I use ArchLinux but I have Windows XP or some such for my wife. It's easy there to setup the scanner and printer (both oldish). Now her PC is slowing down and anyway I want to upgrade.

I want to give her Linux but Arch is a bit of a pain to setup certain things, like printing and scanning.

I was wondering about installing Ubuntu for her. When I tried it years ago it was buggy but I would imagine it's better and Xubuntu is light and that it would do the Xerox Phase printer plug and play style.

All she needs is Firefox and OpenOffice on occasion.

Makes sense? Is there a better idea?

Thanks.

Of course it does! Linux ALWAYS makes sense

Okay, from super easy to easy to hard(er):

Macpup - detects anything, stand close enough during install, and it'll detect your shoesize...
Xubuntu - seen this is a somewhat old(er) PC...
Debian - why not...well established, Huge base

And, hey, I've set up a print server on Arch...how hard can that be??? Need help on that? Ask away, that's what this place is for...
Scanners...have somewhat been unused by me. Still have to set up my first one. Threw mine away, parallel port, ancient stuff...

Luck!

Thor

Ubuntu (fast computer) or Lubuntu (slow computer) are good choices. Next month's 12.04 release will be "long term support," meaning stable through 2017. If you are feeling brave, you can install the Beta now, and it should seamlessly update to the final release.

Maybe also look into Linux Mint, which is based on Ubuntu, but with some "warm & fuzzy" beginner-friendly features.

Hey, this looks like fun. I don't like OS/X UI but I think she would. I think now that I even asked this question because deep down I am opposed to Ubuntu. Too commercial or some such. Just my personal thing.

I tried Linux Mint once. Hated the menu.

I will give Macpup a whirl.

Thanks!

Linux is linux. its all about the GUI once you get it up and running and as YOU will be handling the configuration and upkeep, NOT your wife, then it truly does not matter what distro you install. Install what you are comfortable with and that YOU know how to manage.

As for setting up printing in Linux that can be much simpler then under windows unless you have some crazy off brand printer that does not support linux properly. In that case its going to be a PITA no matter what.

As for the scanner, same thing goes as for printing. the SANE/TWAIN drivers that are built into Linux will handle just about any scanner out there.

Currently my personal flavor of linux is the Fedora line but that is because i work with it and CentOS every day for my job. Again see my point about, what you are comfortable with.

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Linux Mint 12

Well, it is! Possibly the one distro I can recommend to anyone looking for a non-tech-lo-threshold flavour. By the way, I lets you install to a USB stick too. Or run it in RAM for a while.
If you install this to a disk, be aware that you will have to install the grub bootloader afterwards. It does NOT do that for you.
I've installed MacPup on multiple occasions...same results every time...

@ lleb
Why should'nt she do her upkeep too? Women CAN do that you know - they have brains, and have (historically) been typing longer than men

Thor

I realize that a derivate O.S is never respected as much but Mageia 1 has been really solid so far from my own experience. Xfce works really good as well as Gstreamer. Most of the popular Applications are available for it as well. Mandrake forks have the best organized GUI and are easy to use and install.

Since the OP asks what distro to put on that machine it is quite obvious that he maintains the system, not his wife.

Anyways, I can only second what lleb has posted: Use the system you are familiar with. Since you are an Arch user it would totally make sense to use Arch. You are familiar with it and it is a very good choice to set up a lightweight system.

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Your image is exactly what you described; A figment of your imagination.. I wouldn't count on it.

I can understand what you're saying, but i know that i set my other laptop up with the hope that afterwards my girlfriend could do some of the admin stuff, like install software ect.

I recomend Mepis.

Ubuntu is quite easy to install and use. Give it a try again. Or you can use Linux Mint.

Livebooted macpup and see this (typed by hand b/c no internet there):

On this Arch machine (which works, heh heh):

Running the network wizard on macpup says it succeeds, but still traceroute and ping fail as above. Not sure what's wrong here....

Quick scenario when I get this

- check if you're on the right NIC (eth0, eth1, had the same here on a box with two NICs)
- check...(yes, folks) the cable (wasted a weekend on that once)
- issue a ping 127.0.0.1 to see if the TCP stack is around/active
- issue a ping 192.168.1.1 where the address is the default gateway
- by the way, Macpup does'nt start up like that, but I use(d) Macpup 5.2...what version do you use? I'll download and try it here

I have macpup 5.2.8. ping 127.0.0.1 works fine.

ping 192.168.1.1 says Network is unreachable but anyway my router is at 10.0.0.138

ping 10.0.0.138 also says Network is unreachable.

The cable? Well the PC in question was online with Windows, I rebooted into my LiveCD and now it's offline. I don't think it's that....

I tried eth1 but no luck. My Arch works on DHCP so that's what I have here....

I tried Mageia 1 liveCD now (latest 32 bit) and ran the network wizard there and it said there is a problem. It didn't say what, but it also couldn't get online.

I rebooted into Windows XP and it's back online as usual.

I think I will try on another box that I know runs Linux. Just need a SATA cable so perhaps I will steal it from this PC.