Okay, I've been using M$ Win ows for about 5 years now, but I want to settle over to linux. I guess you linux folks hear this every day.

I have already tried different linux distros in the past, but they all semmed not overwhelming. For me, I mainly want to do the following with it:

1.: Coding, mainly Fasm, a bit C (don't really like C, to much of a ²$³§&&%/||)
2.: Multimedia, mainly music and image editing. Both making and listening/enjoying music/art. I have already tried Gimp 2.x and the Ogg stuff for under Windows and really find them rather good.
3.: Some office stuff. (I guess OpenOffice will do fine for me)
4.: Do some Kernel/app customizations.

I have some docs about linux kernel from kernel.org, but I think I must see it it in real to learn something about it.
I would also like to know how free/costfull distros compete each other.

Thanks for all info in advance.

I like Slackware a lot; it has a very clean organization and is really nice to use. Most of the time now I'm using Ubuntu (free), which is based on Debian. Installation was easy, all my hardware (except the winmodem) is supported out of the box, and they send free CD's

OpenOffice is a bit sluggish, at least on my 600MHz box. KOffice is pretty responsive, but there are smaller & faster office programs.

I also like Slackware.

I'm using VectorLinux ( a Slackware derivative) on my laptop, it works very nicely.

OpenOffice works quite well on my Celeron M 1500Mhz... and on the AthlonXP 2600+ its' zippy.

yet another slacker chimes in with use slackware
slack 10.0 is the easyest distro to install I have ever seen
it's a bit big 3GBs lots of mutil meda stuff no more hassle setting up
X and do check out mplayer google.com/linux to find it
do boot in to the command line and startx to get in to X

I use slackware, too. Formerly I used debian, but slackware is much more convenient for me.

If you're not afraid of compiling your system from scratch I'd recomend trying either LFS (Linux from scratch) or (easier) a stage 1 gentoo install - if you follow the gentoo handbook you should be pretty much ok.
The advantage of gentoo is that it's a quite simple way of getting a (more or less) slimed install (eg, if you put -kde -genome -qt and some more and choose some wm like IceWM or xfce you'll get a pretty nice install) - also, if you try gentoo, when installing OOo - for [what ever you belive in or not ] emerge the openoffice-bin -- compiling it is just a waste of time (since present versions of OO is terrible broken with respect to optimizations - afaik it stripps all optimizations :/ )
The "down side" of gentoo is that you'll have to compile most stuff (via emerge - it does that for you, so all you have to do is tell it what to emerge and wait for it to finnish) - but on the other hand, running an "-march=k8 -O3 -pipe" compiled system is nice [note -march=k8 is specfic to amd64 CPUs, if you don't got one you'll need to specify another one]

btw, if you're in to kernel stuff, I'd really recomend giving -ck (Con Koliva's patchset) a try -- works like a charm! (don't forget to only tick in the [modified] CFQ i/o scheduler in the kenel config )

Really thanks a lot, I think I should watch out for some Slackware distros.

I use Linux Mandrake 9.1.

http://shweps.free.fr/minislack/

Minislack is a nice slimmed down version of slackware

I prefeer BSDs to linux, FreeBSD has given me no hassels so far. .

I'm also using Slackware 10.x.

I'm not big on the office suites but when I have to open Word files I use AbiWord since it does a pretty good job.

the home page for salck is http://slackware.com

once you slack you never go back

I use Ubuntu Linux.

If you want to try out Linux with out installing it on your hard drive

try a live Distro, like: Puppy
or Knoppix
or Mandrakemove
I like puppy .0.9.0_Opera the best.

It is real small 53MB and boots from a CD loads into ram and doesn't
bother your hard drive.

http://www.goosee.com/puppy/

Puppy a 56 MB live distro and the posibility of custumizing it.

WOW!

I have being looking for a small live distro, thanks.

I use Xandros. It's got a windows-like installer, but comes with a crap load of packages. It's not free, however.

for those who want Free Official Ubuntu CD, plez visit this site and put ur order.
http://shipit.ubuntulinux.org/

it is free, so let c

...if ordering ubuntu CDs, you should order a few (say 5) instead of a single one, and give a few to your friends; that way, you can save the ubuntu guys some postage expenses.

I do not want to discourage or anything, but here is a pathetic story, a true episode from my life:

Our professor, an open-source/anti-Microsoft zealot, was explaining to a class of 320 students how to access university servers using SSH with putty. Then he made a life-changing remark: he said that we all should be using Linux, because it is much better. He made it sound almost as if we required Linux to access university servers, and there was nothing else comparable in quality to it. Now, the minds of first-year university students (aka stupid geeks) are a perfect target for penetration by such profound remarks, especially coming from a respected professor. And so, after week, there appear numerous postings on course bulletin boards, where these poor beings start begging for answers on how to configure their network card, sound card, video card, and how to do X and Y using Linux. None of them want to admit their mistake, and try REALLY REALLY hard to forget how Windows installed every driver for them with no fuss. Tell me, how far would they get without GNOME/KDE?

I think your professor did the right thing. Learning something is always a pain but it is also a challenge. I made this decision more than 8 years ago by myself after I finished my diplom software under Windows. The general performance of a Linux system is far better than that of a windows one. Windows networking is a catastrophe. No better word. Slow network connections make it slow and irresponsive. Why? Windows' scheduling method is a big zero. A normal process may run with 100% processor load while the others remain totally irresponsive. Sometimes you encounter processes (started by simple user application) which you can't stop anyway (except by reboot). Windows' security is also a zero (e.g. user continously have to have root permissions). Permissions to system directories (sorry, folders) are granted to anybody. If you catch a virus then it can damage the entire system. It's a joke. Windows is still no multi-user OS. Nvidia video cards show really better performance under linux than under windows. And we could continue endlessly.

I admit I use neither KDE nor GNOME thus I had also some problems with my printer but I learned how to solve it. My oldest PC has an S3 video card. It works 20% faster under linux than under Windows. Why? because the driver is configurable appropriately. Ah, almost forgotten. The driver did never crash the system yet.

You know the law: Create a system which is usable also by stupid people. -- It will be used only by them.