All the GUIs I've come across in Linux distros thus far are unintuitive and inflexible. Is there a good GUI I can jack into an existing installation, or settings I can modify, that will function more like Windows' (without the intermittent deaths, of course)? I've tried DSL, Mandrake and Red Hat, among others, and their interfaces are all too finicky. IMKO, Microsoft actually got something halfway right with the XP GUI. Its default settings suck, but with a bit of tweaking it's comfortable. In addition to that, I'm trying to introduce newbies to alternative free OSes, and it's alot easier to do that if I have something that doesn't isolate them from their existing knowledge of Windows and other Win users and courses. Any ideas? Thankye muchly.

Have you looked at xpde? Perhaps Xandros or Lindows/Linspire would be a better choice of distro for you. http://www.xpde.com/ http://www.xandros.com/ http://www.linspire.com/

I'm trying with Ubunto, it uses GNOME as desktop, pretty nice and simple, you'll like it. "How do I?"

With Ubuntu that uses gnome for the gui you can configure the desktop a lot more than any Windows machine I've ever seen. Very flexible. I second caliche's suggestion. If you download it on a dvd it will run live so you can see if you like if before you install it. Or they will even send you install disks for free.

I've downloaded Xpde, but I don't have a fully functioning Linux distro to try it on yet. Looks good from what I've seen, though. I tried a live Ubuntu I found on