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Get KMint Elyssa - aka Linux Minut KDE CE - Elyssa

You will do well to SKIP KDE 4.x till KDE rights the ship back to the stability and features of 3.5.10

KMint includes EVERYTHING YOU NEED:

Java, Sun Java, not the useless openjava
flash
codec
OpenOffice

Everything you need to get up and going ready for you.

http://www.linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=28

What I'm concerned about is OS look-and-feel and interface -- system bar on the bottom with clock, trash, info on the right, menu on the left, menu items similar to those of Windows.

In this case, a good choice would be Linux Mint. As a whole, it's a rather well-designed system (their motto: "from freedom came elegance."). And it's handy that it comes with the drivers and plugins that Ubuntu leaves to a separate download for (I assume) license or patent reasons.

Out of the box it has all the features you describe. Flash, Java, A/V codecs all pre-installed along with the usual plethora of software. The only manual steps would be to install drivers (nvidia, some wifi; you'll be prompted by a notification balloon) and if you're in the US, edit /etc/apt/sources.list and change the ubuntu repos to a local mirror. They're set by default to the main servers which apparently are connected to the net via the AT&T EDGE network... The MintMenu is a very good replacement for the start menu found in XP/Vista/7.

But definitely hit up distrowatch and check out the screenshots and reviews. If the target machines are able to boot off USB stick, then grab unetbootin which will automate the process of downloading the iso and putting it on the stick.

I hope their solution is better than what the Linux Mint distribution does. The Google-results from the Mint-search is really poor compared to Firefox-search. And also the way they have implemented their Mint-search makes it almost as hard to go back to Normal-Firefox-search as deleting spyware in Windows. Just take a look at the instructions below. Might not be that hard for Linux-pros, but it's way harder than what the Firefox-crew meant it to be:
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=39623

I don't have as much trouble with my family's computers... maybe you just need to tell them to stop surfing pr0n sites :P

But if they insist, just stick a Linux LiveCD in their box "until you get around to fixing windows". And let them know they can surf all the (legal) p0rn they like with it with little repercussion :P

My current favorite is Linux Mint : http://www.linuxmint.com/ It's based on Ubuntu, but they're a bit less shy about including non-free software such as Flash and proprietary video drivers by default.

If they like it, you can also create a USB drive version of it so they can carry their changes (updated software and files) around with them. If they still manage to break it, you can simply copy over the casper-rw file over again with an empty version (or from the last working backup)
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/create-a-linux-mint-7-usb-flash-drive-from-cd/

Oh gosh...I keep my fingers crossed for the next Mint-release. In the worst case we have to postpone the next release with a few months I guess. But first wait for the final Karmic-release. Perhaps Ubuntu will come up with a miracle in these last remaining weeks... :? In my experience it was like:

04 = beta
10 = alpha
LTS = final after 2 or 3 months

Gnome's default look on my distros isn't very exciting, but some people like that.

I think that's the crux of the issue. Ubuntu's default theme reminds me of Win 9X, so most people automatically blame Gnome. When I switched to Linux Mint (an Ubuntu derivative), I was surprised at how good it looked while still using Gnome. I reckon that Linux Mint is an example of what happens when you try to add those little features that are boring to implement to an OS. It's almost identical to Ubuntu from a technical perspective, but it's definitely easier to use for the average person and much easier on the eyes.

The good news for consumers is that both Windows 7 and Snow Leopard are great-looking OS.

So can Linux users. Mint is a Ubuntu derivative that is one of the most aesthetically pleasing, IMO. KDE seems to have way too much crap, but Mint actually looks really good with just Gnome, and seems comparable to Vista in terms of GUI.

The last time I installed XP on my laptop I had lost some, but not all, of the OEM-supplied driver disks, and it ended up taking me a total of about eighteen hours of solid graft to get it to work. Incidentally, I grew up on Windows, and have only really gotten into FOSS stuff in the last three or four years, and the last time I installed Ubuntu (which took about twenty minutes) it had already configured my screen to the right resolution, got the wi-fi and bluetooth working, got the frickin' bog standard ethernet adapter working, and suggested that I might want to download the right drivers for my GPU by clicking OK and typing my password.

