Just tried Ubuntu 8.04 and couldn't get on with it, mainly due to the way you installed things and messing around with tar files and just general management of things.

So, I was wondering if there's anything easier to use that's more like Windows?


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Try PCLinux OS, it's designed to be similar to Windows.

http://www.pclinuxos.com/

Out of interest, what did you find hard with installing things in Ubuntu? The majority of things you'll want to install will be in the official repos and then it's just a case of

sudo apt-get install [package name]

Doesn't get much easier :) Granted some things do need to be built from source but the majority come with a good readme.

Ubuntu is widely regarded as one of the most user friendly Linux distributions.

Finding the right repositories is the key, medibuntu (http://www.medibuntu.org/) is one you shouldn't be without.

I've been using Ubuntu 8.04 for while now, and haven't had to build anything from source yet.

Try PCLinux OS, it's designed to be similar to Windows.

http://www.pclinuxos.com/

Out of interest, what did you find hard with installing things in Ubuntu? The majority of things you'll want to install will be in the official repos and then it's just a case of

sudo apt-get install [package name]

Doesn't get much easier :) Granted some things do need to be built from source but the majority come with a good readme.


Just tried to install pclinux, wrote the iso to dvd and then booted with it and thought I'd installed it expecting a dual boot system, but it seemed not to be so I guess it only ran itself from the disk. Which would probably answer why the graphics card wasn't recognised and the router???

It was the synaptic manager that was too cumbersome and unable to install the latest version of open office with the database package, as the stand alone open office included with ubuntu didn't come with all the features required. So that's another version of linux of my list.

Of course it might just be me and no doubt others will have a different view, but at the moment I'm still looking for an alternative to XP that I can dual boot with and not spend too much time meddling with settings and getting to learn everything over again.

at the moment I'm still looking for an alternative to XP that I can dual boot with and not spend too much time meddling with settings and getting to learn everything over again.

Linux isn't Windows, yes they both have a desktop, icons and a web browser, but that's where the similarities end.

If you want to start to use Linux in any serious way, then you will have some reading to do.

Just tried Ubuntu 8.04 and couldn't get on with it, mainly due to the way you installed things and messing around with tar files and just general management of things.

So, I was wondering if there's anything easier to use that's more like Windows?


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You do know that you can add and remove programs using the option on the menu which will download and install things automagically for you, don't you?

It seems if a linux distro dosent tuck the poster in to bed, its off the list.

It seems if a linux distro dosent tuck the poster in to bed, its off the list.

Ok mr.cynic, I guess you must have tried them all, so which would you suggest then..

openSuse
Arch Linux
Gentoo
Debian
Fedora
Mandriva
Slackware
DreamLinux
Slax
ZenWalk
FreeSpire
Blag
OpenBSD
Solaris
VectorLinux
AbsoluteLinux
aLinux
ClarkConnect
Crux
DyneBolic
EdUbuntu
Feather
Foresight
FreeBSD
GoblinX
Kanotix
Linspire
Linux XP
Minimax
Puppy Linux
Rock Linux
SAM Linux
SimplyMepis
Smoothwall Express

Ok mr.cynic, I guess you must have tried them all, so which would you suggest then..

openSuse
Arch Linux
Gentoo
Debian
Fedora
Mandriva
Slackware
DreamLinux
Slax
ZenWalk
FreeSpire
Blag
OpenBSD
Solaris
VectorLinux
AbsoluteLinux
aLinux
ClarkConnect
Crux
DyneBolic
EdUbuntu
Feather
Foresight
FreeBSD
GoblinX
Kanotix
Linspire
Linux XP
Minimax
Puppy Linux
Rock Linux
SAM Linux
SimplyMepis
Smoothwall Express

Slackware.

Obviously.

You still haven't said what you were trying to install that required the use of tar files. Have you tried clicking on Applications,Add/Remove to install something? You can choose between All Applications, Open Source, Third Party and Supported and it should automatically update the list when you do so. If that doesn't have what you need, there's always the Synaptic Package manager which is a bit more tricky, but not impossible to use.

I would use kde4.1 kubuntu for a desktop, its child's play to work with.

I'm suprised you're forced to use tars to install in Ubuntu. I thought the apt-get setup was pretty reliable?

I use Fedora 8 and 9 myself and I'm quite happy (8/10) with it. However I don't have a lot of experience in other non-Redhat derivative distributions and some guys here seem to hate Redhat/Fedora, but I'm happy.

If you decide to have a go with Fedora, I'd recommend you stick with 8 for now. 9 is still young and not yet settled down properly. The forums (fedoraforum) seem to imply 9 has issues (though I've not met any on my lappy running 9).

OSX - OK it's NetBSD under the hood but it's still unix-ish enough to do all my work on and has a nice fluffy wrapper!

Mint (http://www.linuxmint.com/) is supposed to be very good (haven't tried it myself), it's Ubuntu based, but comes with a lot more useful stuff already installed.

It was the synaptic manager that was too cumbersome and unable to install the latest version of open office with the database package, as the stand alone open office included with ubuntu didn't come with all the features required. So that's another version of linux of my list.

Of course it might just be me and no doubt others will have a different view, but at the moment I'm still looking for an alternative to XP that I can dual boot with and not spend too much time meddling with settings and getting to learn everything over again.

You don't have to install openoffice from the repositories. You can download the .deb package off the openoffice.org website if you need to have the latest version. I do admit that often the repositories in Ubuntu don't have the latest versions of software - but that's because they're the versions that the package maintainers can support. I had similar issues when installing eclipse - to use the latest version I had to download it myself.

The only times I've had to install stuff from tars under Ubuntu in the 3 years I've been using it was using poorly maintained or bleeding edge software.