I am NOT a computer expert. I tried RH8 and it recognized everything on a computer that was several years older. I said, "Why not on a laptop" I threw it on a laptop and bang it runs perfectly. I really am not any good with computers, and I was surprised that I was having no problems. My confidence was gaining and I tried a new computer with RH9. Bang - perfect! I tried downloading and installing Mplayer - no luck. Tried Xine. No problem! I had tried swapping an NVidia card with an old generic SIS - not much luck with Redhat. I had purchased SuSE 8.2 because I heard it was good. Nvidia card recognized without any problem. Went back to RH9 because it was more stable than SuSE, installing ATI instead. Tried Ximian, worked great. Downloaded Fedora. I love it. Put Suse 9 on my wife's machine, in the process wiping out a legal copy of Windows XP before backing up. (Did you know you don't get discs anymore?!) She is using it quite easily. Moral of the story? A newbie as lame as myself did quite well with Linux of various flavors on various levels of hardware; even though I realize i had setbacks, I figured out alternates and other ways around; and, finally I realized that Linux is worth the work, and is accessible to everyone. I can't understand that someone who boasts that they know alot about computers could say that they had trouble with linux.
