On 2011-01-20 Parshwa offered the following:
Hi,
I am ***ABSOLUTELY NEW*** in the world of linux and IT. Someone told me to use Linux despite of Windows. I thought and yes it is more secured that is what I know. Now when I searched for free Linux, I got numerous OS, probably distros, what is called here. I am highly confused as to with what start with and know the basic things. As my job is different but today without computers nothing is there and the world is going to be digital, so I thought to take suggestions of the Linux users, experts and developers. Open SUSE name comes at the first page of google search, or probably at any other search engine.
First of all, welcome to the Linux world. The transition to Linux from 'Doze is an exiting and sometimes very confusing step and can be very frightening at times, but please be assured that no matter what 'flavor' of Linux you eventually choose, you are much better off in the long run in almost every way. Linux is based upon the work and efforts of thousands of unpaid enthusiasts that come from all walks of life, from virtually every country in the world and almost every profession. There are many talented professional and non professional programmers working on Linux and programs that run using the Linux operating system. That said, and given your stated level of experience, what I say next is not an indictment of any particular distribution, only my belief that the best current solution to your particular needs may be met by the recommendations I make to you.
Now my requirement: Audio-video conversion, watching movies, listening music, taking prints, secured banks transactions, multimedia, image editing, CD/DVD burning, and of course net surfing and emailing. All this I could do in Windows GUI, but I felt some reason to switch to Linux.
OpenSUSE is without a doubt, the overall best distribution currently available EXCEPT that for the novice, it takes way too much knowledge to make it work "just like Windows". I think you are looking for something else TO START, and once you get your feet wet, gain experience, you will probably migrate toward openSUSE simply because it is so complete, but it is not a good starting point.
Now what I heard and got to know is that there are numerous OS in Linux itself. People say Fedora is highly highly secured and good, yes it could be but is having a very frequent update cycle and much more technical in nature. For Ubuntu (Long Term Support), I am quite confused. Cent OS is stable but is like Fedora itself, so is a little typical, what I guess. Scientific Linux might be good.
As a former college teacher, I can comment on Fedora, RedHat and others with some degree of confidence. They are great programs and I recommend them highly, ... as teaching and learning and development tools and certainly for the experienced or professional user. They compete favorably with openSUSE in many ways but in my opinion, fail in the overall test of completeness or ease of use or maintainability, but are highly competent in virtually any area of comparison.
But my request is to let me know if Open SUSE is okay for a novice, especially for the person who is not from softwares but want to use a linux distro. Secondly, I guess (but don't know) if it would easily fulfill my purposes without going into the core technical details. -- Regards, Parshwa Murdia
So, what *IS* the best? Ubuntu? or Kubuntu? No, certainly very popular, but in my opinion, and for reasons subject to much debate, way too commercial and subject to commercial manipulation of their code base should they choose to do so. Others that you mentioned like 'Cent'? Again, no, not because it is bad, but because it is not as well supported. No, the one I would recommend is PCLinusOS First, take a look at http://pclosmag.com/ This FREE magazine is very professional and goes back for YEARS and is available in both PDF and HTML format and with only a couple of brief breaks has been available for years, since about Sept 2006 in fact and back issues are freely available from http://pclosmag.com/index.php/downloads and contain articles of general and specific interest to you as a 'newbie' and to professionals and experienced Linux users regardless of which distribution they may normally use. If the openSUSE magazine were as good as this one is, it would be worth publishing and a money maker at many newsstands , IMO. (hint) Secondly, Follow the links to PCLinuxOS.com where they offer at *least* a half dozen *different* desktop choices in LIVE-CD formats (shoot...download them all and try them) but if you must try just one, do try the KDE Desktop, it "just works", and that is saying something when it comes to KDE, because as KDE goes, while it is one of the better desktop environments, it is also the most problematic because it is the most forward moving and fast moving and therefore, the one with the most likelihood of bugs reaching the end-user. The PCLinuxOS has fewer 'gotchas' in KDE in any I have found and it *is* maintained and updated so it doesn't go stale. However, Gnome, XCFE, LXFE and many others are well implemented and easy to use and well developed and one that I personally found 'enlightening', E17, was of particular interest and that's why I said download them all, you can use ALL of them in the LiveCD mode to experiment with and see which you like and like most distros, you can choose one, and add one or more of the others at any time later. So, again, my recommendation is PCLinuxOS for you as a Windows convert because it is well supported, "it just works", works out of the box, handles multimedia without all of the 'futtzing around' that some distros require to make things work due to legal requirements (not Linux requirements), is WELL supported, has been supported for YEARS, is diversely supported with many different desktop environments, and uses all of the major software that runs under the Linux OS. Before you ask, I use and advocate openSUSE, but I've been using Linux since Slackware was distributed on well over 50 floppy disks and required compiling your own copy almost every time you rebooted, through RedHat, Fedora and almost all others as they came along. Introduced and taught it in college as an alternative to Windows. I settled on openSUSE for myself and experienced friends, and PCLinuxOS for anyone that is a 'newbie' or is generally outside of range of normal help channels or just wants 'Windows' without the hassle and cost and insecurity or older machines, not well supported by some of the other modern distributions. I use it on my older machines too because it 'just works' and has a smaller footprint so it is great for a lot of my own uses as well <grin>. Richard -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org