Well I've seen a net trend that it's better to stick with lts Ubuntu 10.04 unless you like the cutting edge.... But then again if you want stable that is almost always the way to go.... Debian Lenny, Suse, Red-hat, Ubuntu LTS (Okay often broken to start with) Slax et al... If you need the latest and greatest up-grade to the latest version of Linux, expect a little work at the beginning to make it all work..... After all that is the nature and curse of cutting edge technology. If you have a system critical machine, go with stable. If you want the latest or want to put the effort in to improve.... then upgrade. But don't complain all the time that it doesn't always work; you are not a Windows baby any more! You are on the road to understanding about the greatest OS and it's free, pretty secure and free!

Then again if the user was to quote "new to computers" is windows the best option? The Linux kernel has so many drivers pre-installed its a breeze to install in most cases if you have standard equipment (and let's face it if manufacturers weren't so windows orientated, everything would work out of the box). I spend less than an hour doing a total install of Linux, including office software, drivers, photo manipulation and have repositories of thousands of useful software packages at my fingertips, all free. Doing a windows from scratch install takes 6 - 7 hours if you're lucky. No internet drivers for the motherboard....... So many other driver updates that each require a system reboot..... then the windows updates and version updates...... and once you've done that..... Anti virus and other security software (the latter, the average novice wouldn't have a clue about)..... then the installing of the separate packages (remember no central repository)...... And who explains the importance of keeping each of these software products up to date...... And the importance of scanning for nasties? Nah, this is windows marketing nonsense. I have installed Linux on people computers and they have, after a few minutes training, commented how simple it was. They can cope with the updates as most modern distro's warn when they are available. Most modern distros come pre-loaded with all the software that the average Joe need... surfing, emailing, photo- management etc. I think if Linux was the default, manufacturers would provide all the drivers (makes marketing sense to me after, all who wants to buy a machine that doesn't work?) and computing would be easier. There would still be room for those that provide a great product and charge for it ie Corel Painter and as they were paid for products would encourage them to provide something special!

I Don't really see anything complicated with Linux. My Mother-in-law uses it (and always has an updated system) and yet she is the most computer illiterate person you could probably imagine. All she want's to do is surf and write emails, letters and print..... openSUSE has those covered easily on her second hand HP machine that only just managed to run xp . As for games.... come on if you're serious stop wasting your money on the top spec video cards and get yourself an Xbox, etc. They're built specifically for this purpose..... I use windows for one thing only..... I'm a sucker to try different OS's and there is one piece of software important to me that isn't compatible with *nix.... Corel Painter......

M-Audio works out of the box with out all the shinanigans of yum remove pulseaudio or apt get remove pulseaudio... I agree OpenSUSE is stable and the distro where everything just works.... Listen up Windows users!!! I have tried the latest Fedora 13 release for two weeks. And okay it looks so gorgeous out of the box....But there are so many things that just don't work or crash (at least on my machine) and I'm not just talking Flash/ MP3 etc.... I mean the desktop! openSUSE installs with no fuss and does what it says on the box!

Troll

Boring.... Nothing to do AT ALL with the post. You are just trying to incite arguments...

I agree with howlingfrog. If anyone has tried installing XP on a self build...... The number of drivers to find and install and the amount of time; you can certainly say goodbye to an evening. Vista is better but.... linux just rocks in this scenario. I've had ten minute installs with most things working out of the box! And I would personally say that the install process is fairly easy in most cases, with pretty point and click gui's ;) The problem with linux is the lack of support for proprietary software and games. I need Painter and there is no way it will run, nor is there a linux equivalent.... as for games..... well no need to say too much there! However if you have an old PC knocking around that is too slow for vista, need a cheap and cheerful PC for the kids, then linux really can be your choice of desktop. You may need to choose a distro wisely for older hardware. But there will almost certainly be a way to get linux running; saving you money, saving the environment and giving you the chance to pick up some new skills. Ok I am a linux fan!! However I have made many new devotees to linux by saving them the price of an upgrade. And many are very inexperienced computer users that just want to use the internet or type a letter. So I say there are two sides to this argument; and perhaps with more environmental concerns and less money around, Linux could be the perfect choice.

I have tried the previous version on my eeepc 701 and kde4 rocked with it!!! I am experimenting with Slackware for now, but I may go back. Everything works out of the box.... not bad for a non eeepc specific distro. I would certainly recommend to someone fed up with the default Xandros install.