This is dead on! I tried to put XP on a laptop I found at the dumpster. Even after tracking down the drivers from the vendors website the bloody thing still didn't work right.

Pop in a Linux Mint disk and just like that I have a functional system. Sure, it has a few quirks (which I can't tell if it is the hardware or the software) but it's totally usable.

...and I still have to look up which packages I need to install to listen to MP3s or watch DVDs.

Try Linux Mint http://www.linuxmint.com/ it's an Ubuntu variant that comes with a bunch of the proprietary stuff vanilla Ubuntu doesn't come with out of the box. It's pretty slick.

The highest single source of revenue for Linux Mint isn't the donations, it isn't ads on the website, it is the default start page in Firefox. This simple search plugin is estimated to generated from 2 to 40 times more money than the start page itself.

(source)

I know I won't be disabling this extension. It's a no-effort, free-as-in-beer way of supporting my favourite OS.

I would like to see more free as in speech but not quite bear software to help build up linux's commercial area. Although what's wrong with just making a prettier front end to the current Repos?

Mint Linux http://www.linuxmint.com/

OUT OF THE BOX

Linux Mint.

http://www.linuxmint.com/about.php

I still use Windows XP.
Yeah, I can hear the groaning in the room as I type.
However I just couldn't stand having driver problems with graphics and videos.
My favorite Linux distro is Linux Mint and all I can say is *WOW Finally!*

I probably won't ever get Windows 7 since Mint runs so well right out of the initial install.
I've only been using it for a few days though. But every other distro (including Ubuntu which Mint is based off of) has left me disappointed from the start.

I'm hoping Linux grows at an even bigger pace now.

...We could make a Linux that worked and looked almost exactly like Windows:

http://www.linuxmint.com/

Or we could release an open source alternative to Windows:

http://www.reactos.org/en/index.html

I think Windows or it's design will be with us long after Microsoft has failed as a corporation, which is likely sooner than most are currently guessing. Their huge reserves of cash aren't going to matter when more is not coming in, which I think is inevitable. I know not one person willing to pay for Vista, OR Vista 2.0, which MS is calling Windows 7.

The snake oil is obvious now. Nobody's buying it.

Don't do this from the US, or the new RIAA owned Justice Department will come break down your door. Which is of course why they can't include it in the standard Ubuntu. If you want an Ubuntu with this preinstalled and you're not in the US, start with Linux Mint. Linux mint has that stuff, but they also do localization in a lot of languages so they lag on features a few months behind the main Ubuntu distro. That said, the instructions below install DVD playing on Ubunty Jaunty.

Use Firefox, or some other browser that supports apt-url.

For the below, you will need to give the password for software installation. Clicking the links doesn't go to a howto - it actually installs the software from the standard repositories.

Click here to install the Restricted formats.

Click here to install VNC (my preferred DVD-watching application).

Open a terminal and paste this:

sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/install-css.sh

You will be asked for the sudo password. This enables the computer to read the format for encrypted DVDs.

That's it you're done. Stick your movie in, start vnc and tell it to play the DVD.

I was going to Linux install "parties" as far back as 1995 but my career has led me away from the Linux groups of old and I hadn't really done much with Linux in recent years. I'm finally getting around to doing a home theater and decided I wanted the server to be a Linux derivative so I searched and it looked as though MINT had everything I wanted to do with a minimum amount of post setup for the media stuff. I proceeded to install on a fairly current piece of hardware and everything went smoothly until the first logon. The network card had been recognized but it would not connect no matter how much poking or prodding so I installed another network card and got the same results. I did everything I knew to do and still could not get it to work with my home network. Then I thought maybe it was MINT that had the problem so I proceeded to install the latest version of UBUNTU and lo and behold same exact problem. I searched forums, followed step by step guides and yet nothing worked. It would act like it was going to work and then just stop. So as someone who is fairly technical and has a little history with Linux I can say Linux is still not ready for the desktop. I'm sure there is something simple stupid I am missing and I'll feel like an idiot when I figure out what it is but the fact that it is occurring at all AND is so difficult to remedy make that statement valid.

