What Linux Distro is best for non-computer user...
 

OK..

Here's my goal - I've got an elderly grandparent who is NOT a computer user, but has successfully been using a "MailStation" for a year or so to send/receive email..

I would like to replace that piece of junk with a real PC, so that he can actually surf the web and view pictures and movies sent from family members.

My goals are:

1: Must run on CHEAP hardware. I've got a little bit of lattitude in the PC department, ie: a geeks-basement full of hardware that I can throw at this thing in the PC realm, or it could be a MAC of the G3 iMac vintage.. In otherwords, if I dont have it already in the basement, it should cost no more than $100 or so to get up and running..

2: It's got to be easy to use... This should be obvious from the initial statements, but I want to make sure I differentiate easy to use from easy to setup. I dont mind going through a bunch of crap to get it to work - I've been using PCs since the 4.77 mhz 5 slot PC, and I'm not afraid to use a command-line, but once I give it to the grandparent, it's just got to work, no questions asked..

3: It should look the same, every time... In my perfect world, I'd have a live disk, or a USB key which boots the same way every time, but has the advantage of using a hard disk or USB partition to store the mail and/or documents in. If I could find a kiosk type live disk that booted up in 30-60 seconds to a window that had 2 icons reading "Web" and "Email", and they just worked every time, but the email data itself was local on a writable but separate partition, that would be perfect...

So - it seems to me this would be simple, but every "easy" linux distro I seem to come upon is easy to setup, but not necessarily easy to use.. What am I missing??

By the way - I'm not opposed to using a Windows or MAC O/S, but it seems that for the customization of it all, I'm morel likely to find a very limited Linux shell...

Thanks!!
-Steve

PCLinuxOS 2007 because:
- it is one of the few Linux distros that comes with everything included (codecs, java, flash)
- it is a LIveCD that can be installed to hard disk (KDE but GNOME can be installed from repository)
- the installation process is fast and clear
- it is extremely easy to install more from the repository (link on the desktop + Synaptic manager)
- it is very stable although it is (unless this has recently changed) in beta
- it has one of the nicest interfaces I have ever seen on a Linux distribution
- its repository is small enough to be manageable but large enough to offer all that you may need
- it should run fine if you can give it 256MB of RAM (can be reduced if you install XFCE instead of KDE/Gnome)

http://www.pclinuxos.com/page.php?6

Any Distro with Gnome and the basic Email/Web Browsing/Office programs in place is equally easy to use. Set it up and spend an hour or two with your grandparent ... Schedule another hour in a day or two, and that should be all you need.

Install only Gnome-core and the particular pieces you need and you should be OK. They won't be expecting blazing speed.

Any distro can be set up to do what you need....
Note that PCLinuxOS 2007 is not yet released (the previous version is fine)

You're the first person here who has revealed themself as a pilot--I have many hours in 172s (which I'm told is a likely cause of my lousy hearing). the 172 is where I learned the full-flaps, 60-degree bank, spiral dive to landing. (Works great for coming in thru haze, but passengers hate it.....;) ) I have not flown for 25 years.
<<<<End nostalgia break>>>>

Moved: This thread is more suitable in Linux Distributions and has been moved accordingly to help your thread/question get the exposure it deserves.

Kubuntu
http://www.kubuntu.org/


Mandriva
http://www.mandriva.com/community/mandrivaone


PCLinuxOS .92
http://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/metalab/dist...glish/preview/
ftp://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/metalab/distr...glish/preview/

This is the distro I use and recommend, Why because it works right out of the box. No need to configure Everything, everything just works. It also comes as a 1 CD install that is a live CD that you can install later if you wish.

Mephis
http://www.mepis.org/


Blag
http://www.blagblagblag.org/download/

PCLinuxOS 2007 TR3 is getting better, keep an eye out for the final version. It'll rock your socks or something.

Only a live distro would give acceptable performance with an older machine. Suggest you try damn small linux or puppy unless you dont mind waiting for minutes for new apps to open and windows to close.

Live distro perfect, but how about data?
 

My perfect scenario would be just that - A live-disk distro, but one that could store the data files on a disk (or USB key) so that the emails and any downloaded data files could survive a boot.

Heck, if the whole live-disk was running off the USB key, that'd be a reasonable compromise, especially if I could mount the main system volume r/o, while the home / data directory would be mounted r/w...

It has been suggested that it would be "easy" for me to modify any of the live disk boot images to do this, but I think this is beyond my linux skills, at least when the resulting "experiment" is going to be physically located at my in-laws house 4 hours away.. It's just got to work.. I was hoping someone had done this already...

Freespire and Linspire are good but Linspire is not free.

For what you're looking for, I would suggest waiting for PCLinuxOS 2007 final.

Yes - puppy and slax have already undergone years of development to do just that!

You can wait for PCLOS 2007 final, but there is not a reason you can't try out TR3 (test release 3) as a LiveCD. It's test release is as stable, if not more stable than many other distros out there.

Bought a notebook last weekend and installed TR3 right off and everything just worked out of the box.

Yes great but can it booted 'toram' or 'copy2ram'?
Otherwise live distros are really not much good except for a quick test .. unless you dont mind waiting for applications to load from a slow cd drive.

Freespire is good for starters, looks like windows, doesn't crash like windows.