Distro to distribute among non geek friends

[praveesh]

I need to distribute a linux distribution among my non geek friends . It should have kde 4.3.2 or atleast kde 4.3 . Preferably with a better kde implementation. It should not get any dependancy hell . Graphical administrative tools should be there . Can you guys suggest one good distro ? KUbuntu is one choice . But Iam not satisfied with the kpackage kit and their kde implementation. Please keep in mind that my friends are nongeeks .

[NoaHall]

Try this one -
http://www.pclinuxos.com/

[praveesh]

Try this one -
http://www.pclinuxos.com/

thanks . But I could find only kde 3

[coldReactive]

thanks . But I could find only kde 3

http://linuxgator.org/home/index.html

Oh wait, you want KDE. :| Sorry, I had nothing but troubles with KDE.

[NoaHall]

Ah I see. You want it preinstalled. Opensuse? Hm. There's one at the back of mind, but i can't remember what's it called.

[Simian Man]

You absolutely want Mandriva One. It is very easy to use, comes with non-free software, has a great KDE implementation and is gorgeous.

[praveesh]

Ah I see. You want it preinstalled. Opensuse? Hm. There's one at the back of mind, but i can't remember what's it called.

I don't know how opensuse now is . But when I tried it a year ago , I got the dependancy hell . Is it improved

[Rogue dog]

You absolutely want Mandriva One. It is very easy to use, comes with non-free software, has a great KDE implementation and is gorgeous.


I will second this, good selection.

[praveesh]

Ok, Let me try the mandriva . But , since it's pre installed with non free stuffs, is it legal to redistribute?.

[nmccrina]

I don't know how opensuse now is . But when I tried it a year ago , I got the dependancy hell . Is it improved

Not sure what you are referring to by "dependency hell". I just spent two weeks with openSUSE 11.1 and KDE, and it was all right. It won't work for what you're talking about (it came with KDE 4.1; I enabled the KDE Factory repository to get KDE 4.3), but it was very nice.

[Simian Man]

"Dependency Hell" is what people here say when a new system doesn't handle packaging in exactly the same way as Debian. It's just easier than, you know, trying to learn something.

[JillSwift]

"Dependency Hell" is what people here say when a new system doesn't handle packaging in exactly the same way as Debian. It's just easier than, you know, trying to learn something.
Did that help you feel intellectually mighty?


"Dependency hell" is when you have to install dependencies for one package, and those dependencies have their own dependencies and/or conflict in some way with other dependencies. It's not a matter of learning something, it's a matter of finding yourself facing a lot more work than you expected or were interested in.

[Simian Man]

"Dependency hell" is when you have to install dependencies for one package, and those dependencies have their own dependencies and/or conflict in some way with other dependencies. It's not a matter of learning something, it's a matter of finding yourself facing a lot more work than you expected or were interested in.

But people here often throw out that term to describe, for example, OpenSuse despite not being able to give any details on what exactly what pacakges had dependency problems, and despite other people being able to use the system with no troubles whatsoever.

I know what dependency hell is, but, unless you try to install broken packages, it is extremely rare among modern Linux distributions.

[nmccrina]

"Dependency hell" is when you have to install dependencies for one package, and those dependencies have their own dependencies and/or conflict in some way with other dependencies. It's not a matter of learning something, it's a matter of finding yourself facing a lot more work than you expected or were interested in.

I wasn't sure if this is what the OP meant, since pretty much every distro out there except Slackware and LFS has a package manager that resolves dependencies. It's a non-issue unless you're trying to compile and install something from source. But why are non-geek friends trying to install something from source? That's why I asked, for clarification.

[JillSwift]

But people here often throw out that term to describe, for example, OpenSuse despite not being able to give any details on what exactly what pacakges had dependency problems, and despite other people being able to use the system with no troubles whatsoever.

I know what dependency hell is, but, unless you try to install broken packages, it is extremely rare among modern Linux distributions.
I sense confirmation bias in your view of this. There have been those who screech "dependency hell" without further explanation, but it's hardly "often" nor is there evidence that it's simply that they wanted it to be just like Debian.


I wasn't sure if this is what the OP meant, since pretty much every distro out there except Slackware and LFS has a package manager that resolves dependencies. It's a non-issue unless you're trying to compile and install something from source. But why are non-geek friends trying to install something from source? That's why I asked, for clarification.
I suppose the OP simply wants to be sure it's a distro that's clean and modern, without much risk of broken packages or temptation to compile something. That is, as "newbie proof" as can be.