im new to linux and i need help deciding which distribution that i want. here are a few things to help you to know which distribution that i might need 1.gaming 2.music 3.internet 4.im a programmer 5.videos 6.pictures

The distribution you choose is up to you. Most every ap should be available for any of them. You can always compile from source if a pre-packaged version doesn't exist for your distro.

depends what kind of gaming you mean, if you mean the latest and greatest stick with windows cause its just more efficient at running the latest directx games. but if you mean linux games, just look for some gaming like distro's or just stick to the big ones like fedora, ubuntu, opensuse, etc.

well I'm a programmer, too. Check out gentoo If you don't mind some waiting as you'll have to compile everythin yourself. There is very good documentaion how to set up the system on their website and a wiki covering most tasks. It's pretty coder-friendly as you can easily manage running different versions of java or gcc side by side, and pretty streight and open when it comes to overall system design so you can tweak it easily to your needs

Here is the best generalized advice, however it really depends on your tastes and what you want to achieve. If you are new to Linux and you want it to just work and be easy, then just use Ubuntu. Kubuntu would probably suit you better as KDE is better for the techno savvy in my opinion. The problem with KDE at this time is that the KDE version 4 is still a little incomplete and a little bit still beta quality. Having said that I am finding KDE4.2 to be brilliant, so far. The best advice is really to try several distros, you can dual boot but really if you are a programmer, get an old crappy PC or Laptop for next to nothing but add extra RAM to a minimum of 512MB and you will find even an old P3 will run really well on Linux. Then you can make a mistake and stuff up your install without loosing the data off you everyday machine. For the record: - This was written on an old Pentium 3 Tualatin, 1.1GHz IBM laptop 512MB RAM, my wife uses this one all the time now because it boots so much faster than the brand new Vista dual core laptop or the halfway between the two in age, XP Centrino laptop! It is also more responsive and feels faster once it has booted.

[quote=maylemikey]im new to linux and i need help deciding which distribution that i want. here are a few things to help you to know which distribution that i might need 1.gaming 2.music 3.internet 4.im a programmer 5.videos 6.pictures[/quote] Well, if you are a programmer, want a powerful development system, most distros will fit the bill... However, as it seems as though you are into gaming, as well as desktop use (music, videos, images, internet), I would recommend something commercial. First off, I would say suse, but really, its kind of hard running games, and its a little tough on desktop, as its enterprise. You could use Mandriva, it works pretty well, but the interface stiffed me off... Lastly (of commercial) I would highly recommend iMagic OS (google it), because it has Crossover Games (lets you run popular Windows games, including Wow3, Eve Online, etc...), it is terrific for home use, and lastly, well, i like the GUI. ;) Just my 0.02 I got a copy a while back, and it was really worth it, specially with magicOnline for music and easy software installs. However, if you don't mind to much on the games, go with Freespire (freespire.org), free, fast, nice looking, packed, and has easy one click installs of thousands of free and commercial applications (Linux . com has a place where it shows popular distros, there it has it), it also has nice codecs, to run flash etc. and best of all, like most Linux, its FREE! Like said above, if you are more of a techie sort of a programmer, go with gentoo, or slack.. but dont expect any high end gaming/ home usability features. ;) You could also go with Vector Linux (google), its fantastic for a combo of it all, lacks a little, but its based on Slackware, and it has a customizable gui. just lettin you know you got choices. after all, thats what linux is all about. ;) tuxfan; habelgeek

1. Gaming natively in Linux is a problem, but Valve is porting their games and there are many games for Linux (like World of Goo, one of my favourites :D ). You can also get translation layers like Cedega and Crossover, which are pretty good. 2. Music. Any distribution will work fine with music. 3. Internet. Ditto 4. IDEs can be installed on any distro 5. Videos. Depends what you mean: Video-making software is a weakness of Linux (though they do exist) but they'll play video fine. I'll suggest Ubuntu Linux because of the codec manager. 6. Pictures. Any distro really. If you need Photoshop