> I have a Micron Transport GX3 that I would like to put Linux on.
> 
> This is a PIII 550 with 128 megs of ram. It will be primarily used for 
> downloading camera images off a cf adapter via the pc card slot while I 
> am on trips where I will run out of storage on my CF cards.
> 
> Once we are back home I would need to also be able to see my windows box 
> to transfer the files there.
> 
> I'm wanting to dip my toe into Linux desktop useage with the notebook 
> and see how well it works.
> 
> Can anyone suggest a disribution that would work for this purpose?
> 
> I would need to be able to download it and burn it to cd to then install 
> on the notebook.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> -Miles

Miles,

Choosing a distribution is a very personal issue.  All we can tell you is our experience, which may vary considerably from your needs.

Any distribution should be able to perform the functions you mentioned, although some may be more work than others to set up.  Look at http://www.tuxmobil.org/pcmcia_linux.html for your CF adapter and http://www.samba.org for interfacing with windows boxes.  The absolute best thing is to find a friend that can help you install a distro and use whatever he or she uses until you are confident enough to go out on your own.  The next best thing is to try a few different distros at first until you find one that works well for you.

Mandrake was the first distro to work well on a notebook for me (with an PCMCIA ethernet card).  I also hear good things about Suse.  These are the 2 distros most often recommended for people who want to use more consumer-type hardware like CF adapters, digital cameras, winmodems, etc.  Redhat/Fedora core is also frequently recommended in general because its ubiquity makes it a little easier to get support from mailing lists.

Personally, I have used Mandrake, Gentoo, Redhat, and Knoppix on my notebook (similar specs to yours) with good results on each.  I have a USB CF adapter and PCMCIA wi-fi card that both work great.  

The main thing is to check to make sure your peripherals are supported before buying them (or trying too hard to make pre-existing purchases work with Linux).  Most everything is supported nowadays, but there are enough exceptions to warrant caution.

On a personal note, I once took my notebook out of state to do the exact same thing you are thinking about -- using it as secondary storage for wedding announcement pictures my wife was shooting.  My hard drive started to crash on me during that trip (clicking, etc), and we ended up just investing in more CF cards.  I wouldn't trust a laptop hard drive for any irreplaceable data.  It was nice to be able to email thumbnails to the Mother of the bride and see if she wanted any shots that we missed and to have a second copy "just in case".

Having my laptop hard drive crash on me introduced me to another great distribution, Knoppix.  It runs completely off of a CD-ROM and doesn't touch your hard drive at all.  I was just going to use it until my next paycheck when I could replace my hard drive, but it has been well over a year and I'm still using it without problems.  Ever since then I give a Knoppix CD to anyone who wants to know what Linux is all about.  

--Karl 

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