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GiuHei3u
May 10th, 2011, 03:57 PM
Which flavor should one use if beginning Linux and coming from a Windows environment?
Which flavor should one use not having any technical knowledge of programming?

thanks

Blasphemist
May 10th, 2011, 04:08 PM
One of the most beautiful things about Free Open Source Software, such as Linux, is that there is a world of choice. What do you use your system for now and what do expect to change if anything? What are your preferences or priorities? Also, what hardware do you have? Provide the detail of your make and model please.

Do you want a system you do not even need to think at all about that just gives you a good browsing and email experience? Is media consumption your main priority and if so which kinds of media? Is gaming a high priority and if so what kind? Is business like use important? If so what software do you require use of or integration with? Are there any skills you want to be sure to keep and enhance?

Tell us as much as you can about what you want. Many people start with Ubuntu or Mint which is built from Ubuntu. But there are many options available depending on your preferences and platform.

foodmonkey
May 10th, 2011, 04:12 PM
all the variants have their good and not so good points - i'm a recent convert from the win environment and i've found ubuntu 11.04 much easier to use. some things take a while to get your head around (unity was one) but now that i've tweaked the system it does everything i could want of an appliance.

i suppose that descibes ubuntu - an endlessly tweakable appliance with serious performance advantages over windows and a really helpful user community to give you a hand if you get stuck - i should know several people have helped me on more than one occasion.

try downloading the live cd of ubuntu - burn it to cd and you boot off the cd without affecting you current system and try ubunt out - i did and was hooked.

Rubi1200
May 10th, 2011, 04:22 PM
Not to confuse the issue, but here is an excellent post describing some of the differences in desktop environments that are available on Linux:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=10653379&postcount=11

The best thing to do as a beginner is download and burn to CD/USB a whole bunch of different distros.

Boot them as a live medium, play around with them, and find what you like and feel comfortable with.

Distrowatch is a great site to find stuff and get more information on the various possibilities:
http://distrowatch.com/

Blasphemist
May 10th, 2011, 04:29 PM
Give this a few moments. You can not only get recommendations but also links to the distributions and an idea of what is involved in the choice. It is a distribution selection wizard.

http://www.zegeniestudios.net/ldc/index.php

VanR
May 10th, 2011, 06:23 PM
I highly recommend Zorin OS 4. I've been through about 6 Linux distros in the last week and I always come back to Zorin. It's the most like a Windows user desktop to me. If that is important to you. I liked Linux Mint 10 and Ubuntu 10.10 and PCLinuxOS also.

Blasphemist
May 10th, 2011, 07:13 PM
Zorin OS looks interesting, for users that need training wheels. Don't get me wrong, it looks like an interesting way to convert some users from Windows. I can see some drawbacks. It is built on Ubuntu as are Linux Mint and others. The goal here is to isolate the user from that somewhat to make things easier. That is good if it works extremely solidly but if there are support needs, it will make it tougher to get good help. I looked at the zorin forums for instance and I was the only person on the forums during the middle of the day here.

It's been created by a couple Irish school kids from what I can tell. They seem to have done a good job creating highly usable package of Ubuntu based linux using Gnome and LXDE desktop environments. They don't want a lot of money for the paid versions. They seem to say they are going to have a version based on natty this month.

The support outside of this forum is likely limited, and support here on this has it's limits. But overall, I hope these kids make something of this. More power to em! The idea has real merits and it at least looks like they have done it well.

http://www.lczajkowski.com/tag/zorin-os/
http://www.zorin-os.com/index.html
https://launchpad.net/zorin-os

VanR
May 10th, 2011, 08:46 PM
Zorin OS looks interesting, for users that need training wheels. Don't get me wrong, it looks like an interesting way to convert some users from Windows. I can see some drawbacks. It is built on Ubuntu as are Linux Mint and others. The goal here is to isolate the user from that somewhat to make things easier. That is good if it works extremely solidly but if there are support needs, it will make it tougher to get good help. I looked at the zorin forums for instance and I was the only person on the forums during the middle of the day here.

It's been created by a couple Irish school kids from what I can tell. They seem to have done a good job creating highly usable package of Ubuntu based linux using Gnome and LXDE desktop environments. They don't want a lot of money for the paid versions. They seem to say they are going to have a version based on natty this month.

The support outside of this forum is likely limited, and support here on this has it's limits. But overall, I hope these kids make something of this. More power to em! The idea has real merits and it at least looks like they have done it well.

http://www.lczajkowski.com/tag/zorin-os/
http://www.zorin-os.com/index.html
https://launchpad.net/zorin-os

Zorin has been rock solid for me. Runs alot faster than other Linux distros I have tried also. I have run into a bug with the start menu, but a log out/log in fixes that. Other than that no complaints.