As my first post, I am trying to find out what is the
most reliable home Linux distro for use by a
non technical user of these apps: open office writer, browser e.g safari or chrome, photo view app, support for printing, Ethernet, wifi to g/n.

Reason for request:
Vista History of slow startup, apps crashing to desktop, logout and shutdown failures, even tho PC is maintained weekly (spybot, windows update, tune- up, a/v). I don't want to rebuild the o/s to get another un reliable Vista! -

Home PC: hp s3350 2gb ram, 500 gb disk etc

Many thanks for any thoughts in response.
Womble48

Mint?

1 members found this post helpful.

Hello and Welcome.
Basically in order to find good Linux distro for you it depends on what your certain needs are (and experience level in some cases).
In your case, I would try Linux Mint or Ubuntu Linux. Both are very easy to use graphically. They should work just fine on your hardware. They will have the software (or equivalent) that you have indicated you need, and networking is usually very simple. Whichever distro you decide upon be sure to read the installation instructions prior to the install. This can eliminate some possible headaches and frustration.
Good luck.

1 members found this post helpful.

You should look at a few live CD's. Try them out and see which one suits you and your hardware. If you visit this site it will have links to downloads of live CD's for most of the the distros.
jdk

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BEST is a very loose term

best for a GAMER?
best for a WRITER ( think Steven King - writing is an ADDICTION )
best for a physics student ?

we are not mind readers so what is best for ME, you might HATE WITH A PASSION .

but

i like OpenSUSE using KDE
because I HATE WITH A PASSION -- Gnome3

but i also NEED to run RHEL6 so i use ScientificLinux ALSO


but with only 2 gig of ram

have a look at Linux Mint using a lightweight Desktop like XFCE or LXDE

2 members found this post helpful.

Hi. Lots of choices here in Linux* land,,, if you click on Jdkaye's ^link^ then hit "Go" (upper left corner) and don't put a distros name in "Type Distribution Name" you get this then select some stuff or just tap on the second "Submit Query" that can help narrow down some to try "sorted by popularity..." best wishes and have fun.