I agree that the install might be a tad off-putting to casual users. It does look pretty techy.
However for newbies, I’d say you’d have to do two things:
enable non-free repositories which will fix hardware compatibility
choose a DE
Once this is done, I don’t think there is a more stable, compatible distribution around. I tried (and often liked) OpenSUSE, Arch, Ubuntu, various downstream versions of those, and Debian is just by far the most easiest to run. I generally run “testing” which makes it a rolling distro, and might be another thing that should be done for casual users (or for them to be guided through). “testing” therefore means that you never to have to go through an install again (until you go distro hopping…)
So three things to guide casual users to Linux happiness! I say that’s possible…
I agree that the install might be a tad off-putting to casual users. It does look pretty techy.
However for newbies, I’d say you’d have to do two things:
Once this is done, I don’t think there is a more stable, compatible distribution around. I tried (and often liked) OpenSUSE, Arch, Ubuntu, various downstream versions of those, and Debian is just by far the most easiest to run. I generally run “testing” which makes it a rolling distro, and might be another thing that should be done for casual users (or for them to be guided through). “testing” therefore means that you never to have to go through an install again (until you go distro hopping…)
So three things to guide casual users to Linux happiness! I say that’s possible…
:)