[kwlug disc.] best distro for "out of the box" home system?

[Gary Walsh]

As a long time Mandriva user, I recommend Mandriva 2008.0 over Ubuntu.
The graphical management tools are much better on Mandriva than Ubuntu
and the Mandriva One live/install CD includes proprietary drivers.  You
may still have to add the PLF repositories to get some non-free
multimedia functions, but that is easy.

I ran the latest Ubuntu on my Thinkpad for a while, but I had trouble
getting Compiz Fusion to run.  I popped in the Mandriva One CD and
rebooted and Compiz Fusion ran by default.  I ended up wiping Ubuntu and
installing Mandriva.  (It also makes it easier for me to run the same
distribution on my laptop as I run on my desktop machine (which has
Mandriva Cooker.))

Anyhow, with so many distributions providing live CDs/DVDs, it is easy
to try different ones without making a commitment.

On Wed, 2007-12-05 at 03:45 -0500, Robert P. J. Day wrote:
> given that (for political reasons) i'm still primarily using fedora
> core, i don't spend a lot of time messing with other distros, but
> i'm frequently asked what's the best distro for home use that just
> plain works in terms of multimedia/browsing/plug-ins/etc.
> 
>   fedora is certainly a poor choice for that, given its policy of
> nothing pre-installed that isn't pure GPL, so i never recommend it.
> typically, i suggest ubuntu.  any other opinions?

-- 
Gary Walsh; Kitchener, Ontario, Canada 
gwalsh at notw.ca My Blog: http://gwalsh.notw.ca