[ozar]

This poll/thread is meant to help those users that are new to Linux and having difficulty deciding which distribution(s) they should start with. Please use it to post information about your favorite beginner oriented distro, but don't post comments saying that any particular distro is the best, because the best truly is very subjective.

Note that this thread will be locked and/or deleted at the end of the year and a new thread started.

[daacosta]

Well, I had very good luck with both Ubuntu and Xandros when I started using Linux regularly on an old Compaq 5000. Nowadays I would recommend Knoppix as it is a live distro that doesn't commit the new user to it but allows him/her to experiment.

[devils casper]

Ubuntu. i prefer K Desktop Environment so its KUbuntu.

SLAX. a LiveCD, doesn't has install option, works pretty fine in almost all machines and has all audio/video codecs.

[Ozzi]

Well, I voted for Ubuntu, but I'm not sure if it's the best system for all new users, since everyithing usualy works out of the box and you don't need to learn much more in order to use it. I sarted out with Fedora and I belive it is a better experience for those who want to learn, since it has a few bugs to get comfy with

[tech_man]

Gentoo. Just kidding, Ubuntu has my vote.

[harner]

Originally Posted by tech_man

Gentoo. Just kidding, Ubuntu has my vote.

I voted openSUSE, but I'd really recommend SLED - Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop.

[tommytabib]

I voted ubuntu because its so incredibly easy for anyone to use.

[ozar]

I voted openSUSE, but most all the distros listed are pretty much new user friendly except for Slackware and some new users even find it easy.

[bidi]

Debian all the way! I've used Ubuntu but eventually came back to Debian. Debian's Testing branch is just as stable, if not more, and will always be up-to-date since changes are always being added to it. When I upgraded from Ubuntu 6.04 to 6.10 a few months ago (when 6.10 came out) it somehow screwed with the partitions on my drive, this is really unacceptable. I've also used Mandriva, Mepis and Ark Linux, but Mepis is just a LiveCD and appearantly I can't deal with RPM (Mandriva and Ark).

[tvilkov]

As a newbie I started out with Fedora Core 6, and I think it's excellent. It has all the tools I've needed, and support is brilliant. The other Week tried Debian Etch, which, to my suprise, worked flawlesly on my laptop, detecting my hardware perfectly, and working great.