Which OS?

My lovely sister has managed to destroy her old laptop somehow.

She has passed it to me and asked me to 'make it work again.'

To me, that means that I can do what the hell I like with it as she says she lost everything off it anyway coz she wiped it all off with some kind of system restore (I'm not sure - I haven't looked properly yet).

Now comes the question...

Has anyone tried the Release Candidate Windows 7? If so, should I dump that on there as an experiment, give her a Linux set up or just pop for plain old XP?

I want to give her something a little different as she likes to try new things out but doesn't know where to start.

What you reckon, folks?

Peace,

MGGG

I have just finished installing Windows 7 RC on a virtual computer, and it looks even more "polished" than the Beta, but I haven't had the time to try anything.

You can try to install it, if the computer follows the minimum specifications, but you have to remember that it will stop working on March 2010.

Some Linux flavour is also an option, as you said, and Ubuntu is usually pointed as one of the most "easier on the user" distros, so I guess you can also try it.

One thing I would like to ask is what was the previous OS on that computer, because some users do not like change, and what type of computer expertise does your sister have.

Linux is good ; I just for Fedora 10 however the learning curve is pretty steep if you're transitioning from XP. Unless it's a high end system, I'd go with XP rather than Vista or a Windows 7.

Maybe try a LIVE disk for Linux which allows you to boot from the CD to test it.

If it's an old laptop like you said then I would avoid Vista with anything under 1 gig of RAM since it's a resource hog.

Thanks for the advice guys - much appreciated.

Gonna try Linux I think.

:-) Peace,

MGGG