OSNews

Gentoo is great for advanced users, but this guy is probably more better off with a user-friendly distro such as Ubuntu, openSUSE, Fedora, Centos or PCLOS. With Gentoo, if he doesn't have much time and motivation, he can get frustrated at one point, especially if he doesn't need much flexibility.

I have Gentoo, but it's not meant for the casual Linux User. Linux itself is still not polished enough for the casual user.

Apple did it with MacOS X. I just wish Linux programmers would stop thinking Geek, and start thinking the rest of us.

I like the idea of Gentoo, which I think is that it recompiles itself to be as efficient as possible on the system you have.

I just wish it were easier to install.

or since he is going from Linspire

PC/OS http://www.pc-os.org

Linux has the advantage to provide native commercial application such as some free Adobe products (Adobe Reader and Adobe Flash Player), while you need a compatibility layer with *BSD. Although this may not be a problem for some people.

You might find Sabayon Linux, Mandriva or MEPIS not only useful but interesting as well. If you have a 64 bit CPU I recommend Studio 64.

Alternatively, Solaris and the BSDs have much to recommend them in terms of available software and stability/security. You will just need to see if they are a good fit for you and what you do.

I've used MEPIS, thanks. I donated for it several years ago.

It's a good, solid distro.

Maybe I should go back and look at it again.

Foresight Linux is another good, but underrated, choice. It's a rolling release that uses the conary package manager and has come a long way in ease of use from even a year ago.