows-esk.

The best version of Linux that I've been able to find is called Mepis. It is a debian variant that runs as a live-cd. In other words, you can run mepis to try it out without having to install it to the hard drive.

One of the neatest applications it has included is called Skype. Skype is an internet telephony application that allows you to make free computer-to-computer voice calls anywhere in the world. It also includes an instant messenger, and file transfer capabilities. You can conference up to 5 people at once--the icing on the cake is that all transfers, voice, files, instant messaging are AES256 encrypted end-to-end. Mepis has this application already installed, and it can be run from the live cd--I've done it.

If you're interested in Skype and don't want to run Mepis, you can download Skype for free from: http://www.skype.com There are Windows, Mac OSX, Linux and Pocket PC downloads available.

Mepis can be downloaded from links found on: http://www.mepis.org or, alternatively, at:

http://www.mrbass.org/linux/mepis