You don't find that something like Ubuntu covers most of what an average user would need? Web browser, office suite, and some knick knacks?

User-friendly, no? DIfferent from Windows, but no more so than MacOS.

Ubuntu 8.10 did not detect my sound and with Ubuntu can't really surfing the net properly out-of-the-box since it wont allow layman to install plugins required when you surf to the site like lowyat.net and all other since they strictly allow 100% free software.

Since you can't detect the sound,SOLVE IT.

I do think you install linux to learn linux.So,it's great chance to learn linux.

You can't just switch to other distro,because your sound is not working,network is not working etc without making attempt to solve them in your present distro.

Ubuntu,Mint,and PC Linux OS is considered very user-friendly distro.If you really want Windows-like GUI,go for Windows.

And,what's your definition of USER-FRIENDLY?Slackware is user-friendly distro to me.

Sorry to hear that.

I was actually impressed with how everything worked OOTB for me. My WiFi, Nvidia card, sound (mine is onboard tho), it even identified my monitor which Windows always listed as a generic PnP. Everything worked on first boot. Same thing with my Toshiba laptop, all my components work: Wifi, bluetooth, video. I still am amazed at the level of hardware support.

What plug-ins? Like Flash Player? Why not? I got mine installed and I have to be very honest and say I know nothing about Linux. If you're any more layman than me, you'll have to dig a hole to see the sky.

You running from Live CD or an install?

I'm downloading other distros like Mandriva, Fedora and OpenSuse to test but I'm happy enough with Ubuntu now.

Yea, Ubuntu can detect my desktop hardware.
Haven tried on my laptop.

Of course I will run my Windows Vista Ultimate on Linux using the Virtual Box.

Some Linux fail to detect my Broadcom Wireless (only the broadcom) while others fail to my sound (only sound). So far I haven't found one that can detect both Broadcom wireless AND sound.

As for learning. Yes I do want to learn but I want to first setup the Linux machine up and running and install my Vista on it using Virtual Box so that I can use it for my daily routine and do my work. After my basic necessity has been fulfiled ONLY THEN I will slowly learn the Linux and eventually will STOP using Vista at some point (I hope).

You can suggest me any Linux even the commercial one coz I don't mind paying. All I want is just an alternative to MS Operating System.

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Added on January 2, 2009, 8:59 pmYeah, my desktop running fine too but my notebooks isn't. The thing is I want to get rid of my desktop and just start using notebook 100%. That is why now I have 2 notebook where one is exclusively for torrent + encoding job.

This post has been edited by Spade: Jan 2 2009, 09:00 PM

i think what you asking is ridiculous. you cannot expect everything work on free OS. and there's a way to make it work, just you have to google for it. and that's the first step to learn to use linux.

You can go to distrowatch.com to see distributions you want.You can also go to http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/li...5/?daysprune=30 to seek any recommendation for the type of distro you want.

First,what sound card you have?
What type of chipset is your Broadcom?I'm not too familiar with wireless thingy.I leave it to other forummer.
For Linux,you will really have to be very CAREFUL when you purchase your hardware,or laptop because some of them just incompatible with Unix/Linux system.

Some problems are related to kernel,not necessarily the distros.

BTW,Isn't setting up a perfect running Linux system is a part of learning linux?

If you still want recommendations,you can try Linspire/Freespire or Xandros.

If you really want to learn linux/Unix the hard way,Debian,Slackware,*Solaris and *BSDs may be suitable for you.

As far as I know those 3 Linux distribution hasn't been updated to new Kernel for years. New Kernel usually means better hardware support especially a new hardware.

As for learning yes, setting up a perfect running Linux is part of the learning but it should be simple. At least as simple as setting up a Windows.

I personally think that 64 bit in linux is not stable (actually it is not stable, but troublesome) especially when dealing with the library.
You have to re-link certain application's library otherwise, it will not function properly.

I use Fedora core 8 64 bit for my thinkpad x61, quite lag especially when you are copying file.
Then, I download the 32 bit version of the same distro, and it work perfectly.

Sorry,I didn't really take a lot of attention on the 3 distros above.

Simple or hard is quite a relative term.One can say using Ubuntu is hard and using BSD is easy.

For now,I'm using Slackware 12.0,not the newest slackware but when I first installed it,it's really quite a plain distro.Even the KDE wallpaper is the default KDE 3.5 wallpaper.

Setting up sound should be quite easy,alsaconf will usually do the trick.Next,I have to setup the sensors.I installed lm_sensors,modprobe some modules and my sensors is working.

Third,I have to setup nvidia drivers,my keyboard drivers etc.I usually set all these in about an hour.

Yes,it would be quite hard but you don't have to do it often.

If you still want more distros choice,how about Zenwalk?It's quite fast as someone said,and if you like Gnome then I think you would like it.

