Linux - which flavour?

I don't think there is any right answer. I'm no linux guy but I use it. If ubuntu works well on your hardware and you're familiar with it then there's little point changing, unless of course you like change/challenge. I think on most distros you can recompile the linux kernel in order to better suit the host machine - but I believe that's mostly a case of leaving things out so that during boot the machine doesn't spend half a minute probing for things that aren't present.

I tried the 64 bit ubuntu temporarily, afraid I can't recall what caused me to switch back to 32, maybe a graphics driver issue. I installed my current ubuntu using the alternate installer so that I could have a fully encrypted system.

Although most distros can be made to do any job, all tend to have strengths in different areas. For a general purpose desktop machine, Ubuntu seems to have all the momentum at the moment - I'm using it on one old laptop (8.04 lts) and one desktop (8.10 with all the compiz bells and whistles). It's certainly not perfect, but it is easy (as far as installing apps and such goes). I see it as a Windows replacement, with all the focus being on the 'end user' experience.

My other machine runs Slackware, and I basically use it as an all-purpose server. It runs my gateway, firewall, MySql server, apache, CUPS server and printer, NFS server with a couple of big external drives and all my botting stuff. Slackware is ideal for this sort of thing - the focus is on 'under the bonnet' stuff, and the config files are a joy, especially compared to the tangled mess which is the Ubuntu /etc directory. Package management is a bit basic, and some less common stuff may require building from source (although this is incredibly easy compared to Ubuntu).

I used Red Hat for a while in 2001, before they split it up into RHEL and Fedora. That was fine back in the day, but when I got serious with linux in 2005 I tried Fedora and it was a dog - the 'stable' version felt very 'beta'-ish. This may have changed since, but the feeling I get from the web is that it hasn't.

gentoo isn't an operating system, it's a religion. About a year ago there was a load of internecine strife, and it's very existence seemed to be in doubt. It seems to have come through that, but it's reputation as a 'serious' distro has suffered. I haven't actually tried it, so it may be fine, but I don't think custom compiling *everything* is worth the extra effort. (Kernels are a different matter, but you can do that on most distros).

As far as support from forums goes, Ubuntu is pretty crap - they are friendly enough, but I think that is part of the problem. Too many threads asking the same questions and too many 'helpful' newbies replying on topics they don't really understand. I had a problem with the Bluetooth stack in 8.04 which turned out to be quite common - half a dozen threads, twenty different theories and no solution. I found the answer in five minutes on a debian forum because the problem was upstream, but if you have an Ubuntu-specific glitch then you are shafted.

Slackware forums, especially http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/ , are great. You get replies from people who know what they are talking about, quite often from people involved with the distro (Pat never replies himself, but Alien Bob does, usually in great detail)

64-bit distros seem pretty good for server apps, but they all seem to have a lot of niggly problems on the desktop (hardware support, firefox, flash etc.). It seems like the 32-bit linux desktop situation of five years ago - most things have a fix, but you may have to jump through hoops. (No personal experience here, I have one 64-bit AMD machine, but it's only running 32-bit Ubuntu)

Hmmmm...not quite sure what you mean? I obviously know what encryption is, but how does that apply to a whole O.S??

-birchy

I'm an eco terrorist, I leave my PC switched on permanently, so I only need to enter my decryption key if I reboot (ie not very often). I got fed-up lugging my laptop around so now it just stays at a friend's house. If my bots have major issues they text me and if I'm out and about then I just use my phone's browser to check what's up.

Back to the topic, my choice of linux for my bot servers is debian. I just use the minimal install and add the very few items I need, keeps things lean and secure. As ubuntu is based on debian things are familiar.

Oh yeah, i forgot to ask something that seems to be Linux related. I have Firefox 3.0.4 which came with Ubuntu. The Betdaq website doesn't load properly. I've enabled Javascript (i use the NoScript plugin in Firefox) and i've installed the Adobe plugin that it asked for, yet certain pages still don't display correctly. The poker page is fine, as is "Next horse race", yet the homepage looks like the image below.

Seems to be fine on my mate's pc...he has Windows XP and Firefox 3.0.3. I notice that under the Betdaq help pages, they only suggest support for Firefox 1.5 and 2.0. It seems to be a simple settings/plugins job to me....anyone know how to get Betdaq running in Firefox 3.0.4 on a Linux box?

The page works fine on my laptop - Ubuntu 8.04, Firefox 3.0.4, AdBlock Plus and NoScript - So like you say probably a settings thing. Does it happen on any other pages? Have you got any weird settings for javascript/ asp pages in Preferences -> Applications ?
What is the little icon in the bottom right hand corner, next to the NoScript snake? If it's some sort of DOM inspector or debugger, have you tried disabling it?
Well that's me out of ideas - (turn it off and back on again? clear the cache?) If you need to check any settings, either in Preferences or about:config, let me know. I was going to post my entire about:config, but it's probably not a good idea in a public forum