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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Zulithe" data-source="post: 1698295" data-attributes="member: 4708">Well, just how much are you willing to learn? If you want to "learn" Linux (and not just run it) then you should get one of the more hardcore distros. Learning how Linux works under the hood will work in your favor in the long run when you run into problems (which I promise will be harder to work out for a relative newbie than problems in Windows). Plus, the real fun about Linux is that it's more of a hobby OS than the mainstream Windows/Mac OS -- but that doesn't mean it's less capable, quite the contrary, as I'm sure you're aware!    I personally like Gentoo, but you could go Slackware. These distros have pretty lengthy installs that typically need a lot of user-input, ESPECIALLY Gentoo which will have you compiling most of your software yourself. It's all automated though, not nearly as difficult as it sounds, the only downside is the amount of time some programs take to compile. Depending on how fast your machine is, this could virtually be no problem whatsoever.    Considering your background I don't think you would have much difficulty going this route. You will come to find that Linux itself is not much different from a beefed-up version of DOS. Being able to administrate your Linux system through the command-line interface is a necessity.    Your wife will be very capable of using Gentoo once it is completely setup. It will work just like any other Linux distro, complete with the latest generation desktop managers and kernel, KDE is remarkably similar to Windows, so no problems there. And when she isn't using it, you can do the various accasional updates yourself. If you choose Gentoo, it has one of the best package management systems of any distro I have used, and still remains my favorite. Updates are insanely easy to do, even easier than in Windows XP once you learn the drill. Unlike a distro like Debian which have years-old packages on even their newest install CDs, Gentoo stays pretty cutting edge.    Gentoo also has every single Linux program you can imagine (except the non-Free ones) within it's package database which you can install at a moment's notice. KOffice, OpenOffice.org ... those should cover you for the Word Processing stuff. And for mail, yes, I prefer KMail (or Mozilla Thunderbird)      <a href="http://www.gentoo.org" target="_blank">www.gentoo.org</a> if you want to browse around.      Let us know what you decide!</blockquote>

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