Favorite Desktop Distro for New Users - 2009

[computerophil]

Deffinitely Ubuntu, so far, I've had it on my desktop for uite some time and really like it. I've also tried Xandros- it was on my EEE PC and...well, it's said to be user-friendly; but just not for me! (Plus: hop you won't consider me posh if I say one reason I don't really like it is that it's not open source enough for me ) so now I'm considering switching to Mandriva

I like Mandriva but I've heard that the last one isn't as good and stable as the once before so maybe instead of switching to 2009.1 it is better to switch to 2009

[Hal343]

I usually reccommend Ubuntu because it works most of the time. For older hardware, Mint XFCE is fairly good, or minimal Xubuntu.

[Drycola]

For me (as a new user), I found that the LiveCD SLAX was the most interesting & attractive Linux distro for me.
To be more specific: The first Linux I tried was DamnSmallLinux (DSL). It wasn't a good start for a Window$-Addicted user!
Next one I downloaded was Ubuntu 8.10 (which did not work for me and that frustrated me at that time )
Later on, I tried SLAX, it was the real cause that made me convert to Linux.
Now I'm using Ubunut 7.10. But I highly recommend SLAX for beginners to take a look at Linux.

[Jollie_kitten]

I like Mandriva but I've heard that the last one isn't as good and stable as the once before so maybe instead of switching to 2009.1 it is better to switch to 2009

Thanks for the advice

[Artesia]

Now that I've become familiar with several distros, I'm finally voting on this poll and I voted Ubuntu. OpenSUSE is probaly ok, but personally, I've had issues with it. I've been running Zenwalk for a while now and I'm really enjoying it, but if I had started out with it I think it would have been a discouraging experience.

[darksyde]

I would have agreed with you...until I found Mint 6. Ubuntu is a great second choice, and I believe that both distro's, with their ease of use, hardware recognition and great desktop environments deserve their ranks in popularity.

[darksyde]

Ooops! My reply was directed to Elija, post #5.

[xsandz]

i just wanna go with Ubuntu...its really easy for the newbies and I wud like to prefer gnome rather than kde because of its simplicity

[Jollie_kitten]

i just wanna go with Ubuntu...its really easy for the newbies and I wud like to prefer gnome rather than kde because of its simplicity

Yep, I prefer Gnome over KDE too, I think it's a bit more "intuitive", plus I don't have a good video card and KDE is eating up a bit too many resources (that's why I don't keep compiz activated also, although it looks soooo good)

[xsandz]

Jollie_kitten..u can try xgce....it really light and takes min resources