ubuntu for novices

[David Feldman]

I'm surveying distributions I'd recommend to novice users, particularly  
Windows switchers. My feeling is that Ubuntu is _almost_ there but  
lacking one key feature and a couple less key features.

Key feature: A GUI for configuring wireless cards. The ability to enter  
the SSID and WEP key at install time is helpful, but there's no easy  
way to do this after the OS has been installed. Asking a novice user to  
edit a text config file isn't really a good thing.

Less key feature: A GUI for installation. The installer is relatively  
straightforward, but might be interpreted as unfriendly-looking due to  
its text-based nature. More importantly, for those unfamiliar with  
text-based UIs it's not always clear which key to hit, so even if a GUI  
installer isn't added, some hints on which keys to use might be a good  
addition.

Less key feature: NTFS/FAT resize as an option during install. A few  
distros have this, and I think it's a great idea because it allows  
Windows users to create a dual-boot setup without doing a reinstall of  
Windows or any pre-configuration of their systems. For extra points,  
provide a preconfigured option to add a shared FAT partition when  
Windows is installed on NTFS.

I bring these up not to be negative, but because I've been really  
impressed with Ubuntu in so many respects, particularly hardware  
support and UI simplicity, not to mention the whole single-CD install  
thing. In the meantime I'm looking at distros like SuSE 9.2 (with  
GNOME), Xandros, and Fedora Core 3 for recommendation to novices and  
Windows switchers...any comments welcome.

--Dave

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David A. Feldman
User Interface Designer
http://InterfaceThis.com