Will probably be at installfest, but not sure which distro I want.

[guildl at rcn.com (Laurence Guild)]

I would like to go to install fest. Will there be distros available there ? If so, which might most likely be there ? I'm not sure which distro I want. should I possibly download several different distros onto my machine and then discuss at install fest further which I should use ? If certain distros are likey to be there, then perhaps I would bring some other alternatives to those ?

I am familiar with unix in that I worked on an AIX for many years and SUN OS/solaris as well. 

I am a programmer, mainly interested in Perl, Ruby, Java, C++, etc. I'm doing this for my resume, experience, and possible work. Also, a distro that I could eventually decide to use instead of windows for word processing, email, browsing the web and so on might be good. I want to be able to put linux on my resume and use my laptop with linux to do telecommuting type work if needed for various companies that require linux and I have a particular interest in web type work with Ruby, Perl/CGI, etc.  I've looked at the linux.org listing and there are so many distros to chose from that I allmost don't know where to start. I am planning to research it further, it's just I am affraid I am going to have a hard time deciding. I want to maintain a windows partition.


===========================================

Some info on my HP laptop that I bought a couple of months ago: 


>From "my computer" it shows: 


processor 1.60 GHz 
590 Mhz, 504 MB of ram 

from Accesories -> system tools -> system information it shows 

total 512 MB, available 105.36 MB 
total virtual 2 gig 
avail virtual 1.96 gig 

When I bought it, it was advertised as having a 60 gig hard drive, though from my-computer it shows 47.3 gig. I would like to keep a 
windows partition. 




Thanks 

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