Version of Linux I should get...

I'm a CS major and I just realized something tragic: I know nothing about Linux. So, I've decided that during this summer, I shall reformat my hard drive and install a dual-boot of Linux and Windows XP (emoticon edition. Not to be confused with Windows XD). Anyhow, I need to decide what to install. I know some people who have had good luck with Debian, and I know a guy who has gotten insane errors with Gentoo that he claims nobody on the Gentoo message boards had ever seen before. However, Gentoo looks all pretty and shiny, but I'm pretty sure that I've read that Debian has a stable version out.

Anyhow, keeping all this in mind, I want to know what sort of Linux you of the 4chan programming board would advise me to get. I imagine that this thread will probably dissolve into a flame war about ephemeral characteristics about each version that make it "better" such as "Only noobs use Gentoo!" or "Redhat sucks!" or perhaps "Real men use Debian!" But! In the moment between the first posting of this and the eruption of a flame war, I imagine that information might be able to be gleaned upon the subject by me. So, thanks ahead of time.

>>31

Ouch, I'm guessing you had to do a reinstall when you removed libc, yes? I also removed libc once, was not fun :/

I installed mplayer when I read >>26, so the problem might have been fixed since you last tried. Eather that or you might have forgotten to add needed repository. I believe multiverse is not a part of a default ubuntu installation (and it did grab dependencies from there), this is from my sources.list:

deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hoary universe multiverse

That's the only reasons I can think of.