1. What Linux OS do you recommend. I've downloaded ISOs of Fedora Core, and Red Hat 9.0 and am also looking at SuSE. What, in your opinion, is the best of these. I've heard a lot of good things about Fedora Core, but I honestly don't even know if it has a GUI... I don't really feel at home with command prompt only.
2. Would a cheap computer like this be sufficient to run any version of Linux I might choose? I have a computer sitting on the floor here and its specs are roughly the same. Also... if I reformat it to put Linux on, what is the deal with compatability of drivers for basic things such as mobo ethernet etc? IE, am I going to find out that my motherboard simply won't work with Linux and be SOL?
3. How easy/difficult is installation going to be? I understand installing any OS can have a range of difficulty associated with it, however, am I going to be sitting at my computer for 10+ hours trying to get this to work? And relating to that, will the computer have trouble joining my home network?
Well, that's all I can think of atm. If anyone could help me, I would very much appreciate it.
Fedora Core is basically RedHat 9.1 for the most part. It will have X (the GUI base) and several window managers to choose from (Most people tend to side with either KDE or Gnome).
(2) If you're going to use X, you're gonna need a decent box. Last time I tinkered with X I was on a Celeton 900 with 512Mb of ram and it was still a bit sluggish at times. X is a resource hog but it does VERY will with the interface display. Getting to know linux, it's not going to be much of a problem, but don't expect "to-die-for" performance.
(3) Most people get through their first install of a 'major' distro in a few hours. If you go with RH, FC or Mandrake there are a ton of available config scripts and other things to make life simple for you once you've finished the install and booted the machine properly. As far as the others go, I assume that there are similar things, but I can't speak from experience on them.
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Gembolah had this to say about John Romero:
If there are any resident Linux gurus here that would like to field a few questions, I would appreciate it greatly. These are some basic questions, and are largely opinion-based.1. What Linux OS do you recommend. I've downloaded ISOs of Fedora Core, and Red Hat 9.0 and am also looking at SuSE. What, in your opinion, is the best of these. I've heard a lot of good things about Fedora Core, but I honestly don't even know if it has a GUI... I don't really feel at home with command prompt only.
Btw, Linux "flavors" are called distributions, and the GUI is called XWindows or XFree86 or simply X. If Fedora doesn't come with X, it's the first mainstream distribution I've heard of in a long, long time that doesn't.
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2. Would a cheap computer like this be sufficient to run any version of Linux I might choose? I have a computer sitting on the floor here and its specs are roughly the same. Also... if I reformat it to put Linux on, what is the deal with compatability of drivers for basic things such as mobo ethernet etc? IE, am I going to find out that my motherboard simply won't work with Linux and be SOL?
Linux will run on basically anything. It's just a question of speed. My best guess is that that'll be usable, but not particularly fast. It should work for your first Linux box. Wired ethernet shouldn't be a problem (I've had more wired cards that didn't play nice with Windows than ones that didn't play nice with Linux). Areas that are traditionally desktop only (sound and video) usually prove more troublesome.
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3. How easy/difficult is installation going to be? I understand installing any OS can have a range of difficulty associated with it, however, am I going to be sitting at my computer for 10+ hours trying to get this to work? And relating to that, will the computer have trouble joining my home network?
2. You should check with the vendors of your hardware to see if they are Linux compatible. Like RIG said, if you're going to run X, make sure you have a decent video card and plenty of RAM. If you have a Winmodem, ditch it and get a real one ASAP.
3. It normally takes longer for me to install Windows than it does to install Red Hat, but I go and remove a lot of schlock that Red Hat installs by default that I don't need. Your installation time will be much shorter if you're installing Linux on it's own system. The best thing you can learn to do is RTFM. 
-Tok
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Everyone wondered WTF when Random Insanity Generator wrote:
(and several window managers to choose from (Most people tend to side with either KDE or Gnome)
Window manager... what is that?
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Gembolah was listening to Cher while typing:
Window manager... what is that?
The primary GUI system that is used on Linux is called X Windows (specifically, it's a free version of X called XFree86). It's kind of hard to explain to people who have never used a Unix before because it doesn't really work the way that Windows does. X just displays GUI programs. It does nothing else. You can't move windows, you don't have any application bars or icons or anything like that. What has been created are programs that work with X Windows to give you tools like you would have in another desktop operating system - wallpapers, screensavers, an application bar, desktop icons, etc.
Windows managers are programs that allow you to manipulate Windows (change the size of the window, move them around the screen, minimize/maximize, etc.). Windows managers, by themselves, are very minimalistic.
Then there are desktop environments, which give you all the features of a full desktop operating system and include their own window managers. These are what most people use. The most popular desktop environments are GNOME and KDE. I personally prefer GNOME, because it has a very consistant look and feel, and they have a good human interface guideline that all developers try to follow and adhere to.
-Tok
Just as long as you don't go BSD on us I'm sure people won't mind answering questions. 
ehhe
Best thing to do is just try picking one and seeing if you like the way it looks/feels.
Installing Linux these days is a BREEZE compared to what it used to be like. It used to be like pulling teeth to get X configured manually, and get through the manual install process, but now, most distributions have nice graphical installation routines that make things very straight forward.
As for whether that machine will be powerful enough, it all depends on what you plan to do. I have Linux running as a server on a Pentium Pro 200, with 128MB ram. It runs just fine, but can be a bit slow if running large X applications or compiling a large program (like re-compiling the kernel.)
If this machine can handle the load, that machine you listed should definately handle it.
If you've used one, you've used both... heh
There's been a lot of talk about Fedora on the Linux list that I'm on. Many suggest SuSE and in fact I got my friend to install that... he's not a computer person at all and he installed and can use it just fine.
Before buying a box go through the hardware lists and make sure everything is compatible.
[ 01-23-2004: Message edited by: Kermitov ]
oh BTW, they used to say that if you wanted something that was patterned after a real UNIX setup that Slackware was the way to go as they pretty much store everything in the same places. Not sure if that's still the case but it's something to consider. RedHat made a lot of waves a while back by going to a nonstandard setup.
