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I'm looking for the best Linux version with good hardware support and free offered in download form.

KTHX!

1) All Linux distributions have more or less the same level of hardware support. Drivers from software are compiled as kernel modules. If you mean out-of-the-box precompiled drivers, then one of the super-bloated ditros like Mandrake or the less-bloated Redhat is probably your best bet.

2) All Linux distributions are available in free download form, that's one of the terms of the GPL.

I use Slackware. Good hardware support, extremely fast, and standards-compliant. It also only requires 1 ISO.

I favor suse most.. suse 9.0 got precompiled goodies like I-Force drivers and I installed it and have had very good luck with it. My Logitech wingman strike force 3d force feedback joystick works great. My epson C82 usb printer works. My acer 320u usb scanner works.. and all auto detected without having to download anything and setup or recompile kernel to get things in there.

If you have nvidia geforce card and download the latest driver btw (5823 i think it was) downgrade to 4496. new driver bugged.

Suse seems to be very newb friendly to me. And I just installed it and this is the first time Ive seen this joystick/scanner work on linux. Also plugged in my fuji camera and it loaded it up as removable storage. Compared to my past experiance where everything was being loaded manually like my cam (mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt/cam) its nice to see it all working without me doing anything.
This KDE desktop kicks arz too.. Ive installed a lot of things from source without ever touching the console. with file manager just right click on tar.gz file and select extract and then on configure file just click on it and it pops up with the readme file click next and every option is listed for you that is available in configure file. next configure/compiles and installs. very impressed.

Mandrake 9 or Redhat 8

I also use Slackware. Sleek.

What about Xandros? I thought that was supposed to be free but it seems not to be. Is it good also?

JMEaT, you might want to download Knoppix and see if you actually like it before you bother actually installing Linux. Basically, you download the bootable ISO, burn it to CD and have fun.

Try Mepis Linux (mepis.org). This is a LiveCD distribution that's based on Debian. What that means is that you can burn an entire installation of Linux onto a CD and run it from the CD. All you have to do is put the CD in your drive when you boot your computer and it will run from there. It's a fun way to try out features of Linux without having to actually install it. It's also based on Debian, one of the most stable Linux distributions available. Lastly, it has hotplug support, so it can frequently auto-detect hardware for you.

Knoppix is similar to Mepis and came out before it. I have no experience with Knoppix, however.

The best "it just works" distribution is probably Mandrake, but also try Fedora Core if you feel Mandrake is too slow / bloated for you.

Just don't use a live CD distribution if you use NTFS; or at the very least mount the filesystem read-only.

I don't think that matters, at least in the case of Mepis. Mepis saves all of its data to the "RAM drive" (which I'll take to mean the system's RAM). Never had a problem with it, even though my main drives are formatted as NTFS.

You need explictly turn on serveral kernel options before compling to even get to writing NTFS.

Recent Slackware releases use 2 ISOs (I know 9.1 does).

Also, the 2.6.x kernel series is a lot safer with NTFS writing, but it is also limited in what it can do, at least as of 2.6.0.

I currently use Slackware 9.1 myself .

I checked out slackware's site, but it's a bit conusing. Do I just need the ISO? There were a bunch of other links.

/me is an ISO newb

All you need is the ISO and a CD Burner program capable of opening an ISO and burning a disk image of it. Nero can do that ...

OK, I thought so. I use nero 5.something.

Thx for all the feedback!

Yeah, Nero 5 can handle that no problems.

The cheesy-ass Roxio Easy CD Creator that comes with a lot of CD burners, however, can't manage it. There's a great Windows power tool called ISO Recorder out there (by Alex Feinman) that lets you right-click on any ISO file and select burn to CD, and vice versa. Convenient.

Almost all Linux distributions come on ISO files. You just burn the images to a CD. You might want to check the MD5 checksum as well to make sure you got the ISO file correctly. Especially if you use tools like GetRight, there is the possibility that the files get corrupted, being as huge as they are, and it's always good to make sure.

Speaking of which, is there any freakin way to get Suse on an ISO besides the live trial or whatever they call it? All they have to offer is the install from an FTP but I dont have the luxury of broadband.

Seriously, is it that hard for them to make a freaking ISO? Why FTP?

Suse, through the argument that their installation program is proprietary, routinely refuses to release the ISOs of their distribution. Really. They make you go down to the store and pay $60 for something that's freely available from every other company. Go figure. Frankly, it's a wonder Suse survives.

Linux ISO for all your ISO needs

Sweet Kompy