Quoting Dan Smith <dan.smith225 at gmail.com>: > As naturally as it would happen in the MS world, I had my Quad Core System > running Vista and with the most recent Windows Defender Security Update, > it > hosed my system. I was able to save my data, due to keeping on another > drive separate from Windows. > My question to the group is, I am alooking for a nice distro that has > alot > of packages, is light with the GUI (Not ready for text only..), and > something that supports the Multiple processor package (Since I'm > assuming > thats how Unix/Linux will read a quad core Phenom running at 2.5ghz). I > currently have 4gb's of ram in the system and it's my goal to keep that > memory in the box. > Can someone please help reccomend a strong distro with X86_x64 > support?... > Once I have looked at are Cent OS 5, and OpenSuse 11. > Thanks, > Dan > Hi Dan, Welcome to the Linux world! I am probably amongst the rookie TCLUG'ers (soon to be TC(G)LUG ;-)) and if I may I'd like to recommend a particular OS for your system. Gentoo is a source based system, meaning you have to compile all your application from source. However, the installation does not come with a GUI but the package manager "emerge" is very easy to tool to learn and maintain your system, add packages (GUI) and so forth. The September issue of Linux Journal has an article on Gentoo and does a fairly simple comparison with Ubuntu and Red Hat and notes their differences. The reason I chose Gentoo is because it offers highly adaptable/configurable options to any specific supported hardware/software and by default it does not install unnecessary packages. It would be a real long rant to name all the benefits of Gentoo and to be honest, I don't use any other Linux distro for personal use except Red Hat based systems for work. I would highly recommend reading up the link provided to Linux Journal maybe it will help you with your search which for the best distro. In my case, I have great friends who are lot more Linux smart so my intro to GNU/Linux was soften with their help (thus Gentoo is not neccesarily beginner friendly). Please note, you will have to register online to be able to view the article. http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/10106 Have a great day, David ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.