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After spending hours fixing registry entries on Windows Vista, I am contemplating on switching to Linux for my home PC.
I've used Solaris and Mandrake for work before, but have never tried any Linux at home. Would anyone like to recommend a good version for basic home computing?
I use my home PC mostly for word processing, personal finance, emails, net surfing, playing movies.
Click here to see the post LQ members have rated as the most helpful post in this thread.
Yes, you could use Ubuntu. Most Linux users, however, try a few distributions before they find their 'best' one so you could also have a look at www.distrowatch.com and you'll see a list of most popular distros that you can try.
Post your hardware, and what you expect from a OS.
The hardware makes a big differnce, new 'cutting egde' hardware will need a newer linux distro.
Do you expect you OS to run the newest versions of programs, or are you happy with slightly older software?
Quote:
Originally Posted by divyashree
You can try Ubuntu which is the best as your need - word processing, personal finance, emails, net surfing, playing movies.
Pretty much every distro can do that, or be made to do that. Ubuntu is just one of many distros, and I cant see any reason why it would be 'the best' for those uses.
Distribution: OpenSUSE 13.2 64bit-Gnome on ASUS U52F
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I will suggest you to use OpenSuSE 12.1 with KDE desktop manager http://www.opensuse.org/en/
Keep in mind that in Linux you will need to download and install the necessary codec to play media files like Mp3s,movies, and Flash plugin.
I only know Linux Mint offers these codec at installation time.
All other software you need for home user tasks are available in pretty much all distro.
Well, we all can sit here and recommend our favorite distro, but actually that really is to no use of the OP. I would recommend to go to Distrowatch and have a look at the top 10 distros (and #16, to put in my favorite) and just try them. Which distro you use has nothing to do with "being better for home use". Any distro can be used at home and any distro can be used for the tasks you want to do. It is totally up to your personal likings, so just give it a try.
Download some live cd's from the distro's in the top 10 on distrowatch http://distrowatch.com/
Run them on your computer and make your choice.
Another option is to run linux in a virtual machine.
Seems like no problem with spanking new hardware, or an objection to running older software.
Probably not, but for all we know its an older motherboard/CPU/RAM/HDD (etc.) with a shiney new video card in there...
As for older sopftware, vista is just the OS. You still get updates to newer software. Lets use firefox as an example. I've seen lots of 'how do I update to firefox 10 from 3.X' posts on linxu forums. Some users just wory about security, and when its pointed out that (in many cases, and provided that your distro is still supported) the 3.X version is getting all the security updates provided to newer version, they relax.
Other user insist on getting the newest firefox version, just like they would have with windows. It doesnt matter if they are doing it because they dont trust/understand the backporting of security updates, or they have some issue with a site, or just 'want to be current'. It can still lead to issues and major headaches.
...
Keep in mind that in Linux you will need to download and install the necessary codec to play media files like Mp3s,movies, and Flash plugin.
I only know Linux Mint offers these codec at installation time.
All other software you need for home user tasks are available in pretty much all distro.
Good luck to you.
well, according to wikipedia they made an oem version for the united states because it is illigal to use some multimedia codecs.
Distribution: RHEL, CentOS, Debian, Oracle Solaris 10
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OrdinarySoul,
You can also take a look at LiveCD list also, which is also very helpful link for trying any distro which you like. Just download anyone you like from there and burn it on a CD or you can make a bootable pendrive and can try according to your need. Then after deciding what you need you can then install that OS on your machine.
Good Luck!
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