Thanks Mark for the great break down. Much appreciated. Thanks to everyone else for the great amount of material to think about. Cheers. Sincerely Rory Geoghegan On 19 Feb. 2018 20:36, "Mark Trickett via luv-main" <luv-main@luv.asn.au> wrote:
Hello rory,
On 2/18/18, Rory Geoghegan via luv-main <luv-main@luv.asn.au> wrote:
Thanks everyone for the advice,
@ Mark, I've got a process for him that we are soon to execute, the last thing I had to work out is which OS is the most suitable. I will mention Debian to him and see what he says.
All computers need a system administrator. You and he need to both learn. It is a bit like a toaster, fail to clean and the crumbs get mouldy, a health risk, and the prospect of starting a fire. Too many expect to just turn on the toaster and not clean now and then, and treat the computer the same. They do not deserve even the technology of the stone age.
@Andrew, he's happy to use libre but apparently there's just times when word is the only option
If Word is the only option, then the option is poorly stated or needs to be discarded. Word is a problem with no solution, except the demise of Microsoft.
@Russell would you also suggest Debian meets those requirements you listed?
Russell is a Debian developer, at least at times. As to your needs, look at the various distributions, but remember to scratch under the surface. The desktop matters, whether Gnome, KDE, Mate, Mint or other lightweight option. Then remember that most will support most applications, and can be given a different theme and background for the eye candy. Look to the functionality first, that is what you and he have to live with.
As to whether the Debian package management, or the Red Hat derived ones, you need to find what works your way. The reason I go for Debian and such is the package management tools, especially the handling of dependencies. This is less of an issue with the higher level package management front ends for Red Hat based systems, but it is built into the base level and fully available with the Debian package management tools.
Do be aware that there are other package management means, from Gentoo using source based and compiling everything, to the way Slackware uses tarballs, tape archives, a collection of concatenated files, usually also compressed, and a small amount of extra detail, but not to the levels of the RPM or DEB packages.
The big advantage of Linux is the diversity and choices, so that you can make it work the way you want. The downside is that you do have to be engaged, but that has big benefits as time goes on.
Thanks again.
Sincerely Rory Geoghegan
Regards,
Mark Trickett _______________________________________________ luv-main mailing list luv-main@luv.asn.au https://lists.luv.asn.au/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/luv-main