I have been using Linux for over 10 years, but have avoided SUSE & RedHat because they seem to have problems.

Currently I am using Ubuntu http://www.ubuntu.com/ and heartily recommend it. They have an *excellent* online (free) support site, as well as supplying commercial support for those that wish/need it. They not only allow download of install disk images, but will even *post a free CD to you*. Downloads of updates and additional software are not only allowed but *encouraged*.

In Ubuntu, LAN/internet access is configured in virtually automatically at install, requiring only answering some questions whose answers that should already have or you could not have posted your question. WiFi access requires a little more work, but results in a tool that looks and feels very like the one in Windo$e.

Unfortunately, getting *all* the features of your hardware working may require adding some non-free drivers. (For instance, I had to get proprietary drivers for my sound & video chipsets.)

The several programs that are available on my Ubuntu to play video files are "totem" or "mplayer" and several oth rs. There must be over half a dozen audio players (all common formats ... ogg, mp3, wav, flac, ....). "Ogle" is supposed to view dvds w/ menus but crashes when I try to run it on my 64-bit system.

At the moment that is the _last_ thing that is not working on my present system (only had about a month). OTOH, so much of the Linux/GNU software is so much better than what is on Windoze that I find it well worth the trouble to get it all working. This comes as a comparison to Windoze, which never seems to work to my satisfaction no matter what I do.

If you stay w/ SuSe, there is not a lot of help that I can give u, but you can always write and ask.

I suggest that you check a SuSe-specific site for help w/ SuSe.

Hope this helps a little, anyway.
Buz :)
buzco at launchpad dot com