Hi Howard, I think that fortunately *most* modern distributions can probably meet your requirements. As a result, the recommendations you get will likely mostly reflect personal preference.
I would recommend Debian. I moved from OpenSUSE 10.2 to Debian myself, actually. I used an ICE1724 card (an AV710) with it back in 2008-2010ish, and also used Jack. Most distributions will support disabling login managers (in order to avoid X starting automatically) and modern web browsers. Debian has DVD-based installation images which have many packages on them which could be downloaded here: http://www.debian.org/CD/http-ftp/#stable or, purchased here: http://www.debian.org/CD/vendors/#us Other good choices for you might be Fedora, modern OpenSUSE, or possibly Arch Linux. You could even switch from Linux to FreeBSD, which has envy24 drivers supporting several M-Audio cards included [1,2]. I actually find FreeBSD's sound system to be refreshingly straight-forward. -Tim 1. http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=snd_envy24&manpath=FreeBSD+10.0-RELEASE 2. http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=snd_envy24ht&manpath=FreeBSD+10.0-RELEASE On Fri, Aug 08, 2014 at 09:37:42PM -0700, Howard Sanner wrote: > I'm currently running SuSE 10.5 and would like to upgrade to something more > modern. My requirements are as follows: > > 1. Ability to boot into a non-graphical user interface and start X when and > if I want to. > > 2. No-so-modern audio tools available: Jack, support for the ICE1724 chip. > > 3. Web browser that works with, e.g., the part of the USPS web site for > tracking packages, Yahoo, etc., etc. > > 4. Available on DVD or via some other method that does not involve > downloading. > > Thanks for your suggestions. > > Howard Sanner > linux-au...@terrier.ampexguy.com
