On 29/10/2013 10:24, Mark Rogers wrote:
[SNIP]
I just want to pick up quickly on something you said:
Linux and it causes them problems, all it will do is "validate" their eventual decision to spend money on a Windows PC, even if they don't like the Windows 8 it arrives with. (On the why not W7 question: the PC's we've looked at (at around the £250 mark) are Win8 Home so no option to use Win7.)
Check out the Zoostorm boxes on ebuyer.com that come with no OS installed.
http://www.ebuyer.com/store/Computer/cat/Desktop-PC/Zoostorm?sort=price+asce...
They range in price from £149.99 to £499 all inc vat.
Time is pressing, but I wanted to pick up on this too:
(b) Needs to be easy to use for an XP user. (Pretty much a given with all options except perhaps Ubuntu/Unity and maybe Gnome 3 which are a bit "too" different.)
"easy to use" can mean many things. I would argue that jumping from XP to W8 is a path of major pain and frustration. The same can be said of XP to W7, although that path is vastly easier - hardware issues aside.
If you have any spare kit, or if one of their machines is capable of running VirtualBox, I'd recommend letting them have a play with a couple of distros. They are likely to find KDE easier to take to than Gnome, or especially Unity. It is clear to me that Cinnamon offers the "easiest" route, simply because it's easier to partially replicate the look-and-feel of XP, along with the functionality. Also, Live DVDs can be a boon here, requiring little effort to trial.
You have until next year, probably the autumn, before this becomes urgent. By then there will be new versions of everything available, maybe even a new distro. Not only that, there will probably be a new LTS of *buntu, which means that Linux Mint will probably have an LTS version out too.
Cheers, Laurie.