which Linux version for my laptop

[Lutz_]

Well, I do not expect too much support for a free product. 
Mandriva has great forums (certainly other distros too). The positive aspects from my Mandriva experiences were:
- everything just worked with my two-year old inspiron notebook (no drivers to search); there were even NO niggles like unability to to turn the sound up louder or the need to adjust the screen brightness at every startup (which I experienced with the other distros on my hardware).
- the guys on the Mandriva forums are capable and willing to communicate in a not-so-geeky way.
Obviously I am not a power user;so I do not know what I could be missing  (the Mandriva out-of-the-box look is somehow not the freshest).
- Fonts are easy to install (w/o command line involvement)

sorry : poor wording on my part -- also it's probably less true today (than 3-4 years ago). What I wanted to convey (maybe wrongly) is that free support for Mandriva free/one is (IMO) not as good as the support for Ubuntu and that one might have to pay for the special packs for extra support and software. But what's your opinion on the matter ?

-Armando (October 25, 2008, 11:45 PM)

-Lutz_ (October 26, 2008, 11:31 PM)

[icekin]

Hey, try asking this question on slashdot and see how many different answers you get...
But yeah, I'd recommend Ubuntu or Xubuntu as well. If you like KDE over Gnome, there's Kubuntu and if you need something even faster than Xubuntu, there is fluxbuntu, but its not as polished as Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu.

[Lashiec]

I need a MP3 editing program for Linux does anyone know of a good one?

-Davidtheo (October 26, 2008, 10:41 PM)

Audacity or Ardour.

[Edvard]

+1 for audacity
There is none better.

[Darwin]

Just to note, I gave MobaLiveCD a whirl and hated it... Actually, it seemed to be doing its thing, but it was DREADFULLY slow and the on-screen prompts were not very clear as to what was going to happen. Essentially, it creates a VM on your disk, whereever  you instruct it to do so... I'd recommend trying Wubi unless your adamantly opposed to running a flavour of Ubuntu. Read the DC minireview of it here.

Just my two bits - YMMV!

[Armando]

Well, I do not expect too much support for a free product. 
Mandriva has great forums (certainly other distros too). The positive aspects from my Mandriva experiences were:
- everything just worked with my two-year old inspiron notebook (no drivers to search); there were even NO niggles like unability to to turn the sound up louder or the need to adjust the screen brightness at every startup (which I experienced with the other distros on my hardware).
- the guys on the Mandriva forums are capable and willing to communicate in a not-so-geeky way.
Obviously I am not a power user;so I do not know what I could be missing.

sorry : poor wording on my part -- also it's probably less true today (than 3-4 years ago). What I wanted to convey (maybe wrongly) is that free support for Mandriva free/one is (IMO) not as good as the support for Ubuntu and that one might have to pay for the special packs for extra support and software. But what's your opinion on the matter ?

-Armando (October 25, 2008, 11:45 PM)

-Lutz_ (October 26, 2008, 11:31 PM)

thanks for taking the time to answer, Lutz_. Mandriva is definitely a good distro. And, yes, they are very dedicated about making linux accessible and easy to learn .

I don't remember exactly why I didn't use Mandriva One more (maybe because of the package manager --> I preferred Ubuntu/Debian's at the time... But it might very well be different now) because it was very polished (albeit a little buggy).

** Back in 2001, it was the first the first distro I used. Kept it about a year... (was called Mandrake at the time).

[Darwin]

Heh, heh, me too, Armando! Mandrake Linux 8.1 was the first distro I used as well (early 2002).