I am thinking of switching my compuer to Linux…what is a good variant/release that you can recommend for stability and security?

1. I had an old release of Mandrake years ago…not bad but crashed a lot, full of security holes, bugs.
2. THANKS SO MUCH
3. As well, I have WinXP pro installed..it it a pain to make a dual boot *(absoultely without partitioning (don't want to do this)*, or should I just get another machine?
4. Also…I want something with no corporate OS hooks in it..so they can sneak around behind the scenes…Im weary of commercial variants, but again I am paranoid
5. my main uses: total security (locking down with firewalls and encryption, paranoid tracking) programming, word processing tools, and surfing
6. Mandrakelinux has now become deprecated, and goes under the Mandriva release.

   I like Fedora Core, and if you've had some experience with Linux in the past, I would go for that too. Deiban is the other alternative I might suggest if you don't want Fedora.

   However, you cannot run linux in a duel boot wihtout partitioning the drive, because you have to set up the MBR properly. One thing you might try is running Linux from a CD, which Knoppix can do.

   Hope this helps.

Tags: linux system, linux driver