My linux experience.

[maladeus]

When I was a kid, I was an heavy computer user (not as hardcore as firewing1 though) and always had a fascination for linux. I remember when a friend installed Redhat on his pc, we just had to go to his home and check it out - he didn't last much on Rh though, a week later was back in windows - we were also heavy gamers and the linux desktop had several problems then.

Unlike my friend i hadn't a computer for myself and It was forbidden to install any other OS on the family computer than windows. So i gave use to VMware and played mostly with mandrake (mandrake sounded cool), lately I actually installed it on P-200Mhz and let it be unused with all it's slowness.
My real attempts with linux started when i got a laptop for college (4 years ago). I promptly installed Slackware 10 (slackware sounds cool and was hardcoreal - it was more of an I use linux thing so I'm cooler than you). Slack gave me problems - sound had to be set up the touchpad didn't work and before i knew it i was compiling and having headaches with dependencies and editing xorg.conf. Left slack, tried mandrake (again) touchpad and sound worked out of the box but it was slower than windows.so I tried debian which at that time went into a loop in grub and wouldn't boot.
I actually tried gentoo I was having problems with network - in gentoo the network actually worked but I couldn't install it. I actually stopped at an distro called yoper which I thin was based on fedora (not sure) it worked ok... at least if you didn't update it. I drop it and got back to windows.

A couple of years late I got the linux bug again and tried fedora and I loved it from the first moment - install was easy, sound, touchpad, network, worked out of the box - We are talking Fc5 here, and I'm currently single booting fedora and downloading F8 T3 as I type.

My girlfriend decided to come over to the linux side after a virus destroyed all of her work. We tried fedora but she didn't like it. Tried kubuntu she liked it, I didn't maybe it was because of Kde... Nevertheless the sudo thing doesn't make sense- to think that you can simply boot as root with no password asked :\

The reason my gf didn't liked fedora and currently is trying to migrate from kunbuntu to something else is because she has the gift to destroy an OS, any OS in a way that it easily to reinstall than to clean the mess... I can't really clean the mess because she can't explain me what happened.

Tried debian 4 on her computer network install doesn't work if you don't select the proper mirror. I got no sound and someway Selinux is killing my root privileges - and messing with selinux on debian isn't as easy as in fedora-I just haven't the patience to figure it out. 3 things I loved about debian: 1-synaptic 2-Su - terminal 3- their password policy (you type the root pass once and you have the option to keep it during all of the session).

Tried PClinuxOS - the md5 is ok, I burned it at 4x and still I have a bad media.
Well F8-t3 has just came out of the burner, time to give her a new taste of fedora.

[jtang613]

The worst possible way to introduce new users to Fedora is to unleash a BETA version on them.
F8t3 is a TEST release... for beta testing.

Wait two months for the FINAL version of Fedora 8 to be released.

BTW: Fedora includes both Gnome and KDE desktop environments (and a few others).

[John the train]

Just a thought, have you considered getting your girlfriend to try running from a live CD? I think she'd have a job to destroy that - except physically! Puppy Linux http://www.puppylinux.com/ allows you to run from the CD - entirely in RAM - and save to the HDD. It can also access your existing /home directory, so it's useful as an emergency OS if the installed OS gets borked.

[pparks1]

Nevertheless the sudo thing doesn't make sense- to think that you can simply boot as root with no password asked :\
Well, that isn't technically how the sudo system works. The system boots under a standard account, however when you issue a command you start the command with sudo (sudo ifconfig). Sudo indicates that the system needs to check to make sure that you are defined in the sodoers file and then it checks to ensure that you are configured to run the command in question (ifconfig in my example).

I actually utilize the sudo system on my Fedora and CentOS boxes. It's nice to give people rights to run applications in an elevated permissions area without giving them access to anything more than they truly need.

[stevea]

Or use the fedora-live CD.

I love puppy linux for what it is, but it is a very stripped down little distro with an amazing subset of goodies.

[maladeus]

The worst possible way to introduce new users to Fedora is to unleash a BETA version on them.
BTW: Fedora includes both Gnome and KDE desktop environments (and a few others).

Not so true. I find most Test-3 stable and workable, of course there are bugs and sometimes major ones (like a live cd not booting or gnome messing up badly when you change languages) these bugs are being screened and are fixed "on the fly" as soon as there is a bug report - thus the importance of yum update. Besides, I'm not unleashing a Beta on her, I'm unleashing a Test-3 that has been released a few days ago (some bugs already ironed) and I'm giving it a run first for major stuff. Who knows if she is going to find a new bug ;)

BTW: Installing KDE as we speak. I wonder if they will backport v4 when it gets out.

Just a thought, have you considered getting your girlfriend to try running from a live CD?
I've done that, but if you think of it live cds aren't that usefull... Ok they are :) They allow you to see how the hardware runs and more or less what is included. Nevertheless for the end user they aren't so important because in terms of functionality you are going to play mostly with Gnome/Kde/Xfce and a set of programs which are ubiquitous (openoffice, mplayer, firefox etc). Then there are the small details, sudo in ubuntu, the debian password thing I mentioned early (BTW: Loved the "firefox" in debian and the way it downloads) - but are these small details relevant for the end user?

Well, that isn't technically how the sudo system works. (...) It's nice to give people rights to run applications in an elevated permissions area without giving them access to anything more than they truly need.
I was talking about grub in ubuntu which has an option to boot as root and asks no password whatsoever - Imagine your evil twin comes out of his room and messes up your computer when you're at work or something ;)
I totally agree with what you're saying about sudo.

[leadgolem]

It's nice to read a thread titled this way that isn't an anti-linux tirade.:)