I'm looking for suggestions as to a new UNIX distro. I am a well experienced UNIX user, as well as administrator. I have run my own UNIX server on and off for the past 5 years. Previous administration experience includes FreeBSD 2.2.8 through 3.something, Redhat 5.2-7.1, and Gentoo (whatever version they had from 2 years ago until 6 months ago).

What I want is:
1) Support for USB keyboard and mouse with minimal effort
2) Support for NVidia Geforce 4 with minimal effort
3) Clean, fast speed offered by compiling optimized binaries (like a gentoo stage 1 install)
4) USB printer support (Samsung ML-1210) along with samba shares of that and other drives with again, minimal effort
5) A vast portage system similar to Gentoo.
6) Support for my Hauppage TV Tuner Card (Bt878 chipset I believe) so I can continue to watch TV on it.
7) Freely downloadable CDs of course.

The system is going to be both a desktop system, and a server to host my FTP, Web, MySQL, PHP, CVS, etc.

I've been out of the loop on the Linux/UNIX for a little while and would like suggestions on current distros that could offer this.

sounds like you want gentoo... except for the "minimal effort" part.

but if you're already familiar with kernel configs, xorg/xfree.conf, portage, cups, and smb.conf it shouldnt be an issue =)

if there is anything else besides gentoo that describes what you want, i haven't heard of it. except maybe just doing LFS and manually building everything from source, but then you've got no package management whatsoever and its a pain in the ass.

Ubuntu. Only distro I've used that had binary fglrx packages.

Fedora 3 is always a safe choice to recomend. UMR's ftp server even has the isos.

Ubuntu is what I use.

any distro with fglrx has binary fglrx packages, thats how ati distributes them

What he means is that the fglrx driver is in the package repository. Which is a very good thing for ati users, because the fglrx installer sucks. Most distros do not include the ati driver.

well in that case, gentoo does

# emerge ati-drivers

How do those packages help me? I said I'm using an Nvidia GeForce 4.

They also have the nvidia drivers.

yeah but that alone isn't really a compelling reason to use ubuntu. and its the only reason you gave, so..

I have been looking into Xandros lately. It is most likely not for you, but it is really neet. It has more a windows feel in the fact that it has a little cleaner interface and can run, if you buy delux, windows apps via code weavers office wine.

I do know, however, that slackware is not for you. Don't get me wrong... I like "the slack" but ease of use does not come to mind when I run it.

I am also interested in the fact that you are running the Hauppage TV Tuner Card. I have the older USB version (to which the linux drives do not exist). I was wondering how your card handles under linux... mine is good for Cable TV... but can't pick up pulic tv with an antenna worth a darn!

edit: why is everyone posting about ubuntu. what am I missing? It only runs gnome! not kde! auughh! what does it offer that would make me want to use it over, lets say, Suse? Suse is a great distrobution.

There is a pretty consistent trade off in all distro's, the more work you have to do to get it to work right, the more you learn, i.e. the harder the installation, the more you are likely to learn.

Gentoo has no installer, it has really good directions on how to install from knoppix or one of their boot cd's.

The best/easiest GUI installers are probably Mandrake, SuSE or Fedora Core 3. I like all 3 of those about the same. SuSE and FC 3 is getting to be a tougher choice eith each new version.

And then there is Slackware, and Debian. Which are good server distro's with text-based installers, I think. The last Slackware I tried was 8.0.

If you have an Athlon64, I would go with either Gentoo or the middle 3. If you have an Ipaq, there is a debian based distro for it, there might be a gentoo distro coming out for it sometime.

I don't know what Ubuntu is about either, other than multiple languages. Which I don't really care about yet.

I think you answered your own question. Everyone is posting about Ubuntu because it uses gnome, not kde. If you want kde use debian or mepis.

The reason I would run it over Suse is the fact that it:
-is one cd with a very good selection of default apps
-based on debian unstable but has gnome 2.8 and security updates
-has all the debian packages in its repository (mirrored on campus!)

While Suse:
-costs money to get the good version
-does not have a large repository of packages that I am aware of
-uses kde

Obviously, as a kde user, you would not want to use Ubuntu. I would suggest trying Mepis.