[Nottingham] Re: DISTRO advise

[David Aldred]

On Saturday 18 Sep 2004 02:05, Steve Caddy wrote:
> > This seems to be a question that goes around us newbies a lot, and
> > I have to say is one of the more difficult things to get past when
> > 'upgrading' from windows.  
> >
> > 'Which distro?'.  

I used Mandrake from an early stage, not because of any real in-depth 
investigation of the options, but because there was someone nearby who could 
help!


Honestly, I think that's probably the most important thing for any one new to 
linux to find: support.  Windows is pretty horrible in many ways, but it does 
tend to automate setups and talk you through things; Linux by and large 
doesn't.

Having just today changed to broadband, I used the Windows broadband setup 
from NTLWorld - simply because I had no idea what the 'other end' would need 
feeding to it during the setup process.  Loads of faffing around involved 
(two restarts, five minutes downloading a software package I hadn't asked for 
and didn't want, several "this may take a few minutes" long silences).  Now 
Linux would probably have taken me just as long (had I known what needed 
feeding to the server), but I would have had some idea of what was going on.

That perhaps indicates the change of attitude which develops: from 'do it for 
me' to 'tell me what I need to know to do it myself'.  The problem is, of 
course, that you have to find someone to tell you - and that's why I say that 
someone to help out when needed, and preferably a whole LUG to do so, are 
probably more important than distro.  

Sometime soon, I might well try another distro on the laptop which started all 
this....

-- 
David Aldred