XFCE and IceWM are both easy interfaces to use, XFCE being quite a bit faster than Gnome, and IceWM being very, very fast. It’s obviously just my opinion, but the Gnome UI seems slightly more responsive, especially in menus.Īnd Gnome and KDE aren’t the only fairly familiar options. One runs Arch Linux with Gnome for my parents, the other is a Windows XP Pro file server at work. I built two almost identical K8T890, S939 1.8Ghz, 1GB dual channel PC4200, and discreet Nvidia 6X00 video cards recently. It’s close, but my opinion is that a minimal install of Gnome in a distribution like Arch or Gentoo which doesn’t offer a highly integrated (read: bloated) default desktop is a bit lighter than Windows. Rhythmbox was always much more stable for me. The bugs are at least predictable, but still. I’ve used about 4-5 releases of it, and only the most recent hasn’t crashed on me more than 10 times. I’d be nervous about recommending Amarok though, it’s been pretty consistently buggy. I hope his parents do well with Mandrake. Linux adoption will take time and effort. There’s also a large group who are very willing to learn, but they’ve only got so much time. Now, when I said most, I mean most of the ones I’d call beginners. If you’re proficient enough to learn new things on your own, you’ll do fine asking your Linux questions in forums but most people I’ve met seem to be so afraid of their computer that they need someone to sit down with them and help them in every way. If you’re “genius computer whiz” down the street runs Windows, then that’s what you’re stuck with. The best OS is the OS that the guy who fixes their PC runs… Their friends will get to hear the questions, but their techie will be providing the correct answers (hopefully correct at least).

Remove realplayer icon my computer