best distribution for novice?

astroworpastroworp Northridge, CA
edited May 2004 in Science & Tech
my girlfriend's grandfather is quite computer savvy as far as grandfathers go, and recently asked me what the best linux disribution would be for him. he said that he just wants something <b>simple</b> that he can mess around with. your guys' thoughts?

thanks!

Comments

  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited May 2004
    Linspire 4 or Mandrake 10 Official. Depends on exactly HOW savvy and curious about O\Ss he is, as to whether SuSE 9.1 would suit him or not. Fourth alternative, if he wants to run Microsoft apps on Linux, quite a few, including IE 6, I would suggest getting Xandros Desktop Pro version 2 for him. It has the best Microsoft MS type app runnablility of all the linuxes canned in with it, though you can get jut the runnablility for $54.99 from Xandros and run it on suSe or Mandrake or RedHat if you want.

    none of these are free. For free, try Fedora Core 2 or Mandrake 10 Community. There are live CDs available for Mandrake 120 Community, LinuxCentral has both Fedora Core 2 and Mandrake CDs sets available. Guess right now on when Linux central will be shipping SuSE 9.1 and Mandrake 10 Official is May 24th. If he is really good he can buy a Personal, get most of what he would want in small pieces free after that. Enterprise or Pro things have typically bundled server grade things.
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited May 2004
    The Redhat series is generally accepted as the "Windows of the Linux world."
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited May 2004
    Is Redhat, at least the off-the-shelf store version, at the state where one can just pop it in the CD tray and install? Serious question. I've had a number of people ask me about deskto Linux, assuming I know, which I plainly do not.
  • astroworpastroworp Northridge, CA
    edited May 2004
    red hat would be great except it's a lot of money, and he wants free. mandrake is cool but i'm not having luck getting that for free either. what the hell happened to "open source" equaling "free". sheesh. i understand it takes a lot of time and effort to develop a distro, but give me a break.
  • kanezfankanezfan sunny south florida Icrontian
    edited May 2004
    red hat enterprise isn't free, however fedora core is free. that's the name of their community supported OS. there is no boxed version however. you must download it.
  • fatcatfatcat Mizzou Icrontian
    edited May 2004
    astroworp wrote:
    red hat would be great except it's a lot of money, and he wants free. mandrake is cool but i'm not having luck getting that for free either. what the hell happened to "open source" equaling "free". sheesh. i understand it takes a lot of time and effort to develop a distro, but give me a break.

    www.linuxiso.org

    ive played a little with redhat(now fedora), mandrake, and lindows(now linspire) and i had the most luck with mandrake. but im also total linux noob :buck:
  • entropyentropy Yah-Der-Hey (Wisconsin)
    edited May 2004
    the only linux i've used is two live versions (knoppix and another one i forget...) and slackware. slack is good for older systems, and is relatively easy to configure, and i knew literally nothing about linux and now i do somewhat. if he really wants something to 'just mess around with' get a live version that requires no installing at all
  • kanezfankanezfan sunny south florida Icrontian
    edited May 2004
    i'm alo thinking, if the dude is retired and likes to tinker, get him to try out gentoo linux. he'll learn a lot about linux with that distro
  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited May 2004
    The reason I went wtih what I did was GUI and the ways the GUI interface are scripted to interoperate with the underlying textual\console adminned underlayers. Mandrake has switched mostly to Perl interfacing scripts, simply becasue they have coders that know that language very well-- and 10 ties GUI to lower things that a newbies should not have to extensively play with at first VERY well. Linspire is intended for newbies or those used to GUIs. I run most of my Linux admin in GUI, and I run SuSE simply because Mandrake 10 Official was not out yet when I needed soemthing that had support for the hardware on one of my IC7-Max3 boxes (I have two such, both have same motherboard). The KDE GUI at 3.1.4 or 3.2+ functions, and has a function set that is as complete as 98 SE with some things that are so close to XP in how WELL they work that it is not funny.

    A linux newbie who likes and is used to GUIs and is willing to learn new shortcuts in use should go with what I suggest, somewhere in that set. All come with manuals in multiple forms on CDs, of the purchased versions. So, they can be used to transition, or migrate.

    Slack is very configurable, but you do more under the hood things and it is best for older hardware-- not only does it work with it, it is best udes with older hardware. Mandrake is now tuned for 586 and UP, and is best with 686 and up.

    For real fast boxes, best results are obtained with something that has a 2.6 kernel included the distribution that has been beta'd and dev'd. Mandrake 10 Official and SuSE 9.1 qualify for this. IF you want support in the US, SuSE now has a Novell\SuSE site up, as Novell bought SuSE. Fedora comes with community support, you get to track down who did waht or talk to more advanced users. Official RedHat is expensive, mostly used by Enterprise.

    Linspire is tuned actively for end users and stand-alone boxes first and foremost. Version 4.0 works well fro migrators wanting something that acts more like Windows than RedHat Official or Slack. It is media tuned, more than secured, and is designed for end users and not enterprise.

    Just figured would outline this for two reasons: Each distro is tuned to hit a segment of the population of Linux users. And for hardware that the beta testers or publisher of distro have to test it on. If you do not know if your hardware will work, try Live CDs first, see what distro works best from Live CD boots. Live CDs do not write to HD with normal use. they shouldn't. BUT, live CDs that run well are more likely to have enough in common with same distro that the distro is likely to be a best fit for hardware.

    Gentoo is hyper-customizeable, but you will get to play a lot under the hood many times (not all, and as it comes out of normal install you might have more to fix with some hardware sets than with others and have more to fix with use of a console session and underlying commands than the GUI and adminning things with a canned SuSE or Mandrake or Linspire install can use much more GUI funtionality than Gentoo uses.) normally)
  • -tk-tk Detroit, MI USA Icrontian
    edited May 2004
    Do red hat 9 if you can find the ISO's, or fedora. The install is just as easy as windows (maybe even easier, gotta love the auto partitioning). They're also pretty intuitive, and they come with a ton of apps to get you started.
  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited May 2004
    -tk wrote:
    Do red hat 9 if you can find the ISO's, or fedora. The install is just as easy as windows (maybe even easier, gotta love the auto partitioning). They're also pretty intuitive, and they come with a ton of apps to get you started.

    Fedora Core ISO sets for 2 are getting to be on most Open Source mirrors now that have Fedora Core available-- if anyone wants a list of 4-5 mirrors that have them, let me know. Linux Central has preburned sets, if you get a bad burn they will reship what is bad, cost is about $6.96-$9.95 per ISO set with shipping then added in most cases, more CDs or newer costs more than smaller CD sets or older versions.
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