[Tutku]

Give it a shot to Pardus. In my opinion it is one of the easiest distro all over the world.

[Mel Thompson]

Mepis is the all-out kicker in terms of really real honestly user-friendly install and, most importantly, plugins galore. And not just plugins, but the right plug-in extras. There's a Hindu hymn site called Bhakti Sangeet Dot Com. They use Real Player, and a really picky set of helper plugins. If you can get songs to play on that site, like Mepis, then you've passed a solid test. Mint was on the verge of getting to the level of Mepis, and has a prettier interface, but alas . . . In any case, I'd still check out Mint as a kind of forefather of actually serious attempts at really real desktops honestly.

Puppy and Cent OS Live CDs rock for different reasons. Puppy because it not only has more plugins than many versions literally a hundred times it's package size, but it has real friendly network controls and it installs to all kinds of drives and media without the user having to be a computer brain.

Finally, on the puritan "free free non-proprietary" and "totally non-money or non-ownership" on every level to the point of actual sainthood, I'd check Debian 4.0 r3 i3, which, if one had to have those limits, only that version of Debian does it with such profound grace. Not to commit blasphemy, but, oddly, it ends up being sharper and cleaner and more functional than Ubuntu. (I still love Ubuntu, but find the distros just keep having too many quirks. In the end I hope they work it all out and kind of save the world along with Barak Obama.)

Lastly, see if your distro can somehow be the salvation of XFCE, which is simply the sharpest desktop environment, and so light on it's feet and so crisp. It can't quite find the market between Gnome on the heavy side and Fluxbox on the light side. But I believe it's so wonderful.

This ends my rambling silliness.

Mel C. Thompson (The Eternal Newbie).

[Manchunian]

I agree with practically everthing in you rambling silliness!

[Mel Thompson]

As a full-life desktop environment, I found that, in my little four days in Europe, I too enjoyed England more than France. France was beautiful, but England was as sharp as XFCE. My dream is to have a rich English supermodel fall in love with me and then let me use a room in her mansion as a home base in London. From there I would Eurostar and Bullet Train and Air Bus around Europe, always coming home at night to sleep in london. It would be The London OS with Continental Plugins.

Mel C. Thompson (Eternal Cosmic Newbie).

[Manchunian]

That's exacly what I mean when I say my heart stays in Britain. France is indeed a beautiful, diverse place with fantastic food! But I miss the British attitude, rebeliousness, and whacky humour. France has culture; Britain has soul. The two together make a wonderful combination - but I fear that with the price of petrol and environmental concerns, your dream will forever remain just a dream!

[Mel Thompson]

Yes, I think you are right. The way economics are trending, it seems that I am uncertain that I will be able to afford bus fare across town. So it seems utterly impossible that I shall get to Europe again. But, thank goodness for delusions. Without them, where would we be? Reality itself is simply not acceptable.

I just tried Pardus, but there were the typical sound issues and the usual Real Player problems. Too bad because the interface was really quite beautiful and the GUI installer was the very best. But, until they get that going a bit sharper, it's back to Puppy and Mepis.

Just tried the upgrade of Mint and have to say that 5.0 has really progressed. This time there were no issues with sound. Before, however, I used CNR to add Real Player and other difficult codec-and-dependency-ridden programs. This time CNR was really acting flaky. I was surprised by that. In any case, Mint itself is coming along quite impressively.

One of my issues is that I like Hindu devotional songs and Hindu music. And, for whatever reason, those techs in India don't yet get it about the universality and ease that Flash can create for everyone. So not only do they mostly use Real Player, but they tend to use weird additional codecs that even most other Real-Player-dependent sites don't use; that is, not only do they use Real Player, but they use especially picky versions of it. If it wasn't for that, I'd probably just go back to straight Debian.

[arnabt]

U can't go wrong wit Ubuntu. it's the best linux i have used for os