User-friendly Distro

Matir · 02-19-2005, 11:18 PM

So, I've been using linux for a number of years now, but I've been using Debian, Gentoo, and Slackware. Not exactly what would be called "user friendly" interfaces.

I'm trying to get my brother (and potentially my girlfriend too) to give Linux a try. Unfortunately, they're not computer people like me. So what distribution should I give them?

Thinking about a knoppix sample at least, but something more permanent would be nice. I've heard good things about Ubuntu.

JSpired · 02-19-2005, 11:27 PM

I'd give them Knoppix first, as you suggested, followed by SuSE. In my experience, those completely new to Linux tend to do well on SuSE. Some like Mandrake and Fedora, as well, but SuSE would be my choice. Ubuntu is another good one, but not as user friendly as SuSE, IMO.

Matir · 02-20-2005, 12:33 AM

That does bring the question: P3-733/128 MB/20 GB. Will that run KDE smoothly? I'm a gentoo/fvwm fan, but I think KDE would cause the least transitional problems. I'll download SUSE isos tonight.

JSpired · 02-20-2005, 12:37 AM

I've run SuSE, Fedora and Ubuntu on similar specs. I would upgrade the RAM though.

shengchieh · 02-20-2005, 05:59 PM

http://distrowatch.com/ -> major distributions
http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reports/1266/1/
http://www.rodsbooks.com/distribs/
http://www.free-soft.org/FSM/english.../ladislav.html
http://old.lwn.net/Distributions/

IMHO Xandros is easiest. Lycoris is easy, but has
old libraries and less Softwares. Forget Linspire,
a major security violation running as root. Suse,
Mandrake, and Fedora are "catching up" user-friendlyness.
As mentioned before, try knoppix first.

Sheng-Cheih