Hi.
I am looking for a very userfriendly distro. It should be nearly as intuitive as win xp or mac os x. and it should be free, or cost very little. I want to convince some friends of mine switching to linux, but they only have windoze experience.
Suse would fit my idea more or less, but is very expensive (89 euros!)
mandrake too is very expensive.
debian might not offer the userfriendlieness I am seeking for. (installation, plug&play, gui configuration, speaking of suse's yast...)
Is ubuntu linux userfriendly and easy to manage?

what distro should I try?

thanks

quarry

Suse you can download via FTP for free. Mandrake you can download and burn the iso's for free as well. Fedora is pretty user friendly along with Lycoris, Linspire, Xandros and many others. The only one that you have to pay for out of those I mentioned is Linspire and Xandros.

You could even download and burn Knoppix, it boots from the cdrom and loads the OS by those means, not requiring an install to show your friends Linux, by even loading it on their own system.

I wouldn't suggest Debian though, its one of the hardest installs to perform, well, for newcomers it can be daunting.

SimplyMEPIS fits the bill.
Get 2004.4 and try it out as a live CD abd then if you like it, install it ti the disk.
If you get tired of it, you can get directions on mepislovers.com to switch to Debian unstable.