I agree with the choice of Mandrake for a beginner.  Once you have that
under your belt, then you can start with gentoo.  With gentoo you get a
very basic linux system (non-gui) with internet capability.  On top of that
you can download and install packages from the gentoo portage system to add
gui capability (X, kde, gnome, xfce, etc.), print support(cups), etc.  This
takes a lot of time and patience and help from other more experienced
users.

If you are not comfortable with doing a lot of searches on your own for
howto instructions about individual packages, you won't like gentoo at all.
 If you are, you will find gentoo a wonderful learning experience.


On Mon, 28 May 2001 14:23:18 +0200 Sebastian Werner
<sebastian@...> wrote:

> I think gentoo is to hard at beginning in linux - yes the distribution is
> free.... but you have to do everything by hand...
> 
> For a newbie i always say use Mandrake (www.mandrake.org)
> 
> Sebastian
> 
> Am Montag, 28. Mai 2001 06:34 schrieben Sie:
> > Hi
> > My nick name is Alamcreative
> > I live in Jakarta, Indonesia.
> > I am study university live Jakarta.
> > I am beginning in Linux, and i want try  this linux.
> >
> > May I have Linux Soft and book gentoo linux ?
> > and that's free ?
> >
> > Thank's
> >
> > Alamcreative
> >
> > Nb : Please Repl My Email

-- 
Collins Richey
Denver area
gentoo system