Ghil Vertefeuille Posted June 22, 2005 Report Share Posted June 22, 2005 I'm always saying that Mandriva is probably one of the best easy to use distro presently. If not, Beatrix is a great choice =) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lowe Posted June 22, 2005 Report Share Posted June 22, 2005 I'm always saying that Mandriva is probably one of the best easy to use distro presently. If not, Beatrix is a great choice =) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Easy to use? Well that's if it actually installs. If you have some new hardware your going to run into all problems with mandriva. Even debian works with my nforce4 chipset, where mandrake fails miserably. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghil Vertefeuille Posted June 22, 2005 Report Share Posted June 22, 2005 hmm..that's bad, I just didn't ever have any problem with Mandriva, it's what I started with, and I still like it :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lowe Posted June 22, 2005 Report Share Posted June 22, 2005 hmm..that's bad, I just didn't ever have any problem with Mandriva, it's what I started with, and I still like it :) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Mandriva is a great distro, and i would love to use it again. I looked through the bug tracker, it says the nforce4 bug is fixed. So at least they are ironing out these bugs, but i'll have to wait for the next release of mandriva. (Although i hear a beta is out this month) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrisM Posted June 22, 2005 Author Report Share Posted June 22, 2005 As this is a distro needed for a TOTAL newbie, I wanted to suggest something which was gonna be problem free as poss. Â Now that arctic has shed some light on the problem of floppy disks, I'm leaning towards suggesting ubuntu/Beatrix. Â I installed Lycoris - but If the user wants to download additional software form the Lycoris site, again its based on a subscription/licencing service. The decision at the end of the day will not be mine though. Â I do think that once ubuntu or beatrix is installed, for someone who needs to get to know the very real basics i.e. word processing, emailing, web surfing then ubuntu will meet the demand PLUS its not as resource intensive as say Mandrake (though I guess I could opt for Mandrake + Gnome) - its gonna get installed on an old machine - I've noticed that on old, lower spec machines, Mandrake can have problems installing etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ac_dispatcher Posted June 25, 2005 Report Share Posted June 25, 2005 (edited) To be honest - Newbies like nice graphical system tools.  Ubuntu dont got it.  If they dont want "pay per service" like Linspire   then Id say Mandrake or Suse are your best choise.  Personal experience: Ive installed both Suse and Mandrake on ex Windows users computers, Those who I installed Mandrake on once they saw Suse wanted me to install it on their system. They seemed to like the menu setup of Suse rather then Mandrake.  If I had to install a Distro on my wife's or Grandma's computer - It would be Linspire or Xandros.  --probably Linspire with a lifetime CNR membership. All those flash howto's linspire comes with are very helpful. Edited June 25, 2005 by ac_dispatcher Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iphitus Posted June 25, 2005 Report Share Posted June 25, 2005 To be honest - Newbies like nice graphical system tools.  Ubuntu dont got it.  <{POST_SNAPBACK}>  Errrr. Yeah it does. Synaptic, the whole gnome-system-tools setup, it has them.  iphitus Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jlc Posted June 25, 2005 Report Share Posted June 25, 2005 errr fc4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jet2k5 Posted July 2, 2005 Report Share Posted July 2, 2005 errr fc4 <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Â Â deff no :P Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arctic Posted July 2, 2005 Report Share Posted July 2, 2005 :lol: agreed. fc4 i a great distro but it is for intermediate linux users imho. Â btw. i just upgraded my lappy to fc4 and it is a whole lot better than fc3. faster, more stable, faster yum, more selections for installing by default. nice job. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heather1113 Posted July 2, 2005 Report Share Posted July 2, 2005 I agree with what scarecrow said earlier about PCLinuxOS being great for new people. Untill I tried it I kept going back and forth between Windows and Linux but with PCLinuxOS I haven't had to boot over for about a week so far. It uses apt/synaptic which I love and the support is great. I mean, with how many distros can you easily ask questions to the person who created the distro. Also they have said that PCLinuxOS will always be a desktop focused distro and newbie friendly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ac_dispatcher Posted July 11, 2005 Report Share Posted July 11, 2005 Errrr. Yeah it does. Synaptic, the whole gnome-system-tools setup, it has them.<{POST_SNAPBACK}> Well the only Ubuntu Ive used was Kubuntu. What I was referring to was a MCC / YAST like program. Â If your going to convert a true Window$ user would it not be logical to show them KDE first? It is more "Windowish" then the rest. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoulSe Posted July 12, 2005 Report Share Posted July 12, 2005 Well the only Ubuntu Ive used was Kubuntu. What I was referring to was a MCC / YAST like program.  If your going to convert a true Window$ user would it not be logical to show them KDE first? It is more "Windowish" then the rest. Um... Synaptic is the GUI for apt - the package manager. IMHO it is even easier to use than Yum and is included on Kubuntu... iphitus is right.  There are also other tools that ubuntu athoured specifically for tasks such as network browsing included... :deal: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steppenwolf1984 Posted August 15, 2005 Report Share Posted August 15, 2005 Heard some solid raves about Xandros, and Mepis as well but havent tried them. I still have install problems with Ubuntu . My first Linux experience was Knoppix which was stuffed with packages , two or three pkgs for each function, and thats one of the things that brought me to Linux. I like choices and I like to install alot on my system instead of waiting till I need to. Only yesterday I discovered what IDLE was all about as I started looking into Python. Â From Knoppix it was Red Hat, then Mandy. I would reccommend Mandrake to any beginner willing to get their hands a little dirty rather than just point and click. Keep windows up for that. Ive heard that Mepis is so much better than the noob- friendly point and click book can point out. Mepis is making waves at the moment. I know that after Mdk its hard to go back to something like FC or Red Hat....too slow and awkward. SUse is also a user friendly distro Ive tried but the download has practically no media support because of copyrights , patents etc. Cant see any drawbacks to a new user going to Mandriva tho... I hope that was helpful.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scarecrow Posted August 15, 2005 Report Share Posted August 15, 2005 As far as I'm concerned, Mandy is easily the best Linux distro for newbies, and Arch Linux the choice for people that know a couple of things about Linux. Notice that I don't say "experts", as Arch is not a distro for experts- just for people that like Linux, don't mind reading some documentation, and can cope with few annoyances, usually relevant to the "bleeding edge" nature of this distro. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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