Are there any newbie-friendly distros left (other than Mint)?
 

I usually recommended Ubuntu and Fedora to newbies.

Now Fedora has GNOME 3. It's OK, but I think that it might be too different and put off many newbies (especially if they don't know that it's easy to install another desktop).

Ubuntu now switched to Unity. See here for my opinion: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...th-unity-3867/

Basically, is it a good idea to recomend these to newbies? Should I recommend versions of these distros that come with other desktops, or recommend less popular distros?

If you believe that Gnome 2.x was a pinnacle of "newbie-friendliness" that will never be surpassed, then I recommend Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, which will offer paid extended support of Gnome 2.28 through Nov. 2020.

It's really no different than when KDE 4 came out; lots of KDE 3 users were appalled, but two things happened: KDE 4.x got progressively better, and enough KDE 3 distros continue to satisfy the die-hards. Personally I think that the Gnome 3/Unity shakeup is a golden opportunity for KDE and/or Xfce to become the new Numero Uno, either of which I would recommend to a new user in a heartbeat.

I'm not sure what you mean here. If you think that I meant that I want a GNOME 2 distro, that's not what I'm talking about. I prefer lightweight WMs.

I would also recommend KDE and Xfce to newbies.

It's just that when someone who never used Linux before and might not be very computer-literate asks "what distro do I choose", the usual answer is "Ubuntu, Mint, or Fedora". This question is about whether this is really the best thing to say, since Ubuntu uses Unity and Fedora uses GNOME 3. I'm worried about what if that person gets Ubuntu or Fedora, hates the interface, and decides that Linux is crap.

Should I (and other members) say something like "Mint, Fedora KDE Spin, or Xubuntu" now, or what?

I would opt for Mint (Gnome 2), simplyMepis (KDE) or PCLinuxOS (almost all). I think that it is not wrong to mention Fedora and Ubuntu, as long as one states that they are different in regards to the GUI.

I stopped reading there. Why would a newbie care if the current version of something is "too different" from its previous versions?

A newbie would probably care if it's very different to the OS they used all their life (Windows).

Apologies, I misinterpreted your post to mean "Gnome 2.x was a good DE for newbies; Gnome 3 and Unity are not." I guess that wasn't what you were really getting at.

I too am a fan of lightweight WM's so no argument from me. :)

All of the major distros support all of the major desktop environments, therefore personally my advice to a new user is something like, "choose the distro that has the community, support, release cycle, and stability you need, then choose the desktop environment that suits your work style." And of course, you can have multiple DE's installed so, for example, you can use Unity and your spouse can use KDE.

I actually very much like Unity and it was the reason I switched back to Ubuntu for the first time since 8.10. Unfortunately I'm finding it a little buggy, but I'm confident it will be in good shape in time for 12.04 LTS. I'm definitely not part of the "Oh no! Ubuntu is RUINED!!!" camp (especially given that Classic Gnome is alive and well and KDE, Xfce, LXDE are better-supported than ever).

I wouldn't recommend Fedora to anyone for precisely that reason…it moves too quickly. Someone who's new to Linux will (IMO) probably want something that they won't have to reinstall/upgrade so often. Ubuntu already has its "gotta release the next version within 6 months no matter what" scheme; Fedora, I imagine, is even worse. Although, I have little experience with it, so I couldn't say for sure. :-\

I would probably recommend Mint. It includes most functionality "n00bs" will probably expect OOB (Flash, proprietary multimedia codecs, etc.), and the default GNOME UI is even configured to look somewhat Windows-like: a single panel on the bottom with a menu button on the very left-hand side (much like the Windows "Start" menu), a window list (although I would think this is pretty essential to any decent WM/DE :rolleyes:), an area for various status icons and possibly launchers (much like the "system tray"), and a clock on the very right-hand side (which actually displays the full date).

I know that's not exactly what you were hoping for, but that's really all I can think of that fits the "n00b-friendly" description right now. :-\

EDIT: All that said, I personally don't even bother recommending any Linux to anyone, simply because a) I don't want to come off as some kind of pushy/annoying evangelist, and b) everyone I know who does use Windows seems okay with it. :-\

I guess Mint, PCLinuxOS, and matybe OpenSUSE would be good, I never tried SimplyMEPIS. And I guess that mentioning Ubuntu and Fedora but saying that the default GUIs are very unusual would be a good thing to say, too.

I'm talking about recommending distros to newbies here who ask "which distro should I choose".

I usually recommend Salix, mostly because it's slackware-based, I've tried it, and it looks user-friendly. It depends on how user-friendly you want tho ...

I personally don't consider Fedora all that user friendly. I mean it was my first distro (that worked), and from what I remember I had to install it about 4 or 5 times before it worked like it should.

Fedora as N00b friendly- I'm sorry whhhhhaaaat?

I too remember I had to reinstall and mess with my very first Fedora 11 install to get it to work properly and to make it useful for my Win-head gf, whom I consider total n00b when comes to computers or OS's.

And Fedora has even got worse with each release so far, Fedora 15 being the worse; so Fedora for newbie-friendliness, sorry not in this life anymore.
Long live Mint-9-gnome, Or even LMDE for the same purpose.

Define "newbie-friendly".

Yeah, I don't really think Fedora has ever really been noob-friendly. It lacks a certain stability that would allow noobs to be sure that everything isn't going to go boom.

I think Mepis is a great recommendation, and yes Mint also. Any of the 'buntu's I still think are fine. Gnome 3 is, IMO, not more drastically different for a noob than gnome 2. Only if you're used to gnome 2 is gnome 3 hard.

"Windows-like"

Kubuntu can be recommended safely.

Fedora is not newbie friendly and has bleeding edge stuff.