Linux help for Phrip. (in Off-topic)

Poor Phrip is in the other room ripping his hair out try to get the linux install disk that originally came with his computer to work. What I need for some sanity around here is some help finding a Linux distribution that he can use. The requirements are it has to be in English and be somewhat Linux newb proof. Thanks a lot!

If you want "newb proof" get Mandrake. By far the most simple Linux distribution, though a bit more demanding on the system than others (doesn't matter if the comp isn't too old though).

Basically the "general" order between major Linux distributions in terms of geek-level:

Mandrake -> Fedora -> Debian -> Gentoo (my favorite, installed with no GUI!).

Mandrake is pretty newb proof. You might want to look at ProMEPIS as well. I assume you're going with a dual boot, right?

Hey! Thanks for the suggestions. What happened was I got a computer last Christmas that had Lycoris preinstalled on it, but I had nuked Lycoris and install Win2KPro instead. Little did I know the factory reinstall disc from lycoris some how had a bad MD5 checksum. So I spent about 6 hours trying to reinstall it between reformating and fdisk'ing the MBR a couple hundred times with a spiffy DOS CD I found (I thought I was having a problem with GRUB). So some where around 7:30am this morning I decided to just go to MandrakeLinux 10.1. Works like a charm with no problem at all.

Slackware! probably not the most newb proof, but you gotta love the BSD style startup stuff!

I still say Mandrake is the "most newb proof" of the selection of distributions.

Except maybe a CD Linux like Knoppix, but those aren't very efficient for working on.

knoppix owns.