I need the most newbie friendly flavor of Linux

[Jassi]

Keep in mind, we have limited experience in programming and our computers are kind of old; so we need decent driver support and good features.

So far, I have looked at Gentoo but someone told me Mandrake and Red Hat might be good as well.

 

[Crusty]

Stay away from gentoo if your computers are old.

Go with Fedora Core 3, or SuSe.

 

[GhettoFob]

Ubuntu

 

[BlueWeasel]

I've recently started experimenting with Linux on my laptop, and I've tried several distros over the past few weeks. I've settled on PCLinuxOS, as it includes a good bit of packages and works well on my older laptop.

 

[episodic]

Ubuntu. . .

 

[nitromullet]

If you are intrigued by gentoo, but are a bit afraid of the install process, try vida linux.

http://gentoo.vidalinux.com/

It uses the Anaconda installer that RedHat/Fedora use, so it's easy to do, but you get a gentoo box when you're done. Plus, the packages are binaries, so you don't have to compile from the source to get up and running.

I have a few questions for some of the previous posters... I'm not trying to flame, I am honestly curious as to why you made the recommendations you did.

Stay away from gentoo if your computers are old.

Go with Fedora Core 3, or SuSe.

Why? So far, in my dealings with Linux, Gentoo has offered some of the best hardware support of any distro. Additonally, Gentoo compiles all of your programs from source, and allows (requires) you to tweak your kernel for your specific machine. This tends to make the system run smoother if done properly, which is certainly a benefit when running old hardware. Then again, the compilation may take a long time on an older machine.

Ubuntu

Why? What does it offer that other distros don't. It appears to just be a front end for Debian, which is an excellent distro in itself, why not just go with Debian?

Again, I'm not trying to flame anyone here, but I think that our opinions can be more valuable to OP if we offere some support to back up our suggestions. Personally, I like Gentoo, but I have run a number of other distros and they all have had their merits. I feel that Gentoo's package manager portage is second to none. Previoulsy, I would have given that distinction to apt-get (Debian), but portage has proven to be outstanding. I'm not sure what the state of rpm based package management is currently, since it has been a few years since I really dealt with them. However, from my experiences, they were lacking in resolving dependencies, and I found myself having use the --force flag during install far more often than I should have.

 

[Nothinman]

If by "newbie friendly" you mean simple install, then Gentoo isn't for you. But you have to realize that eventually, and probably sooner than you'd like, you'll have to actually learn how the OS works and how to use some of the CLI tools.

 

[Wolfsraider]

Originally posted by: nitromullet
If you are intrigued by gentoo, but are a bit afraid of the install process, try vida linux.

http://gentoo.vidalinux.com/

It uses the Anaconda installer that RedHat/Fedora use, so it's easy to do, but you get a gentoo box when you're done. Plus, the packages are binaries, so you don't have to compile from the source to get up and running.

I have a few questions for some of the previous posters... I'm not trying to flame, I am honestly curious as to why you made the recommendations you did.

Stay away from gentoo if your computers are old.

Go with Fedora Core 3, or SuSe.

Why? So far, in my dealings with Linux, Gentoo has offered some of the best hardware support of any distro. Additonally, Gentoo compiles all of your programs from source, and allows (requires) you to tweak your kernel for your specific machine. This tends to make the system run smoother if done properly, which is certainly a benefit when running old hardware. Then again, the compilation may take a long time on an older machine.

Ubuntu

Why? What does it offer that other distros don't. It appears to just be a front end for Debian, which is an excellent distro in itself, why not just go with Debian?

Again, I'm not trying to flame anyone here, but I think that our opinions can be more valuable to OP if we offere some support to back up our suggestions. Personally, I like Gentoo, but I have run a number of other distros and they all have had their merits. I feel that Gentoo's package manager portage is second to none. Previoulsy, I would have given that distinction to apt-get (Debian), but portage has proven to be outstanding. I'm not sure what the state of rpm based package management is currently, since it has been a few years since I really dealt with them. However, from my experiences, they were lacking in resolving dependencies, and I found myself having use the --force flag during install far more often than I should have.

Edit hit ok

anyway...I tried suse 9.2 and it offered good support for hardware but not complete , it was a nice layout and fairly easy to use.
I also tried mandrake 9 and 10.1, good but more lacking in hardware support as well.

then I tried Ubuntu... everything was found on the first try.
Besides that they unofficial guide rocks for easy everyday stuff.
http://www.ubuntuguide.org/#installnvidiadriver

I updated the core etc... no problems.(I am a newbie to linux)
most ot the settings are easily changed in a clear concise almost windows type enviroment.

suse's yast was a pain for me...but I love apt-get.
and it links dependancies (I installed the nvidia drivers (for the first time with no problems, tried many unsucessful times on suse and mandrake)
I also installed a boat load of games with out a hitch.

I am using it to run seventeen or bust (a distributed computing project) and it runs on par with windows.

I would definately recommend it to "at least try" it for yourself.

Regards
Mike