On 30/10/2013 10:42, Mark Rogers wrote:
[SNIP]
I've been researching this for a while today, as I have a similar situation looming.
I am now convinced that you want the moon on a stick, and that you seem unwilling to compromise in the face of reality. That reality is that you will not find a distro that you can install and forget, that your users will think is XP, and that will be so trouble-free they will stop thinking Windows is better. Only time at the keyboard will achieve the last point there, and that involves effort and willingness, things you seem to feel your clients aren't prepared to give.
Windows XP is a rolling update system. The rolling updates stop next year, at which point you will need to upgrade to W7 or W8. Although they allegedly have upgrade paths available to W7 or W8, my personal experience of many hundreds of those is that it's a dumb idea, and a total re-install is best.
My research for the best replacement for XP has persistently led me to Linux Mint. Like XP, LM 15 is a rolling update system, with base support for 9 months from release (until January 2014). At this point, an upgrade to the next version is "required", just like Windows. The difference is, however, that the rolling upgrades don't immediately stop, and the distro doesn't suddenly stop working...
The next version of LM (16, Petra) is due out at the end of November 2013, and will include the much-improved Cinnamon 2.0 (which is already out). This will be back-ported to the LM LTS version (13, based on Ubuntu Maya and supported until April 2017) soon after LM 16 is released.
As I see it, you have 2 choices:
Forget Linux and give them W7, hoping it will run on their hardware. or Give them LM16 when it comes out, and deal with the work in keeping it up-to-date.
With regard to option 2, it's a rolling update distro. I suspect you're making too much of LTS...
For myself, I'm running/testing LM15 Cinnamon, will trash and rebuild with LM16 in late November, and will evaluate from an XP user's perspective before I finally decide. I will set users' expectations, and let them play on a spare machine (although most won't bother).
In reality, most of my clients have bought new kit, and gone to W7.
Whatever, good luck!
Cheers, Laurie.