i installed suse 9.1 awhile back and liked it but only problem was when i downloaded anything and tried to install it, AMSN and wine for instance, well amsn got it installed ok but had a bit of trouble running the program, got it eventually and wine well it kept asking for other pieces of software while i was trying to install it, had linux installed for a week or so trying to figure things out but went back to windows as i got a new pc but now wanna change back, anyone any tips for a newbie for installing programs and getting them to run, or maybe a different distro ? im used to the old point and click lol

cheers

I just installed ubuntu on my desktop! it is a really good OS for the desktop because it probes everything and you don't need to make any hard choices. You need to sit in front of it for 5 minuts (to set the drive partitions), then you just let it go (it downloads and installs software for about 1 hr.

http://www.ubuntulinux.org/

enjoy
hamish

Oh, plus it is VERY GUI orientated!

I love the Gentoo sig on posts about ubuntu. And while I love Gentoo, I agree that ubuntu is MUCH more user friendly and GUI-ish.

so is it easy enough to install programs and get them to run ? im jut looking for a distro thats easy to use and to get me started then ill progress

Actually, SuSE is very good for gui-based software installs, too. Just use the yast front-end, and install software with that.

Of course, you don't use it if you download tarballs from the "wild", but with the size of SuSE's software repository, you shouldn't *have* to D/L anything else.

Edit: If you want to try a different distro, then Ubuntu is okay (I was underwhelmed), Mandrake, and Debian are very good, too.

IMHO, SimplyMepis is even more user-friendly than Ubuntu.
Very nice distro, really !

I personally like Suse 9.2 pro. It has a great installer program (yast), and all sysetem/security updates are installed easily. Also, if you feel like learning a thing or two, you can always install programs from the console via tarballs.

With ubuntu, there is a GUI package manager for installing programmes (called Synaptic). Alternatively, there is the command line which is a programme called apt-get (which you may have heard of).

to install firefox, you just type
# apt-get install mozilla-firefox

and then it installs it, and puts links the "start menu" (If I remember correctly).

Hamish

I think the distro you asked about (SuSE 9.2) is very easy to use and very "click and run." That's only my opinion though. There are many good distros out there and you should take the time to sample a few and see which "fits" you.

Best of luck!

cool ill install it on me spare HD and see how it goes, took me 10 hours to download it lol