Daniel Burke wrote: > I found that ASUS listed some driver download for Linux. In Windows I > would know what to do with it. In Linux I do not. So what do I do? What Todd said. With very few exceptions (wireless being at the top of the list), you'll never really need to worry about drivers with any modern Linux distro. Check to make sure your wireless dongle is compatible (I've had good luck with Netgear) before you buy it. Here's a good link for that: http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/net/wireless/cards.html Also on the subject of drivers, may I suggest Intel onboard video as opposed to buying a card from Nvidia or ATI. The Intel drivers are open source which the big names are not. Practically speaking, this means you'll never need to worry about your video driver. I bought Nvidia cards for years before getting a new tower with intel onboard, and I've never looked back. > To keep things simple for my wife, I was thinking of going with KDE. Is > this a good choice? Live CDs are your friend. Burn one of a Gnome distro, one for KDE, and one for XFCE, and take your pick. I deal with lots of noobs, and I do push Ubuntu (Gnome), even though I personally use KDE. > Our children are still very young but it won't be long before they will > want to play on the computer. Any advice on setup that might make my > life easier with the kids accessing the PC over the next decade? Ubuntu (or any distro that uses the sudo model) makes this very easy. There is no root account by default, and the "do this as root" password is the password of the original user (you). When you make new users, they don't have root access unless you give it to them. I know on Ubuntu when you make a new user, the menu items that require root access don't even appear in their menus. > And thinking of children, is there any quick options to "lock" a Linux > PC? In Windows XP, I just have to press the Window+L on the keyboard > when our little two year old boy comes near to prevent him from using my > account with my access to do anything (logging off and shutting down in > Windows takes too long as little boys can be very quick). Ubuntu (I know, Ubuntu Ubuntu Ubuntu) has a "lock screen" option in the shutdown menu. Other distros may do it differently. Anyway, welcome to TCLUG!