Please recommend a "Windows like" UNIX flavour

Linux Mint 16 MATE

It's what I'm currently wiping out folks old XP windows installations with.

What do you want to do with it? I just want something that will run Chrome these days.

... and that is exactly the reason I changed.

I would second Linux Mint (using it on an old netbook now that XP is on its last legs - its fine for web browsing e-mail and podcast requirements) but would suggest if you don't want to be buggering about every 6 months you go for release 13 (Maya) which will be around a while yet

with WINE installed it even runs some (not all) windows programs.

Dont forget you can always run it from a CD to get the look and feel before you do anything radical.

Yes, Mint is a good choice for what you want. I use Centos for servers, Ka li for debugging networks. Mint is good for "ordinary" use. It seems to h ave more codecs installed for video decoding than many of the others and "j ust works" on a lot of hardware.

John

Only one answer. Linux MINT, either mate or cinnamon versions.

You MAY need to enable 'legacy boot' in the bios. if its a newish computer

loads of tutorials on You tube.Pick version 13 for long term support, 15 for bleeding edge or 14 fir best compromise between running latest stuff and being stable.

Mint is designed for EX XP users...

I can sort most basic issues on it once you have a newsreader working ;-)

On Monday 03 February 2014 13:29 Andrew Mawson wrote in uk.d-i-y:

One of the Ubuntus or Mint.

Xubuntu is less flashy and quite windows-like.

You found 16 stable?

I'm still on 14..

Golly we ALL recommend MINT!

That's a first for uk.d-i-y....

Probly worh a FAQ.

On Monday 03 February 2014 15:13 The Natural Philosopher wrote in uk.d- i-y:

I didn't - I only half recommeded it.

I know someone, who should he be asked, would slap you all and say Gentoo - does that count? ;->

nope. I know someone who would say debian. Or slackware or any one of a dozen other distros,. but when it comes to 'easiest transition from XP' they would be lying.

It's a very quick google to sort or workaround niggles but no show stoppers so far. Last was me knobling the service that does audio previews for clips hovered on, which crashed the file manager.

It's stable on the old Dell P4 hardware I'm looking after, but the important thing is that anyone with a clue of using windows CAN use this GUI. It hasn't gone all Gnome 'polished Apple edition' ....

I've even skinned a couple of installs to look like XP ;-)

Have you spoken to Microsoft? I had a similar experience a few years back. They asked me to send the disk and details of the supplier to them. A few days later a complimentary copy of XP arrived in exchange. I also got my money back from the eBay supplier.

trying to get mine to look like OS-X.

But to get the context sensitive toolbar is not possible

Thanks chaps I'll download a version of Mint and see what happens :)

Peter, I'm fed up trying to contact Microsoft. The PC I've been trying to get going has Win7 professional loaded, and is up and running. When it came to trying to register it both the telephone method and the online method say the particular product code is one blocked by Microsoft. All links to 'buy another code' end up with a page that says 'as you have a genuine copy of Win 7 you can down load the "Microsoft Security Centre" . This I did, and it went though a few million updates, system working ok. However in control panel it said '3 days to automatic registration' - when this counted down to zero, it went back up to 27 days. Now if I try to buy a code on line, it says I'm entitled to a free update to Windows 8.1 !!!! However if I click the link it never gets there. So I thought I'd give UNIX another chance !!!!!

Andrew

Hi Andrew. Noted. I contacted their main switchboard and went from their. The automated system is a nightmare.

Well, I've considered switching to it, but I'm a little put off by allegations that it doesn't percolate security patches as quickly as other distros & by the developers' discouragement of dist-upgrading instead of doing a clean install (between Mint versions, I mean).

I'm surprised no-one has asked about a USB angle-grinder.

wouldn't have the welly.

er.. nervous voice from the back... Will it run my existing peripherals and files?

Things like printer/scanner, photo reader, Turnpike, accounting stuff, CD burner etc.

My plan was to tread very lightly and stick with XP until I get hardware problems.

Hi Andrew I went along the same path at the end of last year. Installed Zorin

Shame - as Zorin looked very friendly - but being unable to run the Windows application was a bit of a show-stopper (possibilyt due to my ignorance of things linux..

Adrian