Linux distro for newbie?

[joel2007]

1. Light on resources (P4, 1.3ghz, 512ram). No need pretty graphic. Just make it run fast.
2. Hardware compatibility (old hardware).
3. User friendly.
4. Easy to maintain (update, etc..).
1 is the most important. 4 is the least.
Computer will be used for surf web, chat, youtube, Skype. No game.

Thank you.

 

[Jayce]

Well, most of the main Linux distros out there are pretty user friendly to begin with. I have a file server + windows imaging server running on a machine of almost identical spec you posted about. It runs on a standard Ubuntu 10.04 install and does just fine.

Linux Mint, Ubuntu, Mandriva, and PC Linux OS are all very user friendly. I'd probably lean more towards Mint over all of them, though, but only because it comes pre-packaged with a lot of codecs and proprietary drivers. Even still, it's crazy-easy to install that stuff on other distros that don't come pre-packaged with it as well.

I don't have much experience with LXDE, although it resembles KDE by default appearance and is extremely low on resources, meaning it's pretty quick. So if you're feeling adventuresome, try out "Lubuntu" (basically Ubuntu w/ LXDE instead of Gnome) or another LXDE based distro. I know quite a few users enjoy the LXDE platform. In fact I may download it now to be more acquainted...

 

[networkingnewb]

Your RAM isn't horrible depending on what you're doing but the CPU might be a bit slow. LXDE is a great place to start but if that doesn't work you can try xubuntu using the XFCE environment. Lubuntu is a *currently* unaffiliated version of Ubuntu. They're working on getting endorsed by Canonical at the moment.

Ubuntu is by far one the more user friendly and expandable distros I've ever used. There are many like gentoo or slackware that allow or force you to build it from the ground up or as simple to use as fedora/ubuntu's sugar linux window manager--which I've only tried once and can't really comment on.

If Lubuntu doesn't work out for you then I highly suggest staying within the Ubuntu family for user-friendly distros and would point you towards Xubuntu. If neither of these work you might be able to use a few others I know about, but I'll try not to make this post too long going over more and more distros. For my own sanity I'll be shutting up now.

For a long list of Ubuntu derivatives click: Derivatives | Ubuntu

 

[kmote]

Slackware isn't normally built by the installer, gentoo was but even they have a binary for installation now IIRC. Having said that, I would actually recommend something from the debian family.

 

[jakec]

Try the distro chooser in my sig

Jake

 

[joel2007]

Hi guys, I just tried out Lubuntu. It does work well But it's kinda slow compare to Windows XP on this computer.
I'm thinking about OpenSuse or Puppy Linux Or another distro?

About Ubuntu? No I hate Ubuntu. It's bloat. It's worst than Lubuntu.

 

[kmote]

Opensuse is just as heavy as ubuntu.

 

[networkingnewb]

Puppy, DSL, or Gentoo would help to keep down on the bloat. Just checked out their new site, I rather like it. Love how it shows you how big the iso will be.

 

[Kharn]

If you want no learning curve Ubuntu (horrible choice) If you want to apply what you learn directly to enterprise Fedora or Redhat, if you want to learn and get technical Gentoo but nothing will beat the choice of using real unix and using one of the BSD's.

 

[SirCyber]

DSL is the smallest linux kernel I know of, regular Ubuntu is something that I used for years, takes a little to optimize but it's really easy to learn and the Ubuntu forums are really good sources of information