Nate Bargmann wrote: > I would heartily recommend Xubuntu. Why? The GUI is fairly easy to > understand coming from Windows land even if the task bar is along the > top by default. The GUI does what it is supposed to do and it does it > quite well.
The Xubuntu desktop GUI is XFCE and XFCE is available in Debian too. :-)
> Also, while this may be somewhat of a heresy on Debian User, Xubuntu
> will likely come with the drivers needed for your hardware or offer
> to install the manufacturer supplied ones (I've not found a need for
> those).
It isn't heresy. But Ubuntu and Debian have different goals and
priorities. Debian as an organization has decided only to include
free(dom) software in the distribution and therefore does not include
the nonfree drivers that Ubuntu includes. If those drivers were
licensed with a free(dom) license then Debian would include them too.
It is a political philosophy thing.
However within each organization it isn't a single mind. There are
some who want to do one thing and others who want to do a different
thing. Debian's GR says no nonfree software and so as an organization
it does not. But there are many who would like to include it in order
that users don't feel any pain from needing nonfree parts.
Do you sell a little bit of your soul to make it easy? Or do you
stick to your principles and stay pure? Hard questions with no easy
answers.
> The installer is first rate plus it doubles as a live CD.
I think the current Debian (keyboard) installer is first rate. But as
I understand it the Wheezy installer will release using the (mouse)
graphical installer as the default installer. Which as far as I can
see is very similar to the Ubuntu (mouse) graphical installer. Which
I don't like. Fortunately the keyboard installer remains available in
both.
Since you like the Ubuntu graphical installer you should try the
Debian graphical installer. I think you will find them very similar
to each other.
> Firefox and Thunderbird are included and updated regularly.
That is a very valid point. The mozilla.debian.net folks do a great
job but I wish it were included in the main repository. That this
needs to be enabled separately is less than newbie friendly. Even
though it is very easy to use after you have done it.
I wish Debian would put Internet facing software such as Firefox and
Chromium and so forth that by external policy cannot remain stable
into the volatile ("stable-updates") category and have a continuously
usable upgrade track for those specific components. Perhaps one day
they will.
Bob
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