Or you could have just installed linux mint which is just a repackaged version of Ubuntu and which does the sound perfectly.

If people can't use Flash and watch Youtube on it, it might as well be green letters on a black background.

Try Linux Mint.

From their "About" page (originally from DistroWatch):
Linux Mint is one of the surprise packages of the past year. Originally launched as a variant of Ubuntu with integrated media codecs, it has now developed into one of the most user-friendly distributions on the market - complete with a custom desktop and menus, several unique configuration tools, a web-based package installation interface, and a number of different editions.

Try mint. They should have their 9.04 based version out soon, but 6 works pretty nice. Hulu and youtube out of the box, not to mention, DVD playback and everything else. Plus you get to use Ubuntu repositories for other packages.
Best desktop distribution IMHO.

I know this doesn't address your point, but here's a couple ideas to solve those problems.

If you're using Gnome, try Gnome Art Next-Gen. It's not very polished, but it has a simple GUI that lets you customize your UI easily.

And about stuff working out-of-the-box? I know "try another distro" is a worn-out answer, but seriously... instead of installing Ubuntu, next time try Linux Mint. It's an Ubuntu-derivative that has lots of extra stuff already set up (Flash, Java, codecs, DVDs, mp3s...). It goes a long way toward making the "bare basics" work immediately, so there's less stuff you have to tinker with to get it functional. Although I still like to install VLC.

You should try Linux Mint (current Felicia version), it's 99% Ubuntu, but they release each version alphabetically using a girl's names that ends in 'a'. By default, the root account gets the same password as the main user account. Mint Linux also comes with plenty of pre-configured drivers by default, and a slightly different layout, and thought it may not be as ideologically pure as Ubuntu -- it's a lot more user friendly overall.

Hi all,
I changed from XP a year or so back and found "Linux Mint" to be my favourite distribution, the fact that it is FREE is a bonus. You can download a copy from http://www.linuxmint.com/ and burn the ISO to a CD. It is possible to install the program as an "XP" program straight over windows to try it out, that way you can have both XP AND Mint! Just insert the CD while XP is running and follow the prompts. If you don't like it [unlikely] just remove it like any other XP program and things will restore to normal. When you boot up, you have a choice of running Mint or XP, click on the one you want and it is business as usual.
Mint comes with Firefox as standard, including Thunderbird for emails, all intuitive to use. Perfect for internet use plus there are thousands of free programs for just about anything.
A user Guide can be downloaded from http://www.linuxmint.com/ just click on "User Guide".

Have fun,

Griz.

Hi all,
I changed from XP a year or so back and found "Linux Mint" to be my favourite distribution, the fact that it is FREE is a bonus. You can download a copy from http://www.linuxmint.com/ and burn the ISO to a CD. It is possible to install the program as an "XP" program straight over windows to try it out, that way you can have both XP AND Mint! Just insert the CD while XP is running and follow the prompts. If you don't like it [unlikely] just remove it like any other XP program and things will restore to normal. When you boot up, you have a choice of running Mint or XP, click on the one you want and it is business as usual.
Mint comes with Firefox as standard, including Thunderbird for emails, all intuitive to use. Perfect for internet use plus there are thousands of free programs for just about anything.
A user Guide can be downloaded from http://www.linuxmint.com/ just click on "User Guide".

Have fun,

Griz.

Unless you're running on hardware that's around five or more years old, Windows won't run particularly well out-of-the-box either.

And if we're talking about hardware that old, several Debian-based distros work well out-of-the-box. Linux Mint, for example, comes with Flash, Java, MP3 support, and drivers for Broadcom chipsets, all out-of-the-box.

One question, what is Mint?

Linux Mint is a variant of Ubuntu, but with integrated media codecs, custom desktop and menus, and several unique configuration tools. It has a cleaner, more logical menu layout, and generally a crisper feel. Mind you, I could do without the custom Google page.

You might want to add Linux Mint on that list..

http://www.linuxmint.com/

It is definitely one of the "just works" type of Linux distribution. (based on Ubuntu)

Linux Mint, which is Ubuntu-based with additional codecs, custom tools, and various other changes, removed it back in 2007.

