Which free OS?

[Gibson486]

I got a free laptop from work, but they removed the OS. As a result, i decided to try some free Operating systems.

I just want do simple stuff like surf the web and word processing. The computer is a Thinkpad T43. This will not be a main computer.

Here are some free OS have found....

Unbuntu
Haiku
Fedora
ReactOS

which if these would you recommend?

 

[Bateluer]

Technically, most Linux distros will be free. What do you intend to do with the laptop? And seeing as I'm unfamiliar with the specs of your T43, whats it sporting for CPU, RAM, and storage?

 

[(sic)Klown12]

Linux Mint is a great distro. Extremely easy to use even for people not well versed in Linux. It's using the same base as Ubuntu, so there is plenty of support out there.
http://www.linuxmint.com/

 

[Nothinman]

Haiku and ReactOS are pretty much worthless unless you want to help develop them. Ubuntu and Fedora are probably going to run about the same, although the default setups will be different and some of the underlying software is different. It's really personal preference and I tend to lean towards Ubuntu (technically Debian, which is Ubuntu's parent distro) because of the larger repos and better package management.

Mint is one of those things I never understood the point of. It's Ubuntu with some theme changes and other things that can all done to Ubuntu pretty easily. Although with the way Ubuntu's going with their default theme and WM in the future something like Mint might have a larger role since the Debian installer is scary to some, although I don't know why.

 

[VinylxScratches]

I've had good luck with OpenSuse 11.3 on my laptop.

 

[lxskllr]

Ubuntu's a solid choice, and currently my pick. I'd suggest downloading a few, and see which you like best. You can load them into a virtual machine for quick and easy testing. Here's my suggested tries...

Ubuntu Gnome - huge user base, lots of software.

Mint Gnome - same as above, slightly different gui, a couple different packages

Debian Gnome - what Ubuntu and mint are based off of. You get the niceties of Ubuntu, but can customize it more to your liking.

OpenSuse KDE - The Win7 of Linux. Nice packages, and a fat glossy gui.

Peppermint - A lightweight "cloud" O/S. I'm not a fan, but if you do everything online, it's lightweight.

Puppy - Light and fast, with nice packages for a small O/S.

Mandriva - Nice looking, with decent packages. Slick, but a bit lighter than OpenSuse. I think the future for this distro's a little iffy. I'd reject it for that alone, but that's kind of dumb. Try it, and see what you think.

 

[Cogman]

Like nothingman, I would suggest staying as far away as possible from Hiaku and reactOS. I do have hope that they will be more in the future, but right now they aren't good choices for any sort of desktop environment.

Just about any linux distro is going to be as good as the next. Ubuntu has worked well for me, though, I would just like to caution that going from one release to the next can be a PITA at times.

 

[Nothinman]

Like nothingman, I would suggest staying as far away as possible from Hiaku and reactOS. I do have hope that they will be more in the future, but right now they aren't good choices for any sort of desktop environment.

Just about any linux distro is going to be as good as the next. Ubuntu has worked well for me, though, I would just like to caution that going from one release to the next can be a PITA at times.

That's one major reason why I prefer Debian, in-place upgrades are always supported and I can run sid and never have to do any major upgrades anyway. It's crazy how Ubuntu can cause so many upgrade problems in so little of a time frame while Debian can go years between releases and have relatively problem free upgrades, as long as you skim the release notes for gotchas.

 

[Anteaus]

.02 . Debian > BSD > Other Linux distros. None will make you completely happy out of the box and there is a learning curve in any event.