I have tried various types of Linux distributions off and on now for a couple of years. A lot of distributions claim to be easy to use but I haven't found them easy at all. At some point you always end up in a terminal typing in some cryptic string of commands. My first computer was a Window 95 machine so a DOS style command prompt just isn't a friendly environment for me. What has also been difficult for me is loading a Linux distribution on old hardware that I have. This frustration caused me to stop playing with Linux in the past.
Two tools that have made my life easier are VMware Player and Linux Mint 10 LXDE.
VMware Player is a virtual machine that I have found friendlier to use than actual hardware and some of the other alternative virtual machines like VirtualBox and Virtual PC. VMware is free like VirutalBox and Virtual PC but I have just had better luck with it. It seems to work well with the various Linux distributions I have tried so far and the interface has been intuitive to work with. The nice thing about VMware is that I can also make lots of mistakes during installation and start over fairly easily compared to real hardware. The only downside is that you have to register it with a valid e-mail address but that turned out ok. The only e-mail that I remember getting from them has been the confirmation e-mail they send when you register. If they sent me anything else it wasn't enough to register a complaint from me.
I like Linux Mint 10 LXDE because it works well in VMware Player. Linux Mint LXDE is based off of Ubuntu and VMware Player's virtual drivers work well with it. Also, Linux Mint 10 LXDE is easy to update and add software to right from a GUI environment. There is still the option of loading software from a terminal but I can avoid that for now and still get a lot of software to play with. Linux Mint 10 LXDE also has all the multimedia codecs that a lot of distributions don't include because of copyright laws. For a beginning user that is wonderful. I have found Linux Mint 10 LXDE an easy to use distribution for a beginner like myself. Yes, there is the downside of putting off learning text commands but at least I am using Linux! I have created a couple of virtual machines using Linux Mint 10 LXDE for different purposes. One machine I surf with, one machine I only check e-mail, and one machine I try out different Linux applications. The reason I use Linux Mint 10 LXDE to surf and check my e-mail is so that I can isolate my host operating system from virus's and malware on the Internet. There are few Linux virus's and instead of running a virus scanner I can just delete my current virtual machine every week or two and either install another virtual machine or load a clean copy of it.
Linux Mint 10 LXDE is a variation of Linux Mint but it is designed around the LXDE desktop environment instead of Gnome or KDE. It uses less memory and seems faster in a virtual machine than other distributions with different desktops environments. I also like the fact that it can fit on a CD as opposed to a DVD. It is just easier to load on a old machine that doesn't have a DVD player.
Because it can be installed on a bootable CD (or USB drive) I can use it to check a low end PC that is having problems. If I can boot the bootable CD and get to the Internet I can tell quickly what hardware is working on a PC that "doesn't start" really fast. I can easily know that it isn't the hardware but probably either the operating system or just the hard drive.
In future posts I will go into more detail but that gives you an idea of what I am playing with for now. I have found both Linux Mint LXDE and VMware Player to be great beginner tools.
