Instead of using Windows 7

[disturbed1]

That sounds like a reason to run an antivirus then. Though, unless you are installing ill gotten wares with Wine, and Wine has write access to the machine .... I guess it is better safe than sorry!

I'll try a different one tonight if I could get any anti-virus app running.
Thanks

AVG-Linux does not get favorable reviews. F-Prot, Avast, Kaspersky, and AntiVir, for the most part, are well liked. There is the old standard ClamAV to look at too. It's been awhile since I've had to use a Windows antivirus in Linux. The last time was to rescue someone's system, AntiVir did the job. Haven't personally looked any of the other solutions besides ClamAV.
Just Google search any of the above names +Linux.

[kenmo]

Take a look at Mandriva 2009 (Gnome desktop)... I've been playing with linux since Caldera had a distro. Tried Ubuntu, Mepis, Suse/OpenSuse and I much prefer Mandriva 2009. It's one of the easiest OS installs I've ever done...

It's now a toss up between Mandriva 2009 Gnome or Windows 7 as my favorite desktop OS... But I have to give a slight nod to Win7 as most of my photo editing and 2D/3D imaging apps are not yet ported to Linux...

[vcdlover]

Take a look at Mandriva 2009 (Gnome desktop)... I've been playing with linux since Caldera had a distro. Tried Ubuntu, Mepis, Suse/OpenSuse and I much prefer Mandriva 2009. It's one of the easiest OS installs I've ever done...

It's now a toss up between Mandriva 2009 Gnome or Windows 7 as my favorite desktop OS... But I have to give a slight nod to Win7 as most of my photo editing and 2D/3D imaging apps are not yet ported to Linux...

Hi Kenmo

Which Mandriva do you have? I went to their site and downloaded the mandriva-linux-one-2009.1-GNOME-europe-americas-cdrom-i586.iso. It didn't have any option to install. It boots from the CD and runs from the CD. I play with it little bit and seem to like it. Now I want to try it in real environment.

Thanks

[rallynavvie]

I was talking to my folks again last night about their newly-installed Ubuntu system and they've liked it so far. It does their email, internet, and office work just fine and my dad said he never recalled that old PC ever being as responsive as it is right now. They've even used GIMP for some photo editing. I'm really glad they took to it so well, I was worried I'd be getting a lot of support calls afterward. I did get an email from my dad, the cynic, saying "Linux has a strange glow that worries me."

[edDV]

I was talking to my folks again last night about their newly-installed Ubuntu system and they've liked it so far. It does their email, internet, and office work just fine and my dad said he never recalled that old PC ever being as responsive as it is right now. They've even used GIMP for some photo editing. I'm really glad they took to it so well, I was worried I'd be getting a lot of support calls afterward. I did get an email from my dad, the cynic, saying "Linux has a strange glow that worries me."

As far as parental support, I was with you up until you said GIMP

Email and banking can be done from the browser so all are equal. You can boot into the browser.

Windows does better at centralizing user documents. Better even than Mac at that. Linux document/file management takes some learning curve.

MS Office is great if you've mastered it at work but is overkill for typical parents. OpenOffice may be too complicated as well. They need a simplified "OpenWriter" that handles word processing, photo insert and document publishing in a simplified way.

I think Mac wins for basic photo editing with included software although Win7 Live is catching up. GIMP is way too geek for average parents.

My dad wrote several novels and non-fiction books on his CP/M Kaypro. I never could get him interested in the world wide web. My mom got deep into the web and was basically browser centric for email and photo management. She didn't care whether she was on Windows or Linux, just so the machine booted into FireFox. I bought her a Mac but she rarely left the browser.

[disturbed1]

GIMP is way too geek for average parents.

Somehow I doubt rallynavvie's parents are average

Thought the same thing though. I know my in-laws would be completely frustrated with Gimp. They like Gwenview and Picasa.

OpenOffice may be too complicated as well

Abiword, Gnumeric, and/or Google Docs, offers more than what most people would ever need. Though if you need serious spreed sheet programing, there is no substitute for MS Office.

[rallynavvie]

Actually my parents (and grandparents even) are a bit of an enigma with computers. My parents have been public school teachers for over 25 years. They got an Apple IIe when they first came out and have been using computers ever since. Though they don't use them as much as I do they have their moments of genius, such as when my mom figured out how to import from their MiniDV camcorder and edit in Ulead software all the way to DVD output (with nice menus even!). I've taught them well about searching through help files and then the internet for walkthroughs and tips on the applications I set them up with.

Ubuntu has pretty good user-to-user support so I made the good assumption that they'd be able to find their way in it. I know most the rest of my friends and coworkers still have to deal with "family tech support" a lot