Recommend a distro.

Hobbes

This is a little bit different then distro for a newbie.

Here's the deal I am looking for the following kind of Distro. I'm not an expert but at the same time I'm not a noob either.

1. Easy to install / maintain. (if money is involved how much).

2. I need a Desktop version but has to be able to run the following.
- Eclipse
- Video files (various types)
- Tomcat
- Adobe PDF files (in version 8 may be required)
- USB devices.

3. Machine has a 3D card GeForce Go 7800 GTX. It has to support this.

4. Ability to run windows programs reasonably well. Games is a bonus, but not vital. Pretty much the only game I have for windows I can live with for the moment is Eve.

I'm using SUSE 10 Enterprise in work which is nice but can't use it at home due to licensing issues.

Blowfish

Hobbes wrote:

4. Ability to run windows programs reasonably well. Games is a bonus, but not vital. Pretty much the only game I have for windows I can live with for the moment is Eve.

Thats going to be pretty much your only point of contention. Wine will emulate some windows programs, others you'll have problems with. Have a look and see will it do the ones you will need. Eve is fully playable under wine with a bit of fiddling.

Other than that, i'd say pretty much any of the main distros will do what you want. Ubuntu is one of the most popular, but since you are used to it, you can always get openSuSe. It does have some things which annoy me though.

humbert

I'd say that's about the pick of them. I'd plug gentoo but it's not easy to install.

Hobbes

yea with the window stuff I'm not that overly concerned everything I use the machine for there is already a Linux app for it (eg. GIMP, OpenOffice)

Pretty much Eve is all I have that I am not sure plays on Linux or not.

Hobbes

going to give Ubuntu a shot on VMWare to see if its worth switching to.

Blowfish

Theres a thread here on the Eve forums showing how you can play it using either wine or Cedega (another emulator, you have to pay for it though)