I would like to s/w her from Xp (slow)to a simple Linux..She likes to do pictures along with Internet and all office stuff.
I have Ubuntu on my laptop and it works great (just figured out the how to with panel icons)
I have an older 512Ram/40GbHD I can use to let her try it out.. So what you say...........
Regards

While this is waiting to be moved to the "which distro" megathread.....

Trying to convert other people to Linux is a questionable goal. About the most you can hope for is to show them some basics and then let them decide if they want to learn more.

My household perhaps typifies an exception: I am the SA, and the machine is set up with Linux. There are two other users: My wife and the pet-sitter. Both seem happy and frequency of calls for help are similar to the Windows days.

My wife knows that she is free to set up her own system with Windows (we have the hardware + a Win2K license)---there is not the slightest hint that this will ever happen.

The pet sitter seems happy, but I think she uses Windows at home. (We never discuss such things.)

I just recently switched my mother over to PCLinuxOS. My mother is not by any means computer literate, and had nothing but trouble using Windows. I suggested she use the live cd to see if she would like it. Oddly enough she's found PCLinuxOS easier to use than Windows XP, she's very happy with it. I'm more than happy, as I'm not getting a bunch of pleas to fix Windows for her every couple days.
PCLinuxOS was also the first one I started with.

Letting her try it out is fine, but the key would be if she perceives that it provides something she cannot get in Windows. (More speed, more security, easier to operate, etc.) Most people are not too excited about undergoing a learning curve, even if it is not that steep, unless there is a larger payoff in it for them.

LFS. If he/she can't work it out, dump/divorce them.

I subscribe to this very last sentence! But, I'm trying to figure out what LFS means... Linux From Scratch? Large File Support? Live for Speed?

I chose PCLinuxOS because it had what I was looking for and it's really easy to setup/use.
I, personally, do a great deal of photo work ( editing, restoring ). The Gimp works well for this, and there is also CinePaint ( found in Synaptic ). And I use openoffice a lot.
I don't miss Windows apps any, and I love how stable PCLinuxOS has been. When asking my mother how she likes it, the first thing she noted was how much faster it is. She was always complaining about how Windows would bog down her PC. She doesn't miss Windows either.
The desktop setup is somewhat similar to Windows, and isn't difficult to navigate.
As for security, I just run a firewall. It's nice to be rid of the bulky applications I had to use when running Windows. Don't miss them either.

Linux From Scratch...

I, too also recommend PclinuxOS to the average computer user I know. If the individual is more geeky, someone who likes how things work, I would recommend a more advance distro like slackware, arch,LFS and gentoo. But, I'm also fair too. Like any OS there are pros and cons. I would tell them that linux is an open source OS, and because of this some hardware vendors are reluctant to release the source code for the hardware. Thus, making some hardware not able to work in linux.

When I tell them the pros, it outweighs the cons. And they are happy for being honest with them.

-Linux rules!!!

BTW, how do the linux community create the modules for hardware that a vender refuses to provide specs or documentation for it?