Help for Newbie, who wants to escape Windows hell
 

Hi!

Newbie? More than a Newbie, that's me. But after 16 years am done with Windows. Considering I know zero of Linux, my concern is to find a distro, that is very user friendly, and has good video, takes a web cam and has something similar to Windows Movie Maker either able to be downloaded easily or already pre-loaded. In addition I need Flash, a good Word like program, a good email client, reasonably fast and can handle several windows and apps running or open at the same time.

It must be able to work in AMD environment E1- 1200 and above. Finally I have heard that downloading new programs might be a bit of a problem with Linux distros, if that is truly the case, then, my ideal distro would be able to be less of a problem in that area and still fill the requirements mentioned above.

I thank you in advance for any input. By the way I am running 2 lap tops (Toshiba's) and a desktop, 1 AMD quad (Desk Top) with Windows 7, 8 Gigs memory and 1 Terabyte storage, one of the Toshiba's is dual core AMD E1-1200 running, the horrible W 8.1 it has 4 GB of memory and 750MBs of storage, the other is a dual core running a basic Intel with Windows 7 and like 3 GBs of memory and same 750 or 800 of storage. Help!

You're describing pretty much any Linux distro. I'd suggest you go to this site: http://distrowatch.com/ and download a few live CD iso's. You can try them out and then install the one that's most to your liking. All the major distros are available from Distrowatch (they have links the the distros' official websites as well). They give you a paragraph or two summing up the main characteristics of the distro so have a good look around and you're sure to find something to your taste.
jdk

Just burn a few Live DVDs or USBs and do some test-driving. Your experience of actually evaluating the software will be much more meaningful than a few random internet opinions. :)

As far as newbie friendly distros are concerned I always recommend Linux Mint. Go for the LTS (long term support) release.

Downloading and installing programs is easier than in windows if they are available in your distro's repositories. (Think of them as an app store).
It becomes more difficult than in Windows if they are not.

That said, most of the stuff you need typicall is available, you just have to be open not to use the exact same software as under windows.

e.g.:
MS Office -> Libre Office
Photoshop -> GIMP
Outlook -> Thunderbird / Evolution
Internet Explorer -> Firefox...

etc...

I have to second what Joe said. Linux Mint is your best option. I recommend getting the "Cinammon" edition. It's pretty
easy to get used to coming from Windows, but it's quite customizable too, and looks nice. It comes with Flash pre-loaded,
along with codecs, but I can't say for sure about the other software you mentioned. Again, like Joe said, the Libre Office
suite is a decent replacement for the MS office suite. As an email client I would recommend Thunderbird. Very easy to use
and it's really good at filtering spam. For an equivalent of Movie Maker, that's a bit tough for me to say because I have no
experience in this area. Try Kino and Avidemux, see what one you like. The program Cheese lets you use a webcam and
includes some special effects.

Downloading software on Linux Mint is pretty easy. You just have to open up the software center, search for whatever
program you want, then apply the download. Of course, you can do it from a shell too, by typing
to install Cheese.

I recommend also getting the Gdebi package installer, because it allows you to install .deb files from the internet
very easily. If you want to install a program like Skype, which is non-free software and so not included in the
repositories, you need to install a .deb file. So, installing software on Linux is quite easy. The only thing that might be
challenging is installing a .tar.gz file, and LQ has a good tutorial of how to do this.
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...rograms-45094/
Don't worry though, you may never have to install from source. Basically every program you need will be in the
repositories.

Those machines are brawny enough to run any contemporary Linux distribution.

Mint is a good choice. It goes out of its way to design its menus to be relatively easy to navigate for someone coming from Windows.

You might also take a look at Mageia and OpenSuse.

Linux Mint. Maybe take the distro chooser test, also:

http://www.zegeniestudios.net/ldc/

rfon223 if you want a nice stable set up for video capture and video editing get with me. send me a message. I have used many distro's but the one that is the most stable for my video editing is Slackware. And Slackware is simple once you learn it.
When it comes to rendering video you need a stable system. And windows has nothing as good as Linux when it comes to video editing.
There is a third party video maker for windows that is very expensive.

I can tell you that there is other distro's with a click of a mouse and install that work ok. but not as stable as custom building it for your computer.

I will say that I started with Slackware, quite by accident (the first distro I tried to install wouldn't). I have never regretted it. Wherever I've wandered, I've always come back to Slackware.

Slackware does not hold your hand, but the elegant simplicity of Slackware has no match.

Help for Newbie ...
 

Thanks! I am having a problem downloading the Maya Metro from Mint from the iso disc .In fact W 8.1 and W 7 Ultra both don't even read it and it does not auto run. So I am kind of stuck right now I guess I could get a Live CD But the W 8.1 plainly refuses to boot from disc. In fact it tells me its not set up to boot from disc!! In any case i think I am going to uninstall the OS from hell, (W 8.1) anyway and if I can't get any distros to run on the the PC, I will just load Windows 7 on it. Right now, as it is, its almost not usable except for email and a little browsing and, even then, it keeps on changing to tile page from the desk top whenever it wants, often in the middle of an email.

Hi Yes Thank you. I am trying see my last post. Maybe I am using the wrong torrent, Vuze, but it was recommended by the Linux Mint site. Its probably one of two things my lack of skill, or Windows. I still don't get why W 7 does not boot from the burnt ISO, or even read the DVD, so like I said its probably me.

Thanks, that was my idea exactly! however W 8.1 does not even want to boot from disc and W 7 does not read it. I am just uninstalling W 8.1 and trying a cold install probably mate since the AMD is not that fast and I am afraid Cinnamon might slow it down even more I also like Magae I will try that as well.

Yep, LinuxMint is my recommendation too. But I would go for the Xfce desktop rather than the Cinnamon desktop if you're coming from Windows XP. I personally thing Xfce is more Windows-like than newer versions of Windows are. It's not as "fancy" as Cinnamon, but "fancy" can sometimes make things harder to learn. Moving from XP to Xfce will be more natural than moving from XP to Windows 8. Windows 8 is like, "Who came up with this completely alien interface?!"

Thank you! Like i said I can't get the Maya to work, It won't boot or be read by W's. I looked at the cinnamon I like it , but do you think the AMD E-1 1200 can handle it and not slow down a bit too much? The Flash preload is really attractive to me. Also thank you for all your software suggestions.

Thanks, I do like Mageia as well from what I have read and the screen shots I have seen