What do you think is the best newbie OS for Joe or Jane average? Let's define Joe and Jane Average: from http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/famil21a.htm, we see that Joe, or Jane, each make about $26,000 per year. They have a an old Pentium 2, with Win 98SE, 350 MHz, with 64 MB RAM, with an ATI Mach64 8 MB video card, and an 8 Gig hard drive, with MS-Office 97. They are considering either a new computer, or upgrading the old one and keeping Win98SE. They have $700 to spend exclusively on a new computer and/or upgrade. They have budgetted up to $40 per month on a new ISP. They want:

• high speed internet access
• to email Aunt Mildred in New Brunswick
• to play either chess or bridge on yahoo games
• to watch streaming news clips, and download music.
• To have some decent templates for writing resumes.
• To start a blog, and join some communities.
• to shop from sites, and perhaps sell items on ebay.
• to have a website with photo albums of family and friends
• to listen to BBC radio broadcasts.
• to set up a webcam for private chats with their partner overseas.
• copy dvds, and download old films from archive.org, burning them to playable dvds.

They each have no clue how to do any of this (except for using templates in MS-Office, and email Aunt Mildred). They do not have a friend who can assist in setting things up. In the stores, they can only get computers with either MacOSX, or Windows preinstalled. Some 2nd hand computers have Windows 2000 on them. They can also buy computers with no OS that are a little cheaper (though not significantly cheaper). They currently have dial-up, but they have a credit card, and can buy an OS on CD for shipping.

What do you feel is the best OS for them?

Debian Etch is the best distro for anyone ... new, old, intermediate ... I'm just as happy that most people don't realize that, tho, since I feel obligated to try helping newbies with those problems I can.

Why Debian ... A Sales Pitch.

I use Sarge, which took a lot of tweaking to get stuff right. What won me over was that it was possible to actually get things right, which I found was not possible with other, more constrained distros (that was a while ago, though). I tried Etch a few months back, and it was a nightmare for me. It looked great, but stuff did not work at that time (I think a lot of dramatic changes were being made.) Right now I would not advise a newbie to try Debian testing -- heck, I myself am going to wait until it's released as stable in November. Once bitten, twice shy.

I'm anticipating it will be the best there is, though. If there's a GenieOS release for Etch, that would (after November) be my pick for the perfect newbie distro.

Unfortunately, I have no choice but to choose Windows XP. New users are going to want everything to be compatable with their system, and you don't get that with Linux.

However, once new users try Linux (and if they are interested in computers), I recommend they try Debian Etch or Mac OS X.

With $700, you can do quite alot. New Dell desktops are going for ~$275, with XP preinstalled & includes 17" monitors...they could get two of them, and get two webcams (~$7 each) ...and two DVD burners (~$38 each) and a router so they could both surf at the same time (~$47). I'm sure their webcam would be easily installed. They can use all the FLOSS applications with XP. Ooffice free for the resumes (I made a pretty resume using it). I haven't made webpages, but many free apps can do it. Comcast cable is a little too expensive for them, but they can certainly afford DSL (I'm assuming they already have basic phone service). No problems that I can see. That puts you right around $700, but I didn't include shipping yet....oh well...

Selling their old computer on ebay could cover a good bit of the shipping costs

Hey, wheres DOS?

I just realized I haven't answered my own question. So, here goes: Upgrading their computer would not be worth it, and Jane and Joe Average don't have the skills to try a really minimal system. Used computers will largely not be good enough, ie, http://www.byteme-computers.com/. System C looks possible, but it would require a new hard drive, and does not have the dvd burner. Futureshop is too expensive. Any MacOSX solution will cost too much. Factory Direct has some good deals. Most of their computers come with WinXP already on it. Unless Jane and Jack want to install a Linux operating system, that they have to order off the internet for $5.00 to $150 (depending on the choice), over the pre-existing OS (most likely WinXP), they'd probably be best advised to stick with WinXP, and purchase Norton or McAffee virus protection. A new monitor would also be required for decent webcam viewing ($250 for LCD, I'm guessing.) For their office needs, they could either use their MS-Office 97, or download OpenOffice.org for Windows. For photo needs, they can download Gimp for Windows.

DOS is "other".

They will also be able to see flash file(even 8 with crossover), use MS-Office 97 or even 2003
under Linux.

A brand new mac mini can be purchased for as low as $600. Used ones even cheaper. Possibly even $300-400. They also have a $14/month payment plan. Almost anyone can afford that.

And System C looks like crap. You're better off with one of those ebusiness machines or something from Dell. If you feel motivated you could probably even build one 3x the power for the same price.



$100 semprom or maybe even athlon processor 2.0 ghz
$100 17" monitor(probably not new)
$60 motherboard
$40 keyboard/mouse
$50 ram?
$20 case


Total $370

If you can push just $170 more you can have a complete and fairly modern system(post gigahertz)
with crt monitor and keyboard/mouse. A laser mouse at that.

There's the dvd burner as well. But yes, you're right, things can be gotten cheaply. I'm not sure how willing Joe and Jane Average would be to assemble a computer, though. But, I do agree that things, even assembled, can be gotten cheaply. This fact tends to eliminate one imagined advantage of Linux (cost), don't you think?

PS, which OS did you vote for?

Average Joe and Jane can have their crap computer. If I'm getting a computer, I'm getting one that kicks ass. Even if I have to dump whole paychecks on it. You should feel the same way if you enjoy computers. Besides consider this. Do average joe and jane even deserve a computer? Do we have to trivialize one mankinds greatest inventions so people who don't want to learn can use them? What kind of twisted irony is this?
All the brainpower it takes to make machines, so people don't have to think anymore.

First Tvs. Now this.

The sad thing, is that many people are in this "Joe & Jane" situation.

It gets worse, because they do not even take the time to think of these items you guys are intelligently putting together. They dont ask questions, or research.

I've found that most of the times, "Joe" or "Jane" go down to their local pc-store on a whim and drop the credit-card and max it out on an over-priced, under-performing laptop or desktop that has the WinXP logo on it. Thereby allowing them to keep up with the " Jones' "

Or...

They run to Dell....ouch!

Admittedly, there are times when I wonder what good having a computer at home really is.

LOL I saw in a Helio's (linux guy) video in a letter to M$ to sue him where they quote Bill Gates as supposedly saying something like 640 K is more than anyone will ever need lol.

XP fully patched.
Joe and Jane are friends of mine. Installing linux for them would turn into a tech support job.
Their isp does not speak linux. Neither does the salesman at <insert chain store here> selling them that new printer/scanner.

I do enjoy working with Computers, and I am not going to throw away or sell my 3 P111 computers that I got for free, just to have a kickass Comp. They run just fine, thank you.