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I've tried lots of distros over the years, but the only ones that have stuck have been the occasional Red Hat / Fedora installation on my dual-booting lappy or Gentoo on my Xbox (cause it's actually an easy install - http://gentoox.shallax.com/).

Now, I try to dip into linux every once in awhile because I have to for business. If we switch our servers (eg., Exchange --> linux-based mail server) over to linux, then I need to be able to administrate the linux boxes and be comfortable in a linux environment.

I have to say, though ... most of what draws me to linux is curiosity and the cost benefits. Some people may think Windows is evil or some such, but atleast the average user can [in Windows]:
> download an app.
> double-click the exe/msi.
> "I Agree"
> "Next" ...
> "Finish"
And you're done with shortcuts added and all.

Meanwhile, I spent all of my lunch breaks this week trying to get my Atheros wireless card working with WPA-PSK (forget about WPA2!) under Red Hat. The average user (or even the average IT user) isn't going to switch over to linux until you can double click to install something. Why should something that takes less than a minute under Windows take so long in linux? Sure, you can edit the source, but in the business world, time=$, and sysadmins don't have the time to go digging thru C code to figure out why "make" isn't working.

Anyhow, as a developer, I'll switch when Mono is more stable and it becomes easier to write linux desktop applications in C#.

http://gentoox.shallax.com/

Great developer, have had my mail/web server running for over a year. it's magic [pun ;)].
Installation/configuration is a breeze - and emerge works :)
feel free to congratulate him to his exam results

also

http://xbox-linux.sourceforge.net/
but seems to be down - haven't checked that out for some time.

I love gentoo and Freebsd and I have an xbox - my life is now complete.

I have happily been running web/mail server on my xbox for over a year: http://gentoox.shallax.com/ This guy is dedicated and has an interesting history with the 'offical' xbox project. This distro kicks ass.....oh and he's done all this whilst at uni and just got his results A1/A1/A1/A2 :)

It certainly does. I installed gentoo on it at over 2 years ago.

Shallax, creator and leader of the xbox Gentoox linux project runs his website on a legally hacked xbox.

This is an option more people should really consider when shopping for a capable machine to run a dedicated server. The total cost of a first-rate modchip (like the Xenium or, better yet, the brand new Xecuter3) and an xbox bought on ebay could easily be under $200.

The xbox comes with an 8GB HDD, so, unless you'll host media, this is perfect. Why pay more for a bigger HDD if it'll never be used? The front xbox controller ports are standard USB 1.1 with different plugs, so it's very easy to fashion your own xbox linux keyboard and mouse.

As a very proud owner of an xbox, I'd recommend one to anyone.

And microsoft didn't design the components in their system either. They slapped together existing technology with some of their proprietary technology and sold it as a "console".

When I put together a computer, I use similar components. But what we're really talking about here is "intention". Is my sole intention, when I designed (put together) my computer, to play video games? It sure is! In fact, ask any DIY gamer: they build their computer so they can play HL2 or Doom3 or Far Cry. The fact that it can do other things is irrelivant; so can the xbox and ps2. Just look at the GentooX project.

NB: Off-topic (X-Box Linux)

I run a vanilla Gentoo install on my X-Box - please note this is not the GentooX distribution, which although I consider a good idea in principle, as I do the Xebian project, both seem to have their peculiarities, and are definitely not standard post-install Debian/Gentoo environments.

However, it is perfectly possible to install Gentoo on an X-Box using merely the 'Emergency Linux' provided with the MechAssault hack save games, available from the the Xbox-Linux website. All a genuine Gentoo install requires, basically, is a means of chrooting into the filesystem on which you are going to install, then wget and bz2 tools in order to download and decompress a bootstrap environment - or a Gentoo CD with precompiled packages.

-Jonathan

Well, obviously that's not true :-).

Anyway, what I'd like to tell you is that despite Netscape 4.7 is quite old, it's amazingly fast loading..;

I can count a dozen of seconds while Firefox is loading in my Fedora Core 1 + Athlon XP + 256 DDR Ram + UDMA 100 HD..

When people says: we want a lightweight configuration they usually go "fluxbox/icewm + dillo/links -g [..]". But I feel like "Enlightenment + Netscape 4.7 [...]". How many people could imagine that E uses less RAM than fluxbox ?

I finally put my mod chip to good use with GentooX and mythTV on my xbox. It acts as a great front end. And yes, there is an easier mythtv only xbox-linux distro here

...wait until the price drops, then go to second-hand places (who will likely have to drop prices as well) and get one there.

Use the built in networking for an interface and if you really feel like it, you can just plug it into a tv and use it that way.

After that, it's just a quick Stage 3 from GentooX, and I am on my way to the cheapest server I have ever built. (~$60)

I wouldn't buy much of anything from Microsoft, but I could justify a second-hand purchase for these kinds of savings.

A Xbox is cheaper than the PS2 (An Xbox is about $150, according to OSDN Pricewatch), comes with twice the amount of memory, ethernet, and instead of buying a $200 Linux kit, you pick up a flashable, legal* mod chip for $25-$50. How the Emotion Engine compares to the Xbox P733 I have no idea, but I can't imagine the EE is that much faster.
Both The Xbox-Linux Project and Gentoox can provide you with a distro. For free.

Even if you're not planning a cluster, this is a good deal for a low-performance work station, or just a "media box", using Xbox Media Player, which plays most (all?) popular media formats, both music and video.

It's been repeated countles times that Microsoft are losing money on the console itself, and depend on the games to cover their expenses. Therefore, paying up for a Xbox and giving your money to MS isn't immoral as long as you don't buy any games.

See, it's a win-win situation :)

* I lost track of the current situation in the U.S., but in the free world (Read: Europe) at least the chips not using MS code is legal.