Ok, there is an older (within the last 10 years) PC at my church that I’d like to get set up for people to use as a generic PC to browse the web, check email, and do word processing. Unfortunately it currently lacks an OS. What do y’all think is the best free OS distribution for the general public to do web browsing, email (probably web based) and word processing? My first instinct is Ubuntu because it’s what I use, but what do you think?
Do Linux Mint instead. Seems to be regarded as even more noob friendly than Ubuntu. It looks nicer at least.
Ubuntu would work fine. Linux Mint is also designed to be easy to use and is good for complete beginners. Zorin OS is Linux that looks like Windows if you think they would be more comfortable with that.
How much RAM? I’ve put Linux on old PCs, with about a quarter Gig, but Ubuntu was too big to be useable. Puppy Linux looks nice, in a cartoony sort of way, and is designed for minimal systems. ETA: Mine was a 350 MHz Pentium something-or-other. I’d have to check.
I don’t know flavors of Linux at all, but I’m guessing you’re going to be the one maintaining this, so why don’t you use what you already know? It’s not like the visitors are going to be updating applications, adding new user accounts, doing file system maintenance or anything; they’re going to be clicking on web pages and typing in Open Office. Which will look pretty much the same no matter what OS is running. So use whatever OS is easiest for you to set up securely.
Open source /= small at this point. IIRC, I tried to install generic Ubuntu on a netbook a couple years back and failed - it just didn’t have the resources to run it. I went to a stripped down version of Ubuntu that was being developed with netbooks in mind and it was fine. I don’t remember the distribution name now, unfortunately.
Another vote for Linux Mint - and I’d recommend it over Ubuntu because (the last time I checked) Ubuntu doesn’t have decoders for DVDs and MP3 files installed by default. Mint has a lot more of this stuff, and my experience was mostly that it Just Worked, without a lot of fiddling about with installing this-and-that non-standard package.
I definitely do not recommend Ubuntu due to the interface. For some reason, it was decided that Ubuntu needed to differentiate itself from the other Desktop OSes, that this would somehow result in more users switching to it. In fact, I don’t recommend using Gnome at all, as they did the same thing. People who are not especially computer literate expect computers to work a certain way and freak out when they don’t. It doesn’t matter how much simpler you think your interface is.
Interestingly, you can make your Ubuntu look like Windows 7.
You can also go the other way, somewhat.
I’ve never actually tried any of these, and have no idea if they add to processor overhead, which could be a concern for the OP.