Okay Guys

Need a Bit of help, I would like to know the best linux around just now, haven't used linux in about 2 years, (Things move pretty fast in the computer world)
Been asked to convert a friends computer from that rubbish gates calls a operating system to linux (His Words)
Or make it twin boot, (easy), need linux to be able to access the windows system if I do

What I need is, ease of install, easy to setup his programs, (mostly games)
guys a games freak
He would need to be able to install the games himself (he's not computer literate)
Last time I used Linux, this was Red Hat, it was a complete pain (what's it like now)



Sgt

I hear PCLinuxOS is easy to handle. I don't know of many games that work with
Linux though. Most of them are just for Windows.

Hi AaronWalkhouse
Thank you for that suggestion, I'd not even heard of PCLinuxOS, just been looking it up, That looks very promising, This is what they say

PCLinuxOS comes fully equipped with just about everything a desktop user would want in an operating system. Browse the web, send and receive emails, chat with friends on Yahoo, MSN, AOL and IRC. Play Games, listen to music, share files, rip CDs and watch videos. You can also burn CDs, DVDs, import, view and edit pictures. Our office suite allows you to write letters, do spreadsheets,drawings and slide presentations. Everything you can do with that other OS you can do in PCLinuxOS without worrying about virus infections, adware or spyware.

This may be what i'm looking for
As The computer never accesses the net (says he'll put it on, never does)

Sgt

If you install WINE/Cedega, you can play most games produced for Windows
fon a PC with Linux too. I have heard the performance is just as good and sometimes even better with WINE/Cedega than natively on Windows. It seems you need an NVidia card for this because the drivers provided by ATI are very, very bad. If you don't play games the hardware does not really matter, watching DVDs, video files, etc. all that multimedia stuff works much better and less hassle on Linux. Just use MPlayer, it plays literally everything except DRMed content of course. Linux is not a Windows drop-in replacement though and certainly does not want to be one. There will be a couple of things to learn and this or that will just not work because the vendors provide no drivers when it comes to hardware for example. If computer-illerate also means "I DO NOT want to learn anything, it should work exactly as under Windows" then just forget about Linux. If it means "I hardly know anything but I'll read it up when I have the chance" that's fine and you should give it a try.
The choice of Linux flavour has little to do with what you can do. You can install whatever Linux software on any Linux. The difference between them is mostly about what is installed by default and how you install software.

"listen to music"

MPlayer (or Amarok if you're a sucker for playlists and want to "manage" your music).

"share files"

Gtk-Gnutella, LimeWire, Phex, BitTorrent, amule. There is *a lot* software for file-sharing. Not everything is recommendable of course.

"rip CDs"

cdparanoia

"and watch videos"

MPlayer, Xine, VLC in this order. VLC is the best for Windows but elsewhere MPlayer is the best choice.


"You can also burn CDs, DVDs"

cdrecord, k3b(?). I use the former but there are a couple of them with nice GUI front-ends for dummies.


"import, view and edit pictures"

gqview for plain viewing, GIMP for modifying and drawing but there are tons of graphical tools for different purposes e.g., vector graphics.

"Our office suite allows you to write letters, do spreadsheets,drawings and slide presentations."

OpenOffice. It's also available for Windows.

You see all that stuff has nothing to do with your choice of Linux.

"Everything you can do with that other OS you can do in PCLinuxOS without worrying about virus infections, adware or spyware."

Sorry but that's a myth. Well, the software packages available from your Linux distribution of choice will only contain "good" software. So far adware and spyware do not really exist for Linux but it's just a question of time. As soon as it has sufficient marketshare on the desktop, such bad software will exist for Linux too. Linux has a couple of "safety belts" that Windows does not provide but with a sufficiently careless or clueless user that does not make a huge difference. If you're too lazy or careless to learn basic things about security, your machine will be owned sooner or later and abused as spam device.

In any case, this is not a Linux forum. You better ask in forums of a couple of Linux distributions to find the right flavour which suits your demands. There popular ones are ubuntu, Fedora, Mandriva, SuSE, Gentoo, debian. Also don't shy away if a distribution is not labeled as newbie-friendly. The learning curve might be a bit steep but it'll pay off in the long run and these distributions are usually much more flexible.

I have never heard of PCLinuxOS before. Especially for newbies, it's important to have a big community to help and learn from each other. I would recommend something which has large, friendly forums.

By the way, if he's a "game freak" and the computer never access the net (really?) then there's not much point in switching away from Linux if he's happy with Windows. The worst problem with Windows is that it's extremely vulnerable when connected to a network especially the internet. If that's not the case, I would not be worried about it. There are a lot of reasons to use anything but Windows of course but not so much for someone who just wants to play games.

PCLinuxOS was "Lindows" before Microsoft threw their tantrum. All of the
software you mention runs in it, and is probably already included.

In that case, I'd stay away from PCLinuxOS. Well, it's most-likely the easiest way to keep running Windows applications but it's a heavy perversion of Linux and you'll still be suspect to Windows ad- and spyware.

Huh? Don't be silly. It's still Linux and has absolutely no Windows components in it.

What it does have is a well-designed setup and user interface which will make it
easy to use for the first-time linux user, which fits the bill perfectly in this case.

Hey guys
Take it easy
I did not mean to start a full blown arguement, of the charastics of the linux os, everybody on this forum is entitled to their own opinion,

I can tell you this Hyper_Kun that I was told to stay away from ubuntu, Fedora, Mandriva, SuSE, Gentoo

Though Debian, for what I need is supposed to be really good, seems to get a lot of praise in the linux forums

I am going between Debian and PCLinuxOS, at present

Sgt

So far I haven't seen any operating system that is not easy to install provided you're able to read and follow instructions.

I believe your claim PCLinuxOS is the former Lindows is nonsense. Lindows is called Linspire. PCLinuxOS seems completely unrelated. PCLinuxOS is based on Mandriva formerly known as Mandrake. Mandriva is known to be a popular distro for newbies.

You should really ask for reasons why people recommend or dis-recommend one distro or another. Without arguments such recommendations are rather pointless. Debian isn't bad but I'd think it's best for servers and not so newbie friendly. Also Gentoo is pretty different from all those other distros considering that it's based on source packages, not binary ones. ubuntu is rather an improved version of Debian - it's based exactly on Debian - but meant for desktop users and with more up-to-date packages. It's very odd if someone recommends Debian but tells you to stay away from ubuntu. I suspect political reasons.