Here's my question to you;

1.What hardware are you using?
2.What is your preferred choice of desktop enviroment?KDE,GNOME etc
3.How deep you want to know about linux?
4.Do you want to have everything automatically done for you,or you want to have more control of your OS?

If you can answer questions 2,3 and 4,then we should can recommend a right distro for you.

All of the software and libraries have 32bit or 64bit versions. Recompiling a kernel won't fix it. Might actually break a lot if you have no 64 bit libraries around to help support your changes.

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Added on January 5, 2009, 8:30 amI have been playing around with opensuse 10.3 64bit. I don't know if it is the most user friendly (probably ubuntu is a better bet for that). I have noticed some of the software that comes with opensuse doesn't work as it was distributed, occasionally its hard to add software, java plugin for web was not set up to work properly in the distro. Otherwise it has been pretty stable and fast.

This post has been edited by nlinley: Jan 5 2009, 08:30 AM

Out of curiosity, what would the advantages be for running 64-bit over 32-bit at the desktop level currently?

don't expect to get gui as friendly as windows. This will never happen in linux. At least not in short term.

I suggest you just install one distro that is easy to use such as ubuntu or opensuse then let him try. If he doesn't like it then move back to windows.

IMHO, linux is still not mature enough to be used as desktop for common people. It still need a bit of technical aptitude to use linux as desktop. Those who are inept will definitely be stuck not knowing what to do.

As for 64bit vs 32bit, I would say go for 64bit. Linux's 64bit platform is already very stable. They were out way long before windows 64bit.

Its because the one that you tried is 100% OSS version. You should try the one with proprietary software then you can do many thing like play movies, mp3 and surfing internet with java function and other plugins. But still, my quest is to find the most user friendly Linux.

User-friendly as in use or in set-up? Sounds like your gripes mainly centre on zeroconf hardware support.

With Linux, I think it's reasonable to expect some issues to arise that requires some fingerwork on the users part.

Ubuntu, for example, installs and runs flawlessly on my system. Everything works but it's the only distro that does that for my computer. Fedora. Mandriva, and openSUSE all had issues on mine.

But I was curious about the others, so I tried openSUSE anyway.

With openSUSE, I had to run through hoops. The LiveCD sends my LCD out of frequency because X selects an incompatible driver for my video card so I only have a blank screen. I had to find out how to boot at Init level 3 to reconfigure X to to use the right drivers. Had to do this since even failsafe wouldn't work. No choice since I didn't know terminal commands and didn't want to install something that wouldn't even let be fire up a GUI.

Installed it and then it gave me a GruB error 17, which I learned was an unrecognised file system for the partition, and refused to boot into either Linux or my Windows (alarm bells). So I had to hunt down how to reinstall Grub (didn't work), reconfigure Grub (didn't work), reorder my partitions (didn't work), and reset the partition type (type). No luck, so I had to move Grub onto the /root on my USB. At least I got Windows back.

Once I got that working, it then conspired to not boot into openSUSE from my external drive. More hunting taught me that USB booting isn't the simple process that I thought it would be and, after much pain and suffering, I only discovered that my motherboard isn't USB-boot friendly as it wouldn't recognise boot files on anything USB, not even if it was a Windows rescue disk. I need to either have Grub on hd0 (can't because of error 17) or a /boot partition on a local drive, but if that's the case I might as well have the whole installation internal.

So now I'm in the process of migrating files out of one of my storage partitions to convert into the new home for openSUSE.

Everything could work out of the box, but chances are some things won't. But whatever it is, the answer is out there

Any other suggestion gentlemen?

Spade Bro !

Nice to see you here !!

Linux is almost limitless in features and functionality !!

But your mentality and approach limit yourself to the unlimited world of linux.

Until you open up, you will appreciate it's openness

Change is Pain, and I am sure that you would feel uneasy at the beginning.

For sure there are problems in every software and OS, but for linux, once you understand the way, solving those problems are a lot easier then for XP/Vista by M$crosoft

You can basically get the software to do what you need to be done, for FREE ......most of the time !

You have a better and secure environment, compare to M$ that is more prone to virus attack & security problems if you are doing online transaction often.

For an easy setup, I also recommend ubuntu or PClinuxOS.

Like in your case for your Broadcom wifi card in ubuntu, what you probably need to do is to install a driver, and that it's !

Learning curve that is for sure, but open up and look forward, you will discover the beauty

I have never turn back for 5 years now ............and I truly enjoy it

Have fun !!

Read here http://lateral.netmanagers.com.ar/stories/BBS45.html

hehee.. mac user to promote os x in linux thread?

well, to me, i fall in with suse, to be precise, opensuse
doin' installation & update much easier compared to any others distro
it almost like windows, alot repository available to update patches