I there a certain type of Linux that works best for A/V stuff. I plan to basically just run PD on it for now.

Any helpful hint on the Linux switch is also appreciated since I don't know anything about the platform.

Thanks

If that's too heavy for the machine try Pure::Dyne

(both have live distros, so you can try before you install)

a.

My personal 2 pence on Pure::Dyne is that it's great as a CD distro but bit tricky once installed.

Both have a collection of awesome software included for A/V.

Install Feisty, using alternative - 7.04 worked great for me. Install the studio, test the slow kernel first on your machine - try the optimised later, if all goes well.
(I tried an update to 7.10, and to optimise on my 386mhz 256mb hp portable, and it really slowed things down! I have looked into RAM - the upgrade is worth it if you live in the US - 90 dollars, and you'll have your 1 gig of RAM -2 512 bars - it will make a huge difference!!)

Hands down, for simplicity, use Hans' extended-PD for Ubuntu. Working better than ever, and fun to see how much works compared to 1.4 years ago when I started.
Hans installation works great - if not, Miller's stripped down PD is available through Synaptic, their package manager. (don't forget to first install all the required libraries, which might all be included in their new Studio version

But don't stop there....

If you nest Dynebolic on Ubuntu, (check nesting on the Dyne site - it really is cool!) you get a very light and easy PD if you copy the pure:dyne modules with it. I have found it to be very fast, but the actual Pure:Dyne CD, unfortunately, did not boot on my elderly beast. So I have been happy to open PD on Dyne:bolic, using a CD to boot into it - taking advantage of the supersmall system, and PD - except that all the extras/libraries in PD, taken from the PureDyne distro, were not functional!!!

Sound familiar - ahh, like two years ago, when half the extended were not working...
But you have Ubuntu extended as a great refernce of proper functioning...

I really do think nesting is a great solution, letting one hack away on a less stable or smaller distro with a larger one. Plus, I can pass patches back and forth.

New forks off this question:
I just need to check if I can just copy Hans extended to Dyne??? Or better suggestions??
How about PD with DSL?

And Has anyone done a powerpc linux nesting on OSX.3 or OSx.4? I have found that Debian's live does boot on powerpc (g4, 1 gig ram), as does ubuntu's. After the speed up I saw with Dyne nesting, I thought - someone much smarter and better at programming than I who doesn't want VM slowdowns has probably developed a nesting solution for linux on mac.

By the way, as a fan of the CREB library for PD, almost all of it is functioing on the Ubuntu distro - great work Hans!!