SOLVED help me choose a linux O/S

hey everyone I am hoping to get a extra HD soon to dual boot 7 and linux, but I dont know what version of linux to get, I have tried the different version of ubuntu and loved it, I also kinda liked fedora but from what I have read people have been having lots of problems with the latest releases

basicly I want to try to "bench test" in a way, I basicly want to try to get different games installed and running dont care how old they are, I also dont mind getting my hands dirty when it comes to linux, I will also be using the computer in my sig, keep in mind I have ati

if anyone has any suggestions let me know thanks

If you have ATI your life is going to be interesting enough to start out with... I'm running ubuntu 10.10 and I can't even boot if the ati proprietary drivers are installed. Switching over to nvidia to dodge the problem entirely, but that's not something I reccomend anyone should deal with.

That being said though; I would reccomend ubuntu primarily.

Yeah, when I was running ATI I used the open source drivers and ended up writing xorg.conf from scratch as well as putting a small script in .xinitrc just to get dual monitors working.

Personally I don't like ubuntu though. I say try a bunch of live cds and see what works for you

And I recommend Arch all the time, but if you really wanna find out how linux works and get your hands dirty I really can't think of a better distro to do it with

I guess its just me but I have never had as many problems as others have with linux and ATI for me it has just worked

I have installed the drivers from ATIs site in linux no problem. Been doing it since Ubuntu 8.04. My favorite distro is Linux Mint 10 by far. That's what I'd recommend.

hmm. must have gotten a lot better in the past 3 years since ive owned an ati card

${freak} said:

hmm. must have gotten a lot better in the past 3 years since ive owned an ati card

Click to expand...

They have, mostly in the last year and a half. AMD/ATI have started making decent drivers for their newer (not always newest) cards.
But, since i started regularly using Linux in 2004 I have entirely switched to Nvidia also, so i'm not up on the most current trends with ATI and Linux.

TO the OP, you're going to be a bit limited on games. Wine and Crossover can play some games, but you're still a bit limited. I know that one decent Linux game (Tremulous) is based on the Quake 3 engine. (I think that a significant number of games on Steam work, but i've never tried, there should be a sticky for gaming on Linux)

Most steam games do work, including source engine games