Good Linux Distributions for Newbies [closed]
What are some good distributions for newbies? I'm not talking about your grandma who only uses the computer for surfing and solitaire.
I'm talking about fairly intelligent people who who know their way around windows and are tired of dealing with it.
What are the important features of said distributions?
Ubuntu is a good choice.
One of the features about it that I really like is what I call the "desktop swap" feature. It's basically like an alt + tab of sorts, but instead of going through applications, you have 4 (I think) desktops to play with. So you can have a dev desktop, a gaming desktop, a correspondence desktop (email, doc writing, etc.). At least that's how I used it.
Also, just FYI, I set this up on a VM on had it up and running flawlessly in like 30 minutes. The only manual thing I had to set up was the NIC, but I have a feeling that was just because I was running it as a VM. Really great way to run the distro if you don't want to whipe your windows box outright, but want to try something new (or for testing!)
Lots of people recommend Ubuntu but I find it a little too "kiddy" Linux. (I like root to have a password in the classic *nix fashion.) But then I am a long-time Linux user (Win2k was the last full-time Windows system I used for my own stuff although professionally I support all the Windows OSes). I used SUSE for years (still do in a vm hosted on my MacBookPro). Recently I've dabbled with vm's of Fedora, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Mandriva, and some of the *nixes.
It so much depends on what you want to do. A lot of the distros have live CDs which might give you a taste and a better feel for what pleases you. I know that SUSE, Ubuntu, and Mandriva all have these live CDs which you can download.
Take a look here:
http://www.livecdlist.com/
Ubuntu is the current flavor that gets attention for "ease of use". I usually recommend starting with that, then if you want to try a few more, trying Mandriva and OpenSuse. Different flavors, but fairly equivalent to Ubuntu.
Once you've played around a little and feel comfortable, you can try using Gentoo and configuring EVERYTHING. :) It takes a lot of time, but you have (virtually) complete control of your OS.
If you have any experience with any of the Unix flavors, you might consider trying Solaris 10, as it is now freely available. However, I don't think Solaris is as usable for Desktop Computing as the others mentioned above. Solaris gives you a lot of power and works well as a server OS. I know my father uses Solaris 10 on one of his systems, but I don't think he uses that system as a primary desktop system, so YMMV.