We all use the command line because we want to do stuff and learn Linux. As long as my Mom has a browser (Galeon), e-mail (Evolution) and a word processor, (Abiword), she's happy!

My parents are the same way. I think Red Hat or Fedora would work fine. I've been running Red Hat since they came out with v 8.0 (I switched from Mandrake due to install / upgrade issues) and I have had very good luck with respect to perifials, USB/firewire devices, sound, wireless, etc..

Good Luck !

btw - I would trash windows immediately so there's no looking back since you're the family tech support department anyhow; which OS do you want to debug for everyone?

My parent's vehemently refuse to learn the command line, or anything about drivers, or anything about their computer basically.

They want something that just works right out of the box.

I could set up lnux for them (with your help).. but they're unwilling to learn anything new.

They use windows. Too "busy" is what they say.

It's not that "old dogs" can't learn "new tricks," but the fact that they don't want to.

Meh, I hope you have better luck!

I tried to look at your screenshot, but I got this ->

The image “http://www.geocities.com/tmp1306664/tmp103.png” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

NB: The problem may just be from inside China. I have to use a proxy server to get to any geocities website. Your page started to load before I got the error. I could see your browser was pointed to yahoo at the time.

I set up my parents computer with mandrake 9.1.
I chose this distro because i used it before, and alot of things can be done through a gui (thats good for people who have only used windows before imho).
My parents are very content with it, but all they do is check their mail, browse the internet, and do some word processing/spreadsheet things

My Mom's computer is set up to where there is no need for here to ever have to open a terminal. Once I convinced her that going with Linux would practically eliminate any need for virus protection, that her computer wouldn't be downloading a zillion spyware programs without her knowledge everytime she was on the net, that she could stop paying for Norton, and wouldn't have to update virus definitions, that there would be no diskfix and scandisk and defrag, and all that other Windows nonsense...she saw that it might be worth it. After several months as a happy RH 8 user, she now KNOWS it was worth it!

My first choice would be a Redhat distro. Of course I am biased as once I installed Redhat I have never gone back to Windows. Now running Slackware 9.1 and happy as hell. Just my .02 cents(Canadian).

I hope you are updating her kernel so she doesn't change her mind.

She's on 56k.

I let her have a go on my current setup, she admitted that it was easy (she even started playing some videos through xine - w00t!). I even showed her how I could open Word documents on OpenOffice... etc.

She used the argument that if anything went wrong no one could help her if I wasn't around.. (she doesn't know of this forum yet)... like all techhies are for Windows..

I will keep trying, though

Oh, and about the screenshot not loading up properly... it's available here: http://www.miamihost.net/ims/u/tmp22...es/tmp1032.jpg (but very small due to size constraints)

Maybe we should start a whole new thread..

Post a link to your Mom's screenshot!

Me, too. All the best to you! One major goal of my life right now is to format c:/q Windblows right off our 2 comps!

Good luck Chinaman! It isn't that difficult if you have some patience. I can't believe I just learned of this message board. This would have made my migration much less stressful!

Thanks, slackhappy! I am, too!

I've got tons of patience. My only problem is that I have to use my computer to produce a lot of graphics work, and without PageMaker, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and Fireworks - I'm having to really put LILO to work. But, I'm getting there! Just that I have to "use my computer to get work done" and don't have as much time to "work on my computer to get it to work."

I can smell that DOS command burning right under my fingertips! Actually, I think that I'll give both my hard drives a nice little low level format (when I can remove Windblows), just to remove all traces of Bill's self-centered, demonic, arrogant, possessive, repulsive (have I forgotten something?) practice of software monopoly right out of my box. I like my Maxtor's so much - they really deserve more than just rewriting the TOC, you know.

Well, last night I got Wine installed, so I can run PageMaker from within Linux. I've got better than a decade of experience with it, and use it all the time. There doesn't seem to be an open source product that compares. I installed it okay, but now I've got to get some fonts. I opened my latest newsletter composed in PageMaker with it installed in Slack, and it crashed because it doesn't have Garamond and Times New Roman. Those come with every Windblows OS, so I figured they'd also be standard in *nix. They're like 2 of the most basic cross-platform TTF's. I guess either the *nix font guy hasn't left the closet since '91, or I've got something else to do to get "good looking" fonts in Slack. Most probably the latter!

That and it won't print, but does a Windblows trick and hangs. Hey, at least it only hangs PageMaker, and not the rest of the running programs and the OS like Windblows! I haven't gotten GIMP or Mozilla to print either, so it's me there for sure. They just want to print to file. Not much good, as a screen shot can do that!

Well, as they say here in China, I'm learning *nix "man man lai" -- little by little.

LINDOWS.COM check that out its scary how easy it is for normal users.