@kedawa
I can't believe I'm about to say this, but if you want to be able to play with as many OS's/distros as possible, I might be inclined to stick with x86 instead, for now. Cheaper than any PPC-alternative, so by the time PPC makes a real leap in the market a few years down the line, it mightn't be entirely impossible to get a mobo at a more consumer-ready price. I wouldn't swear by it though, but I wouldn't entirely rule it out. In a few years. If we are to assume that the PPC might actually grab a fair share of the market, then prices ought to drop a bit.
And, if AmigaOS / MorphOS and their respective hardware are nothing more than niche OS'es catering for a few 1000 users in a few years time, I woulnd't bet on either of them having a very bright future.
Something to think about, maybe. Unless you're a complete fanatic, and want something Amiga'ish right now, preferably yesterday. ;-)
Then again, if your PC isn't in desperate need of something to replace it, and you just want to spend some cash on fun computing, as a hobby, diving into the alternative computing flora, I can definitely see where you're coming from.
As for alternatives to OS'es, from what I've read, I think the PegII seems like a better choice. Though someone else would have to tell you what they are. I do know that I have Debian running on my AmigaOne, and there are quite a few A1 users who've got MOL running. But that's true within the Peg community too.
I do think you should put a bit more thought into the possibility of running AOS/MOS as your main OS on the machine, as that's the only really huge advantage of going A1/Peg over any other alternative. (Unless you plan on buying a bunch of hundred boards and are concerned about power consumption :-P)
And for that purpose, I'd advice you to check both of them out a bit further before making up your mind (unless you already know you'd prefer one over the other).
With that said, I myself am a happy owner of the A1, and am currently using the pre-release of OS4 as my main OS. I occasionally boot into Debian for some GIMP'ing or word processing, but apart from that, OS4 along with a few of the apps I've installed does fulfill most of my daily needs.
I'm sure there's a bunch of MOS-users who could step up and say something similar about MorphOS, though. So, again, I'd strongly recommend checking both OS'es out to see which one feels more like home to you.
