What's your favourite distro?

[smugiri]

Pipelines: I don't know/care, but keep in mind that the fireGL might be running even hotter than my x1400 (idle at 67-72 deg).

SLED is the suse linux enterprise edition.

Live CD's: tried ubuntu 6.06.1 - fully functional. It detected everything except graphics (it was running vesa at reduced resolution). I still used the alternate install CD to get grub into the boot sector of a partition instead of the master boot record (I have a fully functional dual-boot with the rescue partition intact). As I said earlier, you have to make minor adjustments to get everything running.

Main differences? I'm used to ubuntu and like the way it's structured. SLED appeared cluttered in comparison (I didn't like their new start window at all). I guess it's a matter of taste.

Thats another thing; I could not bring myself to like the start window either.

[Dead1nside]

Well the ATi FireGl T2 is quite old, I'd say they're probably around the same heat disappation. A bit of arctic silver 5 usually brings it down 5 Degrees or so.

I mean are their different structures like I hear people talking about Debian based distributions etc. is it the package management that is the main difference?

[ischg]

I mean are their different structures like I hear people talking about Debian based distributions etc. is it the package management that is the main difference?

Sure, I totally forgot about this aspect. Ubuntu is debian based, SLED is rpm based. If you're just using some software package manager, you don't really feel the difference. But working under the hood it's another world. I've converted rpm's to deb's before (using 'alien'), and they installed fine. I honestly don't have experience the other way around.

And, as I've said in some older post, if you just use the GUI's, they feel about the same (basically personal preference). Under the hood I feel that ubuntu offers more freedom (but that might be just because I'm used to it).

Why don't you just create a couple of partitions and create a multi-boot system to see what you like? A base install of linux is really small (10 gig gives you more than enough space to experiment), and if you happen to run out of space, you can always mount a different partition into your file system. As an example, I have my system set up like this:

/dev/sda1 ... winXP
/dev/sda2 ... linux swap (2 gig)
/dev/sda4 ... extended partition (contains GRUB)
/dev/sda5 ... ubuntu root file system (12 gig)
/dev/sda6 ... SLED root file system (12 gig)
/dev/sda7 ... linux /home directory (19 gig mounted on ubuntu)
/dev/sda8 ... vacant (haven't decided what to do with it yet)
/dev/sda3 ... thinkvantage rescue/recovery
(dev/sda's are the harddrive partitions as seen by the machine)

The advantage of the linux file system is that you can start on a smaller footprint and expand it as you need.