Hi,

I'm a Windows user and personally i'm quite sick of Microsoft's monopoly. I'm ready to make the switch to a better future. What distro would you recomend? I know basic shell but I prefer a GUI installation. And I hate having to install all these other dependancies to install the program I want. Simplicity is what I need until I can get used to Linux and move to a more powerful distrobution.


Thanks

Hi davethegenius!

Mandrake, Fedora and SuSE are very good and easy to use. I personally love SuSE, but Mandrake is a good choice too. Dependencies are easily handled today by using URPMI (Mandrake), apt-get (Fedora) and YaST (SuSE).

They all can be configured to install all packages and dependencies directly from the Internet with a single command. I remember installing RPM's in Mandrake with a simple (double-click) on the package with gurmpi (the graphical interface of urpmi).

Well, pick up your weapon, them choose one of the ammos above. You will be quite pleasured if those tools are well configured

SuSE all the way! It comes with 7 GBs worth of programs, has a beautiful GUI, and is very user-friendly. I was a Windows user at one time and this is the distro I've settled with. Also, if you don't want to give up Windows, the SuSE setup (YaST) will partition your hard drive without you havening to do ANYTHING.

In all honesty - my favorite distro is Fedora, but the easiest for you to use to test the waters and start playing with Linux is probably Knoppix.

You don't have to install squat to your HD, just boot off of the CD.

It will be slower than an installed distro, so keep that in mind.

I would recommend that you try distrobutions with "Live CDs" version. This way you can load linux off the cd and you can experience each one. Also this is an effective way to detect and major hardware compatibility problems. I personally tried to use debian was my Desktop OS but I was frustrated with configuring wireless card. So I quickly switched to slackware.

Just my two cents.

The best liveCD I've tried lately was simplymepis, and if you like it you can install it to the hard drive as well.
Very nice for a newbie and also very capable (multimedia etc)

Cheers
bareego

I'd have to say that Mandrake 10 is a very nice operating system for beginners to Open Source. A close second and really both distributions may switch places depending on what level of a 'beginner' you are would be Fedora Core 3.

I am with the Mandrake crew on this one. If you can get your hands on the latest realeases, the better coz of new features e.t.c.

Hi !

I'm a beginner like you and I've successfully installed Mandrake 10.1.

I've also tried the Simply Mepis live CD. As mentionned above, it could be a sensible thing to check whether your harware is supported or not.

There are so many Linux flavors, just experiment to find yours

Cheers

SUSE! YaST in SUSE is simple and easy to use to update everything. I love SUSE and hug my SUSE 9.1 Pro DVD. Sometimes I kiss it.

Oh SUSE
Well I love you my SUSE
You never leave me blue
My SUSE

Oh SUSE Oh SUSE
Oh SUSE I love you
My SUSE

Ubuntu, definetely easy to maintain and pretty easy to install.