The lack of user-friendliness of Linux has always been an issue that kept the common man away from it. The most common distros like Ubuntu,Debian are not user friendly at all. They makeup for it in other departments but one cant recommend it for newbies. The introduction of KDE solved the issue somewhat but many people still found it difficult to use and it had many stability issues too.
I found the PCLinuxOS (KDE) during my search for a user-friendly Linux distribution. I initially tested it on a virtual machine. I was very impressed by its looks and feel and I installed it onto my hard drive for further inspection. Officially forked from Mandriva Linux, this distro is a boon for newbies and the less geeky friends. It is just a matter of getting used with the interface. The interface is neat and good looking. All the primary apps except OpenOffice package (maybe due to its large size) are built into the OS. It works like Linux but feels like Windows and I didn’t experience any stability issues. If you’re new to the computer world or you want to try Linux for the first time, then this is the distro for you. When compared to most other distros, this one is much easier to use and understand. The installation procesure is easy and it can be tweaked according to your needs without entering a 1000 commands. I tried to alter a few basic settings and I could do it very easily. I couldn’t find anything complicated at the basic level. Of course it’s a Linux distro and you will face problems as you dig deep into it :-).
It comes with a good package of apps for the desktop user. Internet apps far outnumber the others in the main menu. They seem to be well aware of the needs of a desktop user. OpenOffice is a big package and it is more than one fifth the size of the OS image itself. That’s probably why they left it behind.
Mint is another distro popular for its friendly interface. It is based on Ubuntu and Debian (hence uses deb format whereas PCLOS uses rpm.the format has nothing to do with performance though) which makes it even more attractive. But in my opinion PCLOS is easier to configure and use. There are people who think otherwise.
You may give both the distros a try on a virtual machine and choose the one that suits you. If you don’t have time and energy for all that take my word and install PCLOS. It’s a decision you will never regret. All my geek friends have only good things to say about PCLOS. They cant be wrong.
