I’ve been tempted to try Linux on a spare computer I have here. Would you suggest Fedora for that?
Not to be butting in or kibutzing...but I would suggest Linux Mint for a first try. It's very. very nice and easy to set up. I used it for my first Linux try and it was great on my laptop. Everything worked right off, even the wireless. I now use it on my big desktop. It rocks.
-———————I’ve been tempted to try Linux on a spare computer I have here. Would you suggest Fedora for that?-———————
In a short answer, yes.
I would first attempt several live CDs. Boot the OS, see if your sound works, video works, so on and so forth.
Even if it is a spare computer, why nuke it if you don’t have to? Especially if you have CDRW disks, which is what I use.
Some live CDs take longer to boot than others, but they are fully functional operating systems when up and running.
Fedora and Ubuntu both offer LiveCD solutions that are easy to use, and easy to install. You could also try knoppix, but that one isn’t easily installable.(It’s goal is hardware compatibility, they don’t care if you install it)
This website has a ton of information about just about any linux distro out there. http://distrowatch.com/
And if the very first live cd you try doesn’t work, I wouldn’t put much stock into that. Try a different version, of even the same distro or try another distro all together. I have always found live cds to be flaky and not a great representation of an installed linux os. In every case. They have to make concessions due to the size of the CD they’re working with. But it will still give you some idea of what you’re getting.