Has anyone had a problem getting to Freespire forums? I installed it yesterday am everything seemed to go well with a complete install. When I tried to set up wireless I ran into a stone wall. The network settings was completely different than the one in the user manual and would not configure like the one in the manual. I even tried a network settings pkg. I got off the CNR. I went into the forums and filled the registration and waited for the confirmation email, ( I am still waitng ) this is now 38 hours with 4 quiries even an email to one of the founders. While waiting I believe I found a couple other things not working to well. This is the newest version to, the 2.0.8 I got via mail. I am about ready to take it off and try something else. I have 8 total I received, Debian 4.0, Fedora 9, OpenSuse 11.0, Mandriva 2008.1, Ubuntu 8.04, Free BSD 6.3 and Open Solaris. Can any one tell me which disto would be a good choice for a beginner, I have several sites bookmarked for reference commands etc. The machine I am trying for Linux is a Dell Inspiron 1150 lap top I have 2 hard drives to experiment with a 60 gb and a 80 gb, also a 512 memory, intel celeron 2.6 ghz. I also have a third with xp on it. I keep it next to my desk top so I can look things up while experimenting. I would appreciate any feedback on which os would be good for beginner. I have trouble with the commands though I see a command to use but it won't work because I don't know which prompt to put at the beginning. Thank you ahead of time! RichardM

Ubuntu has the most forum support on the net, Mandriva is good at picking up hardware and wireless. Those are the 2 distros I would recommend for a beginner starting out with the choices you have listed. Debian is a nice Distro but requires some previous linux Command Line Interface (CLI) knowledge. Fedora I am not qualified to comment on as I have never ran it. Open Suse has good forum support also. These are some other forums I belong to. http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/ http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/