Help me pick a Linux distro

Oh, and there are different flavors of Ubuntu, which are: Standard (Ubuntu) - GNOME desktop KUbuntu - KDE desktop - if you don't already have a preference, just use GNOME, that's where most of the Linux GUI development is going on XUbuntu - XFCE desktop - for use on older machines, or for people who just like low resource usage Netbook Remix - Basically just standard Ubuntu with a Netbook-specialized application launcher Edubuntu - Designed for use in schools

Honestly, my impression is that people who choose Gentoo eventually burn out. This is going to sound strange, but many of my friends and roommates in college experimented with Gentoo. At the time, it's lack of binary packages and general Do-It-Yourself attitude either drained them of enthusiasm or drove them to unhealthy obsessive compulsive customization (at one point I noted to my roommate that his main use of Gentoo seemed to be customizing which screensavers appeared). Much of what ignited the popularity of Gentoo was the insular and partitioned nature of Debian development (and the apparent stall where releases were very far apart). Gentoo did a good job of catering to people who wanted to step it up but couldn't navigate Debian's quasi "hiring" process. I think Canonical / Ubuntu has made great strides to make this much simpler, without sacrificing quality assurance.

I've only used Ubuntu and Kubuntu, so I can only speak to those--but with Ubuntu you should be able to do all of that. With Intrepid Ibex, I've had zero driver issues. Honestly, I don't see any reason why you should just start with Ubuntu, since it's free (as in beer). Once you get accustomed to it, if it's not meeting your needs, it won't be hard to switch to another distro.

Start with Ubuntu/Debian if you intend to be just a user Start wirh Gentoo/Slackware if you intend to be a geek :)

Unless you have some particular need to provide a yardstick, I think that trying to research distros to compare their strengths and weaknesses would be more likely to confuse than enlighten. In general, the big modern desktop distros are all striving to be easy to install, use, and maintain, and the arguments about their relative success are infinite, 'cause everyone's priorities are different. Like a lot of people here, I use Ubuntu. I doubt you'd feel you'd gone horribly wrong if you go with it, but I'd expect that to be true of the others people have recommended.

For what you want, I would suggest http://www.linuxmint.com/. It's a Ubuntu based distro but is focused on more ease of use. Plus, it looks better imho.

Regarding drivers, (and software in general), you are going to fuck up your system and rob it of one of the biggest Linux advantages if you go on google, download something, and install it, as your fist course of action. Use the package manager, with only the default repositories for your distro/version. This will provide access to everything you just said you use, and a few thousand other bundles of programs also if you ever want to install a kitchen recipe organizer app or whatever. When I first started with Linux I tried to do things the windows/mac way, googling for what I want and downloading/installing by hand. I managed to make a very unreliable and buggy system that way, and it was a lot of work messing it up that bad too. Now there are two or three programs I custom install from source, and I never need drivers that don't come with the system. The one issue driver wise I have seen is that it seems Ubuntu uses some patent-encumbered or not-quite-free stuff for WPA wireless that is not availible with Debian, I was forced to switch my Debian laptops to Ubuntu and Dyne:Bolic to be able to use WPA.

Red Hat is not "Corporations only need apply" (we're all aware that Canonical Ltd. actually isn't a hippie commune, right?) By that I simply mean that the primary benefit of Red Hat is the support contract, which obviously is of no use to anyone but companies. RHEL and CentOS are indeed fine distros for servers. Fedora, on the other hand... I wouldn't recommend it, and most certainly not over Ubuntu. As you say, they don't put a whole hell of a lot of care into it.

For a laptop, you should probably go with Ubuntu, definitely go for Ubuntu if you want to use binary drivers. If you want strong security (not sure you do since you say you http://www.securityfocus.com/blogs/273) then go for Fedora: selinux works really well these days.