You’ve got to love some Linux.

There are some good links given here - so maybe we should look at a few before letting fly at the author - and one tells how a machine was set up for a newbie. From a modern distro, the blogger stripped out menu items for anything not required by an inexperienced user, removed ‘duplicates’ such as a text editor where a word processor was provided and renamed items such as anorak to music player. The point is - it takes hours of work from scratch to install, troubleshoot and configure a system. It takes planning, knowledge of a users needs and a decision in what to keep and what to discard. Would you really give a complete newbie a standard Ubuntu install?

I have just bought an Asus eee and I love it. it is a real Linux machine - no dual boot cop-out option - and everything works. So simple to use it even has a wikipedia menu option. Skype - with video - with absolutely no configuration. All up it has about six tabbed pages, big icons on every page and nothing to confuse. I would happily give it to someone who has never used a computer before. So why can’t we buy a cheap desktop set up like that at every computer store?

Self-taught.

A better Distro suggestion for this article would be a minimal distro such as Puppy or TinyMe

@ steerpike: For a desktop machine using a wired network connection, just about any modern Linux distro should be able to install and run fine right out of the box. Especially a low-end desktop, where hardware will be more generic and not require as specific of driver software. Distros like Fedora, Ubuntu, and Xandros would all be an adequate choice and their GUI installers are quite simple. There is also a very nice fork of Ubuntu called Ubuntu Studio that has a number of nice multimedia enhancements if desired. All three offer a Live CD version that can be booted from disc to test the hardware compatibility of your system before installation. What could possibly be more user-friendly than that?

@ OP - I agree with all of the posts regarding this article being targeted to the wrong audience, and a touch out of date. Anyone that would benefit from this article won’t need it, and anyone that needs it, won’t benefit from it like they should. It’s a start, but it needs work.

Well-intentioned article but pretty useless.

The Xandros set up made clear to me what the problem is - Linux is designed and written about by geeks. Normal people do not read man pages, use vi or compile kernels. I think your intention is to give us geeks some suggestions for creating a simple solution - but anyone who understands how to create a mom setup from this list does not need the list.

What is does highlight is that even with hundreds of distros, creating a simple desktop is a major task even for a technical guru.

Here is the challenge for Linux. Create a distro simpler to use than Windows - and go look at the little Asus laptop to see how it can be done. Start at what the user wants - and it won’t be a choice of three desktop environments. Blow that ‘linux is too hard’ argument out of the water and make an interface anyone can use.

Another challenge - put together a spec for a low end desktop to install the new distro in where everything works from an install. Make it so you can go down a computer shop, give them a list of parts ( or make them use the net) and have a new linux machine you can give to your mother within 20 minutes from a boot.

Amongst hundreds of distros, is there one like this?

I set my wife up with a Linux thin-client / Mandrake. She loved it.

I set my Dad up with Mandrake / Win 98 in dual-boot. He liked Linux but his friends only ‘understood’ Windows. (IOW … they knew how to screw it up but couldn’t get past the passwords to hurt Linux. I had set Linux up for remote admin but ended up making the 45 minute drive several times to un-screw their Windows ‘fixes’.)

My wife, a definite non-geek, liked Linux. My Dad, roughly 76 years old at the time, liked Linux.

Both are on Windows now.

Why? Because my Dad was relying on his friends and they were incompetent in both Linux and Windows. However, Linux could defend itself.

But he could find a local tech company to help him with Windows. (I’ve had to un-screw their work twice, too.)

And my wife’s employers web site insisted that it could only talk to an old version of MSIE running on an old version of Windows.

Like I said … that’s a good topic line … now write the article that goes with it.

Bill

I do suggest thet you either revise the article to be more clear and friendly to the reader as it provides a disservice to the uninitiated and will push them away. Please do revise ASAP.

Again thanks for the efford and hope to see the revised article soon.