Linux Mint, which is Ubuntu-based with additional codecs, custom tools, and various other changes, removed it back in 2007.

Use Linux Mint(TM) with special additive TrueCrypt(TM) for a cleaner, fresher breath scan!

Oops; corrected version with actual link: FYI, the "flood the network with queries" is something that's come up a lot with the last (not sure about most recent) release of Mint. Here's a forum post on the problem, with the solution. Of course, it's actually a 'feature' :)

... then all you'll need is a patch for Ubuntu and another patch for Gnome.

...but I switched to Linux Mint.

I wonder why Vista sales remain flat, if not damn small, despite the gutsy efforts of Microsoft's marketing department. Surely a newly minted OS from the same folks that brought us notepad.exe would make consumers as excited as a new puppy.

'Linux' will never play MP3s on it's own as Linux is a kernel and there are no built in kernel modules that play media files.

Then again there are plenty of Linux distributions that play MP3s on a fresh install, my personal favorite being Linux Mint which is a reworked Ubuntu distro with non-free software included by default.

Or you can give Vista the ultimate tweak - get rid of it altogether and replace it with something much better

Broadcom wireless won't work out of the box with Ubuntu. Try Linux Mint, a distro based off Ubuntu that includes ndiswrapper and a number of windows wireless drivers already set up, and a straightforward gui for ndiswrapper if you it doesn't have the driver. Doesn't work with every card, but try it with yours.

Remastersys Made for Mint, works with all Ubuntu-like systems. sudo remastersys backup = Backup your system. sudo remastersys dist = Make a distributable copy of your installed system.

Linux Mint. An Ubuntu based distro that uses French female release names. The latest release is Bianca and the next one will be Casandra. So you can tell you parents it's Mint Linux, Bianca, as opposed to Ubuntu, Feisty Fawn. Also, the blue/green theme it uses out of the box looks nicer than the orange/brown of Ubuntu.

http://linuxmint.com//

You can try Linux Mint, Ubuntu-based non-free distro.

So I'd be glad to have something that's KDE based that I can recommend to anyone, but if it's Kubuntu based, I'm very weary.

So I'd be glad to have something that's KDE based that I can recommend to anyone, but if it's Kubuntu based, I'm very weary.

Linux Mint is an Ubuntu-based distro with all the codecs & drivers you should need for desktop use, it's worth checking out!

If you want to buy a computer with Linux preloaded, you can go to Groovix, System 76, or Koobox. If you don't want to buy a new computer, I recommend Linux Mint or Freespire. Both of them are more user friendly to Windows converters and come things like flash and mp3 playback already installed.

As for Dell, they've had shitastic Windows support for years, so they'd be much better off just sending people to Canonical's or Red Hat's or whoever's tech support.

In any case, I switched from SUSE to Linux Mint a while ago... it's the only other distro I've found that supports my wireless card with WPA-PSK "out of the box". Being able to play DVDs and videos without finding and manually installing the packages is a bonus.

Most Linux distros don't even have the relevant codecs, and while you can get them, how many people *want* to spend their time that way?

Besides, the multimedia applications themselves are simply not of the same quality.

And this is an evolving area: even Microsoft has trouble keeping up with iTunes (Windows Media Player, for example, has no RSS/podcast support)

and the Linux stuff is nowhere near.

And, of course, iTunes won't run on Linux while it will run on XP.

You think, these days, people want a system that can't play MP3s or DVDs out of the box

a system that can't sync with a portable MP3 player easily?

You think they want to mooch over to YouTube and find they can't watch the vids, because they have't got Flash. (And some geek telling them to install Wine so they can use Flash just won't walk.)

But non-enthusiast home users? No way. Maybe the odd person who only does web and email, but that's not the norm now.

LinuxMint makes Ubuntu usable. It has plugins and codecs that are missing from Ubuntu 6.xx. I can finally say that I have found a version of Linux that installs properly and is usable as well! Try it, you'll like it:

http://www.linuxmint.com/