I would work back from the applications and then decide on the
distribution that best supports those.
* Email: Evolution works well and is apparently quite close to
Outlook. I find its preferences a tad confusing at times, to
âjust write emailâ it is very good.
* Office: OpenOffice.org is very good in many respects. I have not
struck Excel or Word file I could not open, but I can never tell
if the formatting is correct.
* Web: Firefox is bliss.
* File Manager: I recommend Nautilus, the GNOME file manager,
because of the following.
* Its folder model is very simple: folders are objects,
just the same as files. Double-click on a text file and
a window showing it opens. Double-click on a music file
and a window showing it opens. Double-click on an
spreadsheet and a window showing it opens. Double-click
on a folder and a window showing it opens. [1]
* Drag and drop is a lot more natural in Nautilus because
of the folder model.
* Nautilus only manages files. As it only does one thing
it tends to be less confusing than other file managers.
* Finally, fewer options are needed, compared to
Konqueror, because the greater simplicity of Nautilus.
So I am recommending a GNOME desktop, of version 2.6 or later. Clean,
simple, and easy to use.
[1]
I know that many do not like the folder model presented in
Nautilus. However, novice users tend to like it a lot more, and
even expert users learn to love it once they start having a
broad and shallow file hierarchy, rather than a narrow and deep
hierarchy.
--
Michael JasonSmith http://www.ldots.org/
