A friend currently using Windoze Vista wants to upgrade, either to Windoze 10 or Linux. I thought Windoze 10 was free, but he tells me he missed the free window.

He wrote, I recommended a boot flash drive. What distribution do you-all recommend?

A live distro from the USB drive would work. He should try several, as things have changed greatly since the mid-1990's when he last tried it.

Print and read out loud the following to him. Have him sign his initials after each paragraph is read:

http://linux.oneandoneis2.org/LNW.htm

Point out that the difference between the distros is the choice of defaults. They can all be readjusted to cherry pick the best characteristics from any others.

Then with all that unpleasantness out of the way consider any from the Linux Mint series or Pop!OS or even Kubuntu

https://linuxmint.com/download.php
https://system76.com/pop
https://kubuntu.org/getkubuntu/

Have him pick two or three and encourage him to take notes about what is good and bad about each one. Then use those notes to find another distro or further customize the best from the first batch.

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Technically Windows 10 upgrade was never free for Vista users. Only Win7/8/8.1


Linux Mint is probably going to be the easiest for a Windows user to feel comfortable with right away. It's based on Ubuntu but with the Cinnamon desktop and further user-friendliness improvements.

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Slackware, because ya got'a start somewhere. Brought to you by Slackers are us. Not affiliated with any Linux distribution.

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„Any suggestions on the most userfriendly way to switch to
unix“

This pointing at Unix, I guess the latest „distribution” available is Illumos.

I may be joking, though.

The best Linux-distribution for any new Linux-user is the one, that most of the people in her/his vicinity use. Ω

Mint used to be the distribution for people who have no friends in this world. If you do not fall into this category, ask your friends, i.e. those that you can call up on the phone for one specific question: „Can you please come over and explain something to me?”.

This alone should restrict the amount of choices to some few distributions and they are the absolutely best to recommend.

Defenitely Mint. It looks most familiar.

Let's face it: those poor users which have used Windows 7 or before now being dropped into W10 are totally confused. The differences between Vista and W10 are larger than between Vista and Mint.

Just curious, how could any one computer owner use Vista for such a long time?

jlinkels

Well, I guess you are going to get a lot of different answers !

I would say, what is he willing to do ? Does he want to learn Linux or just be able to do a list of things ? What would he like to do with his system ?

The one you are comfortable to setup for your friend and to provide help with.

Being a long-time Linux user myself, I'm pretty sceptical about the people who want to 'give Linux a try cause it's free n' Windoze's a piece of crap'. Generally it all ends with 'Linux's even crappier cause it lacks my favourite super-duper file manager'. Taking into account the story about your friend's latest Linux experience, I'd better argue him out of switching to Linux explaining the issues that always follow the decision. If after all that he still wants to try to make a switch, then there's absolutely no reason to search for the 'most user-friendly distro' nonsense. Linux's always a Linux be it Ubuntu or Slackware.

I doubt that a live distro would be the best choice. Personally I never liked any live distro as they all seem to lack the final polish and customization of the installed ones. That's understood cause uniformity and ordinariness are in the nature of live distros. Being able to save changes helps a bit, but not too much. Live distros are great as a repair tool or compatibility testing tool, but that's it.

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Ya, I forgot that one. Very good point !

You should burn a few disc's or make some live usb's for this person. If they know nothing then they could mess up what they have. I'd consider one of the top 20 choices at distrowatch maybe.

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I second jefro's suggestion. Let him or her try some of the major distros/desktops and then pick the one he/she feels most comfortable with.

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I don't think I had a choice in '97. I've used Slack since because I'm lazy. The guy who gave me my first disk switched to Fedora years ago.


He didn't mean it literally. We're old friends and a son of a friend uses Linux.

He's stubborn and cheap.

If he likes Linux enough he'll switch completely. He does a lot of writing and makes a lot of spreadsheets. He's seen OpenOffice. He'll be unhappy when there's no tax software.

I live a K-mile away.

I count on him not to do too much damage. I'll make a flash drive if he asks. He usually enjoys doing things himself. When he ran for sheriff last year he learnt Drupal to program his own website.

I'm changing my position. Slackware.

Me too. Seeing that the OP runs Slackware and the friend in question likes doing things himself, I'd add that to the top of the list. Though I'd still say throw in a few others like Linux Mint Cinnamon and Pop!OS in the sample platter so he gets an idea of the landscape. If you get a 16GB USB stick you can put a few distros on it along side Slackware and make it multi-boot.

• https://itsfoss.com/multiple-linux-one-usb/
• https://www.techrepublic.com/article...distributions/

However if you help him, it would be an advantage if he appreciates how powerful and easy the shell is to use. You could use tmux and OpenSSH to log in and share a terminal with him and walk him through any difficulties. But if he's not interested in that, yet, then I guess these days there are also TeamViewer and FreeNX instead on the graphical side. However, graphical tools have always felt to me like doing hand work wearing wet mittens.

I'm not trying to be a smartass, but unless you say what experience (both Linux/UNIX experience as well as general IT experience) this person has, it's hard to give any proper recommendation. It's like shooting in the dark.

I think you should state what his experience is, so people here can have a good understanding of what might suit him. That said, he should also try at least a few distros for himself and make up his own mind.