If I were to migrate to Linux right now.....

.....which flavor and/or version should I go with?

I'm currently running a dual-boot Win95B/Mandrake Linux 8.2 on my testbed system, which I call "slave" (after one of the computers in Blake's 7). Slave is a trash-picked Gateway Pentium-II 400 Mhz with 192 Mb of RAM. After adding a few spare parts -- video card, hard drives, network card -- it's become a working system, although I hardly use it. I use it so infreqently that I forgot my screen-saver password when it's running Linux, and I have to reboot it.

Last year at this time, I was intrigued with Linspire 5.0. I've often thought that if there was a decent version of Linux on the desktop, it would provide Windows with some serious competition. This past year, I've been hearing nice things about Xandros and Ubuntu. Add a copy of OpenOffice, Firefox, and Thunderbird, and that would cover nearly all the bases.

Another advantage of the flavors of Linux is that I can freely distribute the OS. If I decide to get rid of my testbed, or any other old system, I can install the OS and then give the machine to someone. That's a lot harder to do with Windows.

So, for those of you who have worked with these flavors of Linux, I'd be interested in hearing your experiences. Ditto that for the KDE and Gnome desktop environments.

Cleaning up the computer farm.....

I've been somewhat inspired by folkmew's last post about PCs, Macs, and why people like them. I'm not going to engage in any platform wars. But it did get me thinking about Linux again, as evidenced by my last post.

Based on the recommendations of autographedcat and redaxe, I ordered a free copy of Ubuntu Linux. (Can't beat the price.) I'll wait the 4-6 weeks it will take for them to ship it to me.

In the meantime, I really should do something with all the excess computers I have here at home. I'd like to donate them to the local refurbisher (OTAP), but they're too old to be accepted and refurbished as they don't meet their minimum standard. So now I'm stuck with these machines, unless I either give them away or put them up on Freecycle or even eBay. What else can I do with them? I'd rather not throw them out.