PD, GEM & Linux

[Derek Holzer <derek@xxxxxx>]

howdy all,

looking at taking the deep plunge into Linux as an OS for sound and multimedia. 
wondering who else out there has gone this route, and what advice they might 
have to offer.

i specifically want to run PD and possibly GEM on an Asus laptop [w/ hammerfall 
DSP card, & a dual-boot setup, so i can 'escape' to win2000 if i need to!]. 
what flavor of Linux is best for this?

Red Hat and Mandrake seem common enough, and fairly easy to get up and 
running... but Suse seems to have a much better collection of multimedia apps. 
for which versions are PD and GEM most optimized?

best,
derek