I have two hard drives right now, and wanted to wipe the second one and slap Linux on it. Only problem is, I don't exactly know which version to get. I was thinking about slackware linux, but then theres Red Hat, and yadayadayada. I wanted to write a simple batch file that would pop up sometime when booting that would let me press either 1 for Windows (boot from master) or 2 for linux (boot from slave). So my problem is, which kind of Linux to get and how to go about installing and booting from the right drive without changing the bios to the right boot drive. Thanks in advance!

distribution is a personal preference...

from what I've heard:
Mandrake = "the Windows of Linux". mostly GUI, sort of "dumbed down" (but therefore also good for beginners)
Linspire: formerly known as Lindows. compare that name with "Windows"- that's what it's trying to be
Red Hat: no longer produces a desktop distribution, only server
Fedora: spun off from Red Hat. will install on just about any hardware
Gentoo: for geeks only, a lot of command line stuff

and a boot loader like Lilo (which is included in most distributions) will give you a menu for which OS you want to load.

I have RedHat on my other computer and its pretty good

I've decided on Slackware, MEPIS, and on Linspire (Lindows). Thanks for the help!

SUSE by Novell is another excellent choice. It is what i currently use and it has been good the whole way through. Except that it takes forever to download (4 cd's or 1 dvd.)

^^ So thats like 2800 megs, right? I'll have to go to the office and use the high speed connection if I decide on that too.

But all of the tools that come with it are phenominal. I have been through mepis, ubuntu, fedora core 3/4, mandrake/mandriva, red hat 7, 8, and 9, and i find SUSE to be the best of them all.

If you look on google, you will find that many people say it is a little overdone, and there are too many pakages. Well here is the solution, DONT INSTALL ALL OF THE PACKAGES. Many people simply go through and click install on everything. Do not do this. I highly suggest that you get a version of linux that allows you to choose, such as suse, and go from there. Remember, if you have a question about all of the packages, you can always come ask here.

as an edit, SUSE comes witha great program called YAST, whcih will help keep you updated. Fedora core come with YUM (i believe) which i have been told has similar functions (i never stuck with it long enough to find out). And ubuntu uses apt get, which is excellent for debian based distrobutions. The only thing i didnt like about ubuntu was th elack of a root account, and hard difficult it was to make a root account (i even followed the instructions and the root account STILL did not have super user privilages as they should)

I think I'll get that, thanks:D

One other question:

Is it possible to set up an external USB hard drive and set it as a boot drive? I was thinking about getting a USBdrive for Linux instead of wiping the hard drive, but I don't know if my BIOS is smart enough to realize its there.

Linspire: formerly known as Lindows. compare that name with "Windows"- that's what it's trying to be

I tried Linspire. I wasn't impressed by it. Sure it was easy to use, but I didn't find it very "user friendly". Then again, I don't know much about Linux either.

^^Hmm...

Cut that from the list I guess. I found a couple more, but I like the sound of SUSE.

SuSe Is very good, I've used fedora, SuSe, and a few others, and SuSe cuts the cake. If your a begginer, SuSe is for you, If your advance, It is as well.


Also, If you'd like to test linux or a few distro's, Go to Google and search for SuSe Live CD , Or DSL Live CD (```` Small Linux) Which are very small distro's, that you burn on a cd, and run it on a cd drive, and then Linux will run using it, And DOES NOT touch your hard drive.

SUSE is just all around goo no matter how new or old you are to linux. YAST2 has been called the best linux configuration tool by tonnes of people in the linux community. I would call SUSE the windows of linux, bu there are also many advanced features to SUSE that are great for even the most advanced of users (even though many advances users prefer gentoo, which i will be moving to relatively soon :)) One thing to note about SUSE is that they made it open to the public now. opensuse.org (i think) is where you would find that. Even in the beta, opensuse is supposed to be an excellent linux distro.