OK, I’ve mentioned Ubuntu Linux (6.06 “Dapper Drake”) several times and Puppy Linux a coupla times. For “Aunt Tilly” easy, either qualify. Ubuntu is slicker and a lil more “Windows-like” (though distinctly different), but Puppy Linux 2.10 is… really, really nice.
For one thing, running Puppy Linux off the CD (no hard drive install) is really FAST compared to other “Live CD” experiences. Puppy sees more of my actual physical memory than Windows does and uses that to its advantage. Plus, as opposed to other Live CD Linux disks, Puppy makes saving my changes and configurations in a Live CD session almost transparently easy. And while I’m not all that tickled with the Seamonkey browser, it’s still about as capable as Firefox, and having it remember my logons (like to this admin account) between live CD sessions is really nice.
Highly recommend y’all who use Windows at least download Puppy and try it out, especially since IF (and/or WHEN) your Windows install refusews to even boot into Safe Mode (I had another client computer with a set of issues that resulted in that just this week), you can still boot into a Puppy Live CD session and rescue data files, at the very least.
Download Puppy Linux here and give it a try. At the least, it’ll be fun (or interesting), and it might just save your bacon to have something like this sitting in your toolbox.
Puppy Linux 2.10 is definitely getting installed on the next box I build for testing here.