Which Linux For Non-Techie Windows Users?

obarthelemy writes "Having at last gotten Linux to run satisfactorily on my own PCs, I'd now like to start transitioning friends and family from XP to Linux instead of Windows 7. The catch is that these guys don't understand or care much about computers, so the transition has to be as seamless and painless as possible. Actually, they won't care for new things; even the upcoming upgrade to Windows 7 would be a pain and a bother, which is a great opportunity for Linux. I'm not too concerned about software (most of them only need browser, IM, VLC, mail and a Powerpoint viewer for all those fascinating attachments). What I'm concerned about is OS look-and-feel and interface — system bar on the bottom with clock, trash, info on the right, menu on the left, menu items similar to those of Windows. Is it better to shoot for a very targeted distro? Which would you recommend? Are there themes/skins for mainstream distributions instead? I've been looking around the web, and it's hard to gauge which distros are well-done and reasonably active."

Try PC-BSD

[rhyous]

I think that you should give PC-BSD (http://www.pcbsd.org) a try. It is working really well for me.

Re:Ubuntu

[MichaelSmith]

Did you go out and find that same hill to photograph?

Re:Ubuntu

[Brian Gordon]

viruses and bluescreens aren't just "part of computers", but part of windows

Malware isn't just a part of Windows. If the user is stupid enough to run malicious code with elevated privileges then their computer is going to turn into mush like you describe, regardless of the operating system. Hiding root inside a cryptic shell doesn't really count.

Also, bluescreens haven't been a real complaint against Windows since XP pre-SP1. Any lingering problems are due to drivers, and Linux has much nastier drivers than Windows. Crashes are rare and Windows handles dying programs better than Linux. Badly written X applications occasionally cause my X to freeze up but I've never heard of such a thing on Windows.