Hello -
My first post here.

1. I am a social worker/therapist who works w/ children. I was given a used Dell Inspiron 1700 laptop which I intend to use for a small counseling practice. I need to a) write notes b) devel and use spreadsheets, c) secure internet usage w/ limited multimedia.

2. My laptop has Win XP Pro and MS Office already. But I like the security of getting away from MS. I have tried Open Office and found it to be workable, but most of my existing work is already in MS Office.

3. I had a frustrating experience w/ Ubuntu. I have since learned that many distros have 'multimedia codecs', Nvidia graphics drivers, and wider ranges of wireless card support out-of-the-box.

4. When I was in school I used a Mac which never, ever gave me the slightest trouble, it just worked. So I am drawn to Dreamlinux and gOS which both seem to have Mac-like qualities and good out-of-the-box EASE of SETUP. I don't want to spend time figuring out terminal commands.

5. So which distro would be best for EASE of SETUP? Dreamlinux or gOS?
Other recommendations are welcomed also.

Thanks.

First, welcome to LQ.

As far as ease of set-up, I just ran the set-up for Dreamlinux on my laptop and it found everything and set it all up without much input from me. I also had Ubuntu perform the same. I have an older Compaq Presario so I feel your pain about set-up.

Open Office will open and modify and save in M$ Office format so you will still have access to all your work.

Thanks -

So when you installed Dreamlinux, does that mean you could right away listen to audio cds, watch YouTube videos, and such? Did you have to download or install anything to get your wireless internet card working? So far, Dreamlinux seems promising.

jbocean

I have been able to listen to my music and access my files without doing anything to it. It auto detected my Broadcom wireless card. I did have to set that up because I do not use DHCP and I had to enter my security settings, but other than that it worked fine.

It's out of your options but may be you want to take a peak at Linux Mint. I personally haven't used it but they say it has been created to get everything including the plugins and multimedia stuff working out of the box.