have been an avid SuSe user since 1996 and am currently using a multi-boot setup (XP/Vista/OpenSuse). If you want to use a laptop, go for OpenSuSe or Ubuntu with the latest kernel (2.6.x) since you have the best chances of getting nearly all your hardware working. Try a bootable cd/dvd to check for compatibility

If you feel more confident you can switch to other distro’s or even to BSD family (OpenBSD/FreeBSD), even OS X is BSD based. I personally prefer BSD for my servers (but that’s just my choice).

Those like Ubuntu are variants of Debian (based on Debian core).

You can learn more by reading the distro pages or reading about them on Wikipedia.

The Kernel version will look something like 2.4.16 or 2.6.12.

All the stuff I know on linux has been self taught and read off the internet so I apologize for any odd statements for a fluent linux person such as yourself.

I am looking into using a linux OS along side my computer which also uses XP and hopefully (sometime soon) OSX 10.5. I will have a looksie at Mandriva 2008. If worse comes to worse I could always setup some kind of dual boot system so I don’t have to worry about certain compatibility issues.

Thanks for the advice on Debian and pointing out my mistake on the GNOME and KDE desktop environments. Would you mind explaining to me what exactly those are (I know its complicated so just a sentence or two would serve just fine).

I wouldn’t have guessed that you’re not a linux user. But you are right about one thing. We don’t have compatibility issues. We just use the right software.

For every windows application there is an equally good Linux application.

Oh, and Gnome is a desktop environment. Not a kernel version. Ubuntu and Debian both are Linux distributions, but I wouldn’t recommend Debian for a Linux newbie. Users like yourself should probably try Mandriva 2008. Who knows, your games might even work with Cedega.

I personally am not a linux user (planning on making the switch sometime soon after learning how to use it as well as what programs I will need to getting it running all the stuff I need (games, compilers, media stuff, video editing software, etc etc))

Although Crossfire seems like a good program I am sure Linux users like yourself with a lot of experience can find easier and more efficient ways around compatibly problems that may arise. software like this seems to be designed for more casual users like myself rather than ITs or in goodpeople’s case, computer teachers.

Also
If you can recommend any good starting sources/linux distributions that would be great. Right now I am considering the GNOME kernel version of Ubuntu or Debian.

I believe that infancy is the problem with this application. Well, the latter in addition to the lack of proper and thorough documentation. Personally, given that I only will be running sites on Linux/Apache, I really have no use for a tool like this, right now. Should I find an IIS out there in the wild, I may try it out, but not before trying other, better and well-known tools, first.

Just a quick note to you linux users. There is an application out there called Crossfire used for running programs across operating systems (windows > linux, windows > mac, etc) so you might be able to try these programs out. I haven’t used it myself but its worth a little bit of looking into.

Works like a charm!