Which distros should I consider ?

[rac at gabrielmass.com (Richard Chonak)]

Kent Borg wrote:

> Yes.  What does one say of Mandrivia these days?  What is the short
> description?

Mandriva has an ill-chosen name w.r.t. the English-speaking world, but 
whaddaya want: it's a French-and-Brazilian company.

Version 2006 has quite good hardware detection, a user-friendly 
installer, all the popular window managers, and easy-to-use admin 
wizards (the "drakconf" program), including a convenient tool for adding 
packages and package updates later from the net.

The paid versions add non-free video drivers (e.g., nVidia's).  Getting 
that driver was critical for my new ASUS mobo with an nVidia 6100 
interface:  the free X.org "nv" driver didn't support the 6100.

They also offer a version compiled for 64-bit Athlon platforms.

The free 32-bit "Mandriva One" live-CD is a good place to start:
http://www.mandriva.com/en/community/mandrivaone

--RC