Hello Dave,

> 1.  For my stereo preferences, i used to be an active stereo nut - but I 
> have switched over to passive - and will never go back.  It's cheaper to 
> maintain (even with expensive monitors), easier to load operating 
> systems (you don't need nvidia drivers - you don't even need a video 
> card - on board video is good enough)

This presumes you're never going to want to do any other sort of heavy-duty
OpenGL-based visualization.  PyMOL, Coot, VMD, CCP4mg, Chimera, etc, all
work better with decent hardware accelerated 3d, which in practical terms
means using an Nvidia card and driver under linux.  From the front page of
the Nouveau site: "Any 3D functionality that might exist is still
unsupported."

> I didn't try scientific linux - but that did seem to get the most votes 
> (for something beyond fedora/red hat).

The problem with CentOS and Scientific Linux is that the current versions
are still based on Red Hat 5, which is getting rather old at this point and
has a pretty poor desktop experience.  Once they have switched over to Red
Hat 6 as their base, they should have a more competitive offering.

This isn't an issue so much if you have a nice Mac sitting around for web
browsing and working with documents, but if the linux machine is your
primary desktop, those distributions are pretty out of date.

> Many do like fedora - and with newer hardware it works great - just fc13
> and old hardware poses issues.  i don't know fc14 - I didn't try it (but
> it was preferred).  

The _latest_ version of Fedora is _always_ the preferred one.  The whole
reason to run Fedora is to get access to the latest and greatest linux
kernels, Xorg bits, desktop environments, system-level improvements, etc,
since it's not a distribution particularly known for its stability or
widespread availability of packages.

By running an older version, your installation will be dropped from
supported status sooner, which means you no longer get security updates.
You won't think this matters until someone finds an account with a weak
password and then leverages a local root exploit to hack your systems, send
spam and mess with your files.

To put it another way, most people don't think it's important to wear
safety glasses in the wet lab until they splash something nasty in their
eyes...

There is some measure of truth to the idea that different Fedora versions
have differing levels of stability, since as I noted above it's a test bed
for lots of new technologies, but the idea that Fedora 13 will be
significantly better than Fedora 14 is basically bogus.

Unless you are a linux enthusiast and really want to learn new linux
skills, I almost never recommend Fedora for a production workstation.

> Ubuntu was also up there - and i will give it a try later - but not 
> now.  most say it's a good one system thing - and while some used it in 
> a network - some said that others may be better in my situation.

I saw that comment, but the person didn't provide any support for that
claim, and I don't think it's true.

In any case, my advice on this question usually boils down to a very simple
answer: pick the distribution that the primary support person knows best.
If the person supporting the machines is you, then pick the distribution
you know best (or want to learn).  If you have access to institutional IT
support with linux experience, then pick the distribution they support.

-ben

--
| Ben Eisenbraun
| SBGrid Consortium                          | http://sbgrid.org       |
| Harvard Medical School                     | http://hms.harvard.edu  |