Hi, I've just bought a new Acer laptop which will be delivered today.
I need a great version of linux to run to dual boot with Windows XP (bah! - my partner won't let me delete it :) on the laptop. I've been using Mandrake / Mandriva for the last few years but I've had enough of their crappy new corporate focus so I'm looking for a change. What recommendations can you make for a new flavour of linux that has a simple dual boot install process into an existing Windows XP laptop? Most of the work I'll be doing on it will be email, open office, general desktop use, VMware, samba, Apache 2, ssh etc. Probably the most feature I need is easy to set up wireless networking. I'm leaving for Auckland on Tuesday and need to have wireless networking set up and working before then. The last time I tried to set up wireless networking 18 months ago it was a nightmare of cryptic configuration files. So... recommendations? Ubantu maybe? I've been itching to try a debian solution for some time. Bonus points if you have a copy of the latest version of that distribution on CD / DVD that I could pick up tomorrow in exchange for a reasonable copying fee. Thanks!
