First off, thanks for all the responses, they are VERY helpful.

Slackware... Despite my Subgenius leanings I don't think I'm ready to
jump in there.

Looking around on my own I had considered Red Hat, SuSE and Mandrake,
and I think I need to check further into each of them. I may try more
than one.

Re the machine - I called General Nanosystems and talked to one of their
techies who was very helpful on the hardware compatibility issue. As far
as I can tell, provided I go with a hardware modem (he recommended US
Robotics) and not a winmodem I should be okay with installing Linux on a
system they build for me. (My last two PCs were from General Nanosystems
and I like them a lot.)

I intend to call Tran Micro also and see what they have to say.

Building my own... That's a stretch, but I haven't ruled it out.

Btw - part of the reason I am checking out Linux, aside from complete
disgust with Microsoft, is a sense that Linux home and office pc systems
are ready to break out of their 'just for geeks' reputation and go
mainstream. (We can partly thank Microsoft's licensing for that.) I want
to see if I'm right.

Thanks again for the help. I'll be posting more as questions come up.

Cheers,

Charlie Obert



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