[PLUG] random question: how do you think newbies select their distributions?

Word Wizard Word.Wizard at comcast.net
Thu Mar 11 02:04:08 UTC 2010


A former Linux newbie; how I chose:

Word of mouth, Internet research, led me to Ubuntu as the best
combination of Windows-user friendliness, stability, hardware
compatibility  and applications offerings. I wanted to have as seamless
a transition from Windows as possible, with as little Linux skill
required as possible  (even though I had moderate experience with BSD
Unix from the 1980s.) Ubuntu's Gutsy Gibbon met those  requirements
fairly well, although I suspect every major distro makes the same
claims.  

Since then I've done a fair amount of distro hopping, especially since
Unetbootin made it so easy to set up a Live CD installation on a USB
drive from virtually any distro, obviating the need to burn a new CD/DVD
for every new release. I still keep coming back to Ubuntu for many of
the same reasons. Ubuntu seems to have fixed the few problems that
existed in back the Gutsy days (sound and NVidia driver issues mostly).
The only other Linux flavors that have attracted me were Mint and Mepis,
both Ubuntu variants. I've just had too many issues arise with Mandriva,
Fedora and other RPM-based distros (probably arising as much from my own
lack of Linux skill as anything). 

There is a reason why Ubuntu is the most popular distro out there and
Mint is #3. It just seems you don't need to be Linux guru to get
started. For those Windows refugees among us who needed a desktop OS we
can actually use productively as well as learn from, Ubuntu fits that
bill. One can develop a reasonable amount of Linux skill while still
using the system in much the same way we used Windows. 

In summary, ease of transition from windows, encompassing stability,
hardware compatibility  and applications offerings were the deciding
factors.


On Tue, 2010-03-09 at 22:58 -0800, chris (fool) mccraw wrote:

> my 3/4-baked theory is that many people new to linux use what their
> friends suggest, or what they first or most compellingly hear about.
> that is, they don't do comparative research between available/relevant
> distributions and choose logically.
> 
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