In regard to debian's install being difficult for newbies, there seems a simple solution. At the beginning of the install process have a menu that asks what competency level the user is. (beginner, intermediate, advanced) Then have an install procedure suitable for that level. Some menus could ask questions of the beginning user and a recommended basic system could be installed and configured. Let the system automaticly setup partions, config ppp, setup xwindows, and some Office apps. I know there will be some arguments about what a basic system should be. Still all in all, this does not seem as if it would be that hard to do.
For the record, my former school gave us shell accounts on solaris. For tech support I got a sheet of paper with about 25 unix commands on it. Being lazy I installed 4dos on my home pc and aliased the dos commands the unix ones. They became familiar more quickly that way. One day I found Debian on the net. I downloaded 0.93 and have been happy with Debian ever since. Debian Gnu/Linux is just not as hard as people believe. Tom
