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xShadow:
Suggestion:
1. Install Virtualbox.
2. Install Ubuntu on it.

Step 2 is extremely straightforward with Virtualbox.

That's probably as easy as it gets. Even I did it.

<Initiate Unrelated History TimeTM>
Basically, one of my ECE classes required us to code MIPs and C, and it wanted us to use gcc as our compiler, which was pretty much preloaded onto it.

(click to show/hide)The course if you're interested; I always skipped class and practically winged the tests, so I ended up with a B, although my project grade was pretty amazing... which is all that mattered to me. FYI our projects were probably a good bit harder than what they have up there now.
Being a complete newb to any Linux at all, I first tried doing a Live CD... but realized I couldn't save C files or anything. Then I ran it off of USB, but then I realized that USB is a pretty lackluster solution, considering that it's slower... and at the time I didn't have many 4 gig USBs; I didn't wanna shorten their lifespan too much, especially considering that I'd already run Quartus II project simulations enough times off them.

Then, I found Virtualbox. Easy to set up, did pretty much anything a normal installation would do, and and best of all it was completely contained inside of a program. Moreover, I could actually move around the installation between my laptop and desktop, because it was simply a virtual disk (mind you I don't suggest doing this much, because it can get a bit buggy).
<End>


So, if I had to suggest anything, I would suggest just doing a virtual installation. For just learning Linux, the pros far outweigh the cons. I mean really... the internet works with it (and if you do a bit of tinkering, most other stuff does, too), and you literally can't fuck anything up.

Though I may be wrong because as far as I was concerned all I needed to do was compile C and assembly code... I didn't do too many packages and crap.

Kyrdua:
Ubuntu or Opensuse.

Go with Gnome Ubuntu (the main "Ubuntu") and KDE for Opensuse.

though really, it's ubuntu for first timer because it's popular. and because of that, if you got any question you'd have better luck on support in the community since more people use it.

shikitohno:

--- Quote from: Kyrdua on January 24, 2012, 02:14:55 PM ---though really, it's ubuntu for first timer because it's popular. and because of that, if you got any question you'd have better luck on support in the community since more people use it.

--- End quote ---

Okay, I guess I'll have to be the one to point out how silly this statement is.  Popularity does not equate with quality.  And Ubuntu's community support has mostly just been noise, in my experience.  You get everyone posting a reply with half-baked solutions, often going on the vaguest of descriptions of what the problem is.  This really hurts the contributions of those Ubuntu users who actually know what they're talking about, because you wind up with one or two guys making sane posts, buried within a 10 page long thread.  It's not very helpful for beginners to sell them on a distro as having good community support when they have to try and pick out th 5% of responses in a thread asking for help that they should actually pay attention to.

They've definitely got some very knowledgable people on their forums.  Still, nobody really bothers to tell the people who don't know what they're talking about to shut up, so it brings down the worth of the whole thing.

kitamesume:
^ i get this guy's point, he meant that the more popular it is the more dumb people would want to try it, creating an off-set on the balance of those who know and those who doesn't.

Kyrdua:
Popularity does not equal quality. yet you're talking about the community and not the popular distro itself.
I think what you're trying to say here is too many cooks spoil the soup.

Fun fact. I learned to use ubuntu on my own and just lurked around ubuntu forums or searched blogs and never asked whenever i have a problem. Since all of the answers to my problems already have solutions in blogs/forums.

So you may be right, but an experienced Windows user who wants to try out Linux will not have to deal with the "experts" helping (read: making them read technobabble manuals) them. Because more often than not, the problems they'll encounter have been answered long before they even heard of or wanted to try linux.

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