Quote Originally Posted by Ramses II CP
Second question: Right now I have Fedora downloaded (From about 6 months ago when I first decided to try it) and I'm probably going to use it. Anyone want to try to sell me on a different distro? I have an Enterprise Linux distro floating around somewhere too that I installed for my wife awhile ago, but it doesn't seem suitable and I know a lot less about it.

Third question: I'm a Linux noob. I used a few flavors of Unix at my last tech job, but never had to go through an install and I'd consider myself a novice at best. Still, I'm planning to get it done this weekend. Anyone want to shoot that plan down? Any idea what the main hurdles will be?

Thanks for any help/comments!

Don't really have any preferences among distros - any of the major ones (Fedora/RH, Ubuntu, Debian, Suse) are probably ok.
Since this is a test box, you might wanna play around with a few and see what you like - over time, of course.
Check this out: http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major
It lists the most popular distros (according to them, it's not an "official" thing, supported by any real figures; however, it's probably close enough).

Haven't made a Debian install in a while, but last time I did, it was damn (user-) unfriendly. Hope they've improved on that since.

As for the installation itself, I don't expect any major hurdles. Again, I've installed a Fedora a long time ago, and things have certainly changed since, but I'll throw my two cents in - which may or may not be an issue anymore.

- if they are still using the predefined configurations (e.g., Desktop, Laptop, Server, etc), I'd suggest you didn't use them. Instead, go with "Custom", i.e. the option that lets you select individual packages. Don't worry about not selecting all packages properly, it will figure out and resolve dependencies by itself.
There are two reasons why I'm suggesting this:
1. The most important one is that when you're selecting packages, you can also see what they mean/do. This will help you get somewhat familiar with the huge number of things that's out there. Why does it matter ? Because it's common to want an application that does "that", but you don't know what it's called, and therefore don't know how to look for it. Plus, it's good to have an idea what's installed on your machine, no ?
2. The second reason, which may (hopefully) no longer be an issue, is that RH/Fedora used to have a really stupid definition of those predefined configurations. I used them once, and that was one time too many.

- I assume you won't want any dual-boot fancy partitioning scheme, so you should be able to partition it with any of the options they're offering you. (At least that used to be the case: they'd let you partition your disk with 2 or 3 alternatives, varying from a nice GUI that would only allow you to do basic things, down to the actual (command-line-based) backend that actually is behind that GUI). If that is still the case, I'd recommend you avoid DiskDruid, if they still use it, and go with whatever else they're offering.
The GUI might be sufficient, but you might wanna consider trying fdisk or cfdisk, whichever they're offering. Don't let yourself intimidated by the fact that they're command line: with 3 key presses you can create a partition.

- install gcc and development libs, so that you can compile your own things, if need be; it's always useful to have those; it's true that in general you can find an RPM (i.e., a precompiled binary) for whatever you want, but sometimes you may have to fall back on (re)compiling some source code for who-knows-what drivers and/or packages.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head, good luck, and tinker away, that's the whole beauty of it!