It seems that you use ubuntu, why don't you learn few tricks before go looking to change distro? Why would you like to change?

As my computer hardware got old i moved from ubuntu to xubuntu.
Here is some basic comparison.

Ubuntu is a good choice.

Here's a great comparison of the top 10 free linux distros:
http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major

In my experience, the ones which installed simply and then just worked were:
Fedora, Puppy, Sabayon, Ubuntu

The ones that had confusing installers, package management problems, configuration issues, etc (admittedly often minor issues), were:
Absolute, CrunchBang, Debian, Dream, GoblinX (Gnome version), Slitaz, Vector

The ones that just didn't work were:
Mandriva, OpenSuse (live CD version), Unity, Zenwalk (and FreeBSD)

If you don't want to use ubuntu try mandriva linux 2010. It has a very simple package manager urpmi a very simple control center and KDE as desktop. It also has a lot of codecs to play music and dvd!!

Ubuntu is an excellent distribution. I installed it on a computer for my wife and she has no problems. I use Debian, the father of Ubuntu (or maybe the mother) having used the distribution for many years. I've used Linux form many years, so in addition to Debian I use Slackware, my original distribution, and Centos, so that I can parallel the Redhat we have available at work.

I chose Ubuntu because it's simple, powerful, and "just works." I've also tried openSUSE, but I didn't like it because the KDE desktop was counter-intuitive and the package-management system left much to be desired.

Slackware; most simplistic, stable, and configurable distro ever
So simple to use and is the best of both worlds; binary and from-source.
Also one of the oldest distro's and huge unofficial support.

1 members found this post helpful.

I never said I wanted to change my distro, quite the opposite if you read my original post. I was hoping by starting dialog on the various distros, why people chose the one they did and how it is performing, would lead to someone coughing up some resources for those of us who are new to Linux. I am understanding that with any Linux distro a person can "tweak" an application through gedit. The problem is learning the command line interface in Linux when someone, like myself, is self taught in the GUI world of Windows.

I am completely satisfied with my Ubuntu 10.04 LTS. I am currently running the 32 bit system and I am going to try the 64 bit system. My first experience with 64 bit was with Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic. I had a lot of problems and someone gave me the advice to go to 32 bit due to the limited number of "plugins" available at the time for 64 bit.

I'm very happy to see that this thread is creating dialog. I want to thank all who have replied so far and I am looking forward to additional contributors. I envision my house being converted from the world of Windows to a home network with an Ubuntu server and the other 4 laptops running Ubuntu.

Thanks!
Mike
Fairless Hills, PA

Slackware some ONE took the Time for me and made it work KISS

I played with Debian for a short time, with generally bad results. Ordinary Linux documentation is very difficult for beginners and I prefer GUI to command line. So every step in Debian was a struggle.

Then I tried several liveCDs on several different old computers and also read the online copy of the documentation from each of those distributions.

The Mepis documentation told me how to do several things that worked equally well in Debian and other Debian based distributions. The system on which I had Debian was suddenly a lot easier to work with after reading Mepis documentation.

The Mepis liveCD worked without tweaking on a wider range of old or strange display hardware than any other liveCD, and Mepis made it easier to figure out the tweaks required to make it work on the remaining systems.

Mepis provides (and documents) a few GUI methods for key sys admin tasks that other distributions push you to do by command line.

The Mepis default layout for the KDE menus was a bit more logical than other distributions' GUIs. So it took less time searching the menu tree for the desired program.

For all those reasons, I made Mepis my main OS. I stuck with Mepis through the change to version 8.0 (which I think reduced many of the above advantages of Mepis over other distributions). I'm playing with Mepis 8.5 (on a separate computer) and might switch to it at some point. But I think it has lost all the things that made Mepis beginner friendly. I don't think any distribution can make KDE 4 beginner friendly. But hopefully KDE 4 will get better as it evolves and/or distributions will get better at customizing KDE 4 for their liveCDs so it isn't so beginner vicious to start (Kubuntu 10.04 makes KDE4 even more beginner vicious than in Mepis 8.5).

I believe Mepis 8.0 is still well enough supported that it is the distribution I would recommend to a beginner.

For me, the desktop environment is the deciding factor. I seriously dislike gnome, so ubuntu is out for me ...

KDE is much more powerful and extensible, and easier to use. It's philosophy is to ship with sensible defaults, but to allow and encourage users to change every bit of it to suit their personal preferences. Whereas the mentality behind GNOME is to hide or take away all options and choice, because it will only confuse the poor user. The GNOME developers *know* what's best for everyone; after all their design handbooks say so, so they can't be wrong can they?

Anyway, experiment with lots of distros (be sure to try opensuse) and decide for yourself. Ask 1000 people and you will get 1001 opinions

1 members found this post helpful.

I will say that Gnome may not be pretty or customizable, but it is easily the most intuitive and beginner-friendly desktop environments I've ever used. I used KDE 4x for months with openSUSE, and while I got used to it, it never felt "right." It was clunky, slow, and laid out in a confusing fashion.

There are those who dislike Gnome, but there is a reason why it is the most widely used desktop environment in the world of Linux.

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I use Slackware, because I like its package manager.

Puppy for general use on ALL systems. Additionally, the main desktop machine also has Debian 5.04 & PC-BSD 8.1 on it. One netbook has puppy & ubuntu, while the other has WinXP, puppy, & pcbsd. As previously stated, puppy is default on all machines for general use. The other distros are for learning & showing off to others.