I've run the gambit over the last month or so, testing Mandrake 10.1 SuSe 9.2 Professional, Fedora Core 2, Fedora Core 3, and I even tried to install Gentoo. Gentoo isn't for beginners
After testing them all they each have their ups and downs, Mandrake and SuSe are great for install, setup, run, don't worry about updates. They have their own update systems (YOU for SuSe and I don't remember what Mandrakes is called) but they only update certain components, I couldn't for the life of me get YOU to update to the latest kernel. Mandrake also has a pay for update service, but I never even bothered because I didn't like Mandrake the much.
As far as Fedora Core goes, 2 comes pre packaged with the source to the kernel, which you need for certain things (like the horendous ATI drivers) but SuSe and Mandrake and Gentoo come with it as well. Fedora Core 3 however, is not prepackaged with the kernel source, they say its to manage disc space. You can get away with not installing the source as long as you don't plan to recompile your kernel.
My main thing was package availability. Fedora Core 3 has a TON of packages and package websites ready for it always with the latest software. You can almost always find precompiled i3/4/5/686 RPM files (Redhat Package Managment) which installs and rebuilds your system around new packages. Which is nice if you don't know much about compiling src files. I will admit I have a very limited compile knowledge (though I did manage to build my own ZSNES 1.42 this week) so it's nice that almost everything I want is always up to date in a prebuilt package for me. I could usually find some version of what I want for SuSe but it was either a version or 2 behind the current, or built for 9.0 or 9.1. Mandrake was rather difficult to find precompiled files for.
Package management is also key for me. I rather like Gnome 2.8 as opposed to KDE 3.3 which is what SuSe is built around. Gnome for SuSe is version 2.6 which I don't care for, and theres also no built in RPM management utility for Gnome is SuSe, which means if I want to install anything, I had to either do it in the terminal, or I had to log out of Gnome, switch to KDE and install, then switch back to Gnome and use what I wanted, and sometimes that didn't even work (Mupen is a good example, for the life of my I couldn't get it working in Gnome 2.6 but it works in Fedora with 2.8). With Fedora Core 3 theres RPM management in Gnome because its based off of the Redhat architechture. I just double click my RPM files, and it starts to install, tells me what other packages I need to find and install, and I can usually get everything to work okay. With Mandrake I didn't really worry about it because I only really used it a few days before getting rid of it, because I didn't care for it.
Video drivers are a catagory all their own. I litterally bought a new video card because ATI drivers were horrible. They are eons behind Nvidia's. With my new 6800 I used the
Unofficial Fedora FAQ and their utilities for installing my drivers and it worked well enough to get them installed, but I still had to edit my X.Org config to utilize the drivers, and getting Dual Monitors working as 1 monitor like in XP was a whole other story, way more X.Org config editing there too. But that's just how my setup is, either side has driver problems, ATI's are the worst though, I couldnt even log into the X-System (GUI For Linux) after a botched install of them, but with Nvidia I installed the drivers, logged into X, modified a couple files, restarted and had full 3D acceleration, which is important for gamers. So thats all a matter of what video card you use.
Other then that hardware detection is pretty spot on at this point, the only other problems I had was my sound card, but that was because my onboard sound and my SOund Blaster Live! 5.1 were interfering with one another, I had to disable onboard and then reinstall FC3 to get it all working, but it isnt hard to do. In SuSe I couldnt get my internet connection to be recognized during the update part of the installer, but as soon as I was logged in it found it. So that wasn't really a big deal either. Printers and Scanners are also troublesome in Linux sometimes, because a lot of major companies don't make linux drivers for consumer based products. My Canon S900 needed to use the S800 drivers with a DPI tweak to print full sized. But overall its pretty effortless to install everything. I haven't worried about my scanner, because I never use it.
Overall, I am most happy with Fedora Core 3, but that's just me, Linux is insanely versetile, and there's a build out there for everyone. Gentoo is th emost customizable as it builds itself around your hardware, SuSe and Mandrake are great beginner build because there are a decent ammount of options without getting too technical, I chose Fedora because its a pretty decent mid level user build, it lets you do a lot of Terminal Work as well as dueling out a lot of automated stuff for you, plus FC3 is right on the edge of the up and coming. Latest packages for everything are always built for Fedora and it always gets you up to date with all the newest updates and kernel builds that are actual stable releases (no betas) plus a slew of other features. It doesn't support NTFS drive reading out of the box but a simple package install and FSTAB edit fixes that, but I like it the most.
I hope this helps you decide which Linux to try, I would recommend SuSe if you're just starting, and most prefer KDE but thats them, I like Gnome because it runs less crap in the background. If you want a bit more of a challenge, go for Fedora, because its a good time, but if you really want to tackle linux all at once, get the latest Universal Installer for Gentoo and go to town.
