Hi Shawn, If she is new to Linux I'd say Mandrake or Redhat. The reason I wouldn't suggest Suse is that you'd need to do an FTP install of Suse (which might be too long for an install fest), or purchase a box (which she may or may not want to do). Marcel might be able to give you some good reasons to go with Suse though. With Mandrake or Redhat someone could burn the disks ahead of time. Also, I've found Mandrake, as opposed to SUSE, to be a little bit friendlier with RPM's originally made in Redhat; though this may have changed with more recent releases of Suse. A lot of newbies don't understand, or want to mess around with compiling from source.
I hear Lycoris is a good newbie one, but I'm not sure what package manager it uses. Also, last time I tried Lycoris the installer did some funny stuff, mind you it did look pretty... lol... She could go with Lindows, but then she would definitely have to buy the box (I believe Nexus sells Lindows). I have barely touched Lindows so I can't really give you the pluses or minuses for that. I know a lot of seasoned Linux users don't like it, but a newbie probably could care less. That's my 2 cents anyway... :-) Brian H. -----Original Message----- From: Shawn [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, October 15, 2003 10:02 PM To: CLUG (E-mail) Subject: (clug-talk) Suggestions? My roommate has discovered this week that the older Compaq PC they have recently acquired is running Win 95, and refuses to recognize the DLink DFE-538TX card in it. It also refuses to properly read my (somewhat scratched) Win 98 CD. So, I suggested Linux to her. Now, I'm looking for some suggestions on which distro to install for her. I'm not looking to start any flames or long discussions on the merits of one distro over another. I just want an idea of which distro to look at for the Installfest with this box. She has some skills - she installed the NIC herself, and can install Windows if needed - but she has never worked with Linux before. She primarily want's email and web browsing capabilities. She will need the occasional office type tool as well (OpenOffice will do the job for her). So, the requirements aren't that great. I was thinking Suse or Mandrake would do the trick. Anyone have any comments, or reasons I shouldn't consider these? I'd like to make her Linux experience as smooth as possible. (oh, I don't have all the specs for the box either, but I think it's a P300.) On a different note, I finally got Zope and Plone running, and my website has been switched over (http://www.open2space.com), and I've placed an event on the site for the Installfest. Comments on the site are welcomed. (though I'm still working on the template/layout of the site) Shawn
