# what is best linux for newbie?



## micropage7 (Dec 18, 2010)

several days ago my friend ask me about whats best linux for newbie, because theres alot of distro out there would you suggest distro that suitable for newbie and has nice features on it


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## Peter1986C (Dec 18, 2010)

Ubuntu 10.10, no other is more suitable for him. One of the best language support, easy to install, leightweight (okay, Pup[py etc,. are lighter but not so elaborate in possibillities and usually less easy for newbies) and a decent set of applications. And I like it that with 10.10, you can do things like setting the clock during the copying of the files to the HDD (unlike for example Windows, were you have to wait until everything is copied to the HDD until you can do the time settings etc.).


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## mlee49 (Dec 18, 2010)

Ubuntu is aimed at early Linux users. It is simple and easy to install and tons of built in support for wifi, graphics, and sound. Cant go wrong with that. 

Theres plenty of others to offer as well, Fedora has been a staple in the Linux world. Also may want to check out Mint. 

If you havn't checked out DistroWatch please do:
http://distrowatch.com/


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## Kreij (Dec 18, 2010)

The one with the least documentation and that requires you to do everything manually.
If he ever manages to get !@#$ thing up and running, and everything in the system working, he will no longer have to think of himself as a newb.


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## Soylent Joe (Dec 18, 2010)

Kreij said:


> The one with the least documentation and that requires you to do everything manually.
> If he ever manages to get !@#$ thing up and running, and everything in the system working, he will no longer have to think of himself as a newb.



So, Gentoo.


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## micropage7 (Dec 18, 2010)

mlee49 said:


> Ubuntu is aimed at early Linux users. It is simple and easy to install and tons of built in support for wifi, graphics, and sound. Cant go wrong with that.
> 
> Theres plenty of others to offer as well, Fedora has been a staple in the Linux world. Also may want to check out Mint.
> 
> ...



yeah i think about suggesting ubuntu too, but after look at the distrowatch it looks mint is promising too, based from ubuntu
thank you for the info


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## Easy Rhino (Dec 18, 2010)

Mint is Ubuntu with all of the media codecs and what not preinstalled. so it definitely saves time and aspirin.


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## Frick (Dec 18, 2010)

Kreij said:


> The one with the least documentation and that requires you to do everything manually.
> If he ever manages to get !@#$ thing up and running, and everything in the system working, he will no longer have to think of himself as a newb.



This is actually a great way to learn it. I started with Xubuntu but soon I found myself messing around with OpenGL and GTK libraries which caused the desktop environment to crash and I reinstalled everything from source code. 

This was some years ago though, so I've forgotten much about it. 

But seriously, this is a good way to do it. You learn A LOT, things you always can use as Windows/OSX users as well. And you also learn a lot about how computers and operating systems in general actually works.


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## Peter1986C (Dec 18, 2010)

Easy Rhino said:


> Mint is Ubuntu with all of the media codecs and what not preinstalled. so it definitely saves time and aspirin.



Meh, I only install restricted extras and VLC. Pointless to fill your system with countless Gstreamer/Xine codecs.


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## Solaris17 (Dec 18, 2010)

Soylent Joe said:


> So, Gentoo.



yup gentoo would fit that bill


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## Peter1986C (Dec 18, 2010)

TBH I am actually trying it (i.e. Gentoo) on my "practice pc" (my dad's old 1st gen P4). Though once selecting Gentoo in the GRUB menu I get an error, of which I forgot what it exactly was as I have been doing too much other stuff for the last 2 monhs. With the holidays starting soon I will probably take a look at it (plenty time to picjk it up again), so probably I will soon post a topic about it here (including what the error says to me and of course my fstab, grub.conf and whatever else that might be useful for finding the solution).


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## Easy Rhino (Dec 18, 2010)

if you really want to learn unix file structure then download the barebones FreeBSD and install everything from scratch from source. that is how i initially learned my way around both BSD and Linux.


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## ShiBDiB (Dec 18, 2010)

Easy Rhino said:


> if you really want to learn unix file structure then download the barebones FreeBSD and install everything from scratch from source. that is how i initially learned my way around both BSD and Linux.



jus had flashbacks to my CS100 class....


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## Mohegan (Jan 22, 2011)

I would recommend Linux Mint based on Ubuntu - has some nice programs right away.. secondarily Unbuntu 10.10


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## danny0085 (Jan 26, 2011)

*Best distro*

No doubt that the best distribution is linux ubuntu. Specially for new linux users


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## hardcore_gamer (Jan 26, 2011)

Chevalr1c said:


> Meh, I only install restricted extras and VLC. Pointless to fill your system with countless Gstreamer/Xine codecs.




I agree.Install ubuntu and then the restricted extras of your choice


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## T3RM1N4L D0GM4 (Jan 26, 2011)

My opinion:
- Ubuntu
- Mint
- Opensuse

But if you (or your friend) want a deep linux/unix knowledge you can try BSD, as suggested by Easy Rhino, or Slackware linux , my suggestion.
Btw you can ALWAYS compile and install all the software you need from source code and shell/terminal with ALL distros suggested, without all the one-click-GUI.

My 2 cents


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## alexsubri (Feb 4, 2011)

- Ubuntu 
- Fedora
- Mint

'nuff said 

edit: go here  and see what best fits your needs

I haven't used Linux in about a year! all this talk is making me download ubuntu again


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## francis511 (Feb 4, 2011)

http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/get-ubuntu/download

Ubuntu.


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## Mohegan (Feb 4, 2011)

Ubuntu for sure!!


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## brandonwh64 (Feb 4, 2011)

If you a windows user then linux mint is something you may consider due to it looking like a version of windows and pretty easy to use


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## RejZoR (Feb 5, 2011)

I'd say the best bet is Ubuntu. Many will disagree but it works great out of the box, it's probably the most common Linux distro and also has great support in general.


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