Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

Dev.SN ♥ developers

Recommending Linux to a Friend

posted by Dopefish on Wednesday March 05 2014, @07:30PM   Printer-friendly
from the no-need-to-join-the-microsoft-collective dept.

resignator writes:

"'Arm yourself with the information needed before telling someone to install such and such distro because it's great,' warned blogger Ken Starks in his recent FOSS Force post. 'It might be great for you, but maybe not so much with my hardware choices.'

What considerations do SoylentNews readers have when recommending an OS? What OS do you recommend the most or least? How far would you go to 'tailor' a Linux distro to a potential adopter before recommending something that will work out of the box but lack non-essential features?"

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Recommending Linux to a Friend | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 1000 moderator points   | 44 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Hell_Rok on Wednesday March 05 2014, @08:29PM

    by Hell_Rok (2527) on Wednesday March 05 2014, @08:29PM (#11624) Homepage

    If I ever recommended Linux to a friend it'd be Debian. I would never ask them to run something I don't.

    Debian stable is fine with the Chrome repository as a desktop for a general user interested in Linux. If they were a Firefox user I'd probably try and find a way to set them up with a more recent Firefox though, or if they were quite tech savvy, leave it as an exercise for them.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +2  
       Insightful=1, Interesting=1, Total=2
    Extra 'Insightful' Modifier   0  
    Total Score:   3  

  • (Score: 1) by kbahey on Wednesday March 05 2014, @09:27PM

    by kbahey (1147) on Wednesday March 05 2014, @09:27PM (#11639) Homepage

    If you use Firefox, use the ESR (Extended Support Release) builds. They have support of up to 51 weeks, and change far less often then the frequent builds Mozilla pushes through other channels.

    Here is how I installed it on Ubuntu, should be pretty much the same for Debian: How to install Firefox ESR on Ubuntu 12.04 64 bit [baheyeldin.com]

  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by stderr on Wednesday March 05 2014, @11:42PM

    by stderr (11) on Wednesday March 05 2014, @11:42PM (#11718) Journal

    ... or if they were quite tech savvy, leave it as an exercise for them.

    You don't need to be that tech savvy [debian.net]

    --
    alias sudo="echo make it yourself #" # ... and get off my lawn!