Linus distro suggestions requested.

[nolawitch58]

althonsg is sick shitless of Windows Vista (who wouldn't be of that bloated piece of rubbish?) and is up for trying Linux. She knows there are numerous distributions and wants a recommendation before defenestrating her computer.

Mandriva (Mandrake) has been working well for me since Celticess suggested it over three years ago. I played with the Ubuntu CD that lab_rattus gave me but never installed it on a box. If anyone has any good recommendations, althonsg will be watching this space for good ones.

Comments

[wyldraven.livejournal.com]

I vote for Ubuntu - use the Wubi installer (http://wubi-installer.org/faq.php) to try before you buy, so to speak. Basically, you'll get a dual boot environment that is easily removed later if you don't like it.

Mandrake is a good one too, but it's been years since I played with it.

[nolawitch.livejournal.com]

Oh and note to athlonsg, I've got a current copy of Mandriva I can burn you another copy of if you want. You can either drop by and pick it up or remind me to bring it to the next activity we'll all be attending together.

[gyrbyl.livejournal.com]

Who would be her main geek-providing-assistance-with-learning Linux stuff?

Your first distro should be the same as that of the person who's helping you, because they are more familiar with the details of that particular system.

I start my newbies on Slackware, even though it's not the most user-friendly distro, because it's what I'm most familiar with -- as a Slackware user, it would be difficult for me to teach them about apt-get or rpms since I don't use either myself.

This also means when they have trouble with something, I have mostly the same software versions/configurations as they do, and am more likely to be able to reproduce the problem on my computer, solve it there, and then tell them the solution.

Once they've got a basic feel for Linux and don't need frequent help, then it's the right time to start trying other distros and figure out what they like. But when they're just starting out, the most important thing is that you're able to help them, so I suggest starting them on whatever you're most familiar with.

[nolawitch.livejournal.com]

I guess that would be me, although she's sharp as hell and probably will know more about it after six months than I do after three years. I might as well burn her a copy of Mandriva. She can decide whether or not it's lame later.

These are all just my opinion...

[kelli217.livejournal.com]

Ease of Use: Mandriva
Ease of Setup: Ubuntu
Ease of Migration from Windows: Xandros

And the thing is, each distro listed above wins its category by only a hair over the next in line. Mandriva wins by a hair over Ubuntu for ease of use. The reverse is true for ease of setup. And Xandros wins by a hair over Freespire for migration from Windows.

[lab-rattus.livejournal.com]

Ubuntu for ease of use. Mandriva because you are using it and can answer questions. Mandrake was my first. Right now I have Vector Linux SOHO edition on an older computer that I experiment with.

BTW, How the heck are ya. Ya'll need to get the heck over here. We can go to the beach, go to my favorite bar to play darts and fooseball and fly the kite I got from voxwoman.

[nolawitch.livejournal.com]

I don't have any appreciable time off until Memorial Day. I'll bet the beaches will be full over there then. Do you have enough space for both of us?

Sorry I missed you around Yule. Everyone was running crazy.

[lab-rattus.livejournal.com]

Yup. Enough room for two extras. Y'all could have my room and I'll sleep in the computer room on the air bed. My cousins have a condo on the beach and I have my own key as well.

[nolawitch.livejournal.com]

Cool. Memorial Day it is then. I haven't been out of town since Shreveport last summer.

[pecosdave.livejournal.com]

After having used SuSE Linux for years, using Debian at home for the past couple of years, starting on Red Hat, doing some support of Red Hat at work, and putting Ubuntu and Kubuntu on my laptop, I'm still saying Debian. Ubuntu has weird issues pop up occasionally, and has done to much customization and dumbing down of some of the packages. I like the clean untampered with feeling I get with Debian. I have weird crashes and incompatibilities I can't explain with Ubuntu. SuSE Linux suffers from can't compile shit syndrome and has a nasty habit of providing packages that have dependencies that are not met anywhere in the repositories. I don't know if this has been fixed since Open SuSE or not. I abandoned that around 9.3.

[wisedonkey.livejournal.com]

Straight Debian. In general, it doesn't piss me off. Granted, I prefer anything BSD over leenox, but that's because I'm a vax herder.

SLACKWARE!!!!!

[ozanbaba.livejournal.com]

although Mandrake would be good,ubuntu[1], too. but stay away from redhat


[1] ubuntu is a acient word means "i can configure SlackWAre"