Going away from Vista; Getting to Know Linux

Today, one of my students lent me her laptop. She wanted me to install Linux on it because she's becoming progressively tired of Vista. Well, I couldn't blame her!

Since she had entrusted me her computer, she would have accepted any Linux I installed on it, especially because she doesn't know anything about Tux. However, I prefer to give people choices. After all, that's what Linux is all about: freedom and choice.

Thus, instead of installing my favorite distro right away, I started testing different Linux flavors to see which ones would adapt best to her 4-year-old computer, which already shows some signs of heavy use.

I narrowed down the candidates to 3:

Mandriva One 2010.2 Christmas
Mepis 8.5
Pardus 2009.2

Mepis 11 Beta 2 also did a very good job, but testing software is for more experienced users, not for those who are just learning about Linux.

I explained the main differences of the three distributions and then let the owner of the laptop choose. It was her computer, it was her call.

Her choice? PARDUS!

Pardus will be then. I'll install it next Wednesday, not because Pardus is hard to install, but because it is hard to make her selfish, pre-installed OS share part of the hard drive to make room for Linux.

Yes, so much for choices with Redmond!