Re: [SLUG] distro recommendations

From: Rich Morgan (rmorgan@heavysystems.com)
Date: Mon Jul 16 2007 - 17:44:52 EDT


> What distro would be easiest for a complete neophyte (I'm talking 12:00
> flasher here) to use? I don't want her to even attempt anything but
> email,
> web, and maybe showing downloaded/mailed media. It definitely can't
> provide
> easy access from Jane User to the root account. Ease of administration
> isn't really a big deal; I'll set it up, and fix whatever breaks, but if I
> change anything I'll never hear the end of it.

This is a really loaded question and you'll get 10 different answers from
10 different people. However, any Linux distro will work perfectly for
her since all she'll be doing is e-mail, surfing the net and opening
pictures. The bigger question would be whether she would prefer KDE or
Gnome.

And let me also add that you *should* be concerned with "ease of
administration". It will be very easy to remotely upgrade her system with
security patches and bug fixes if you run an ssh daemon and/or webmin on
the box.

> Celeron 450
> DVD reader
> 30? GB HD
> FD
> maybe 500 MB RAM
> no idea what ports, other than PS2, parallel, USB
> whatever monitor we can grab, probably a 17 incher, whatever that is in
> pixels

Given those low-powered stats, I'd stay away from some of the more bloated
distro's like Suse and Ubuntu. Since it really doesn't matter what Linux
distro you use, I'd personally recommend Slackware or Debian.

v/r,
Rich Morgan
Open Addict.com
Linux + BSD 24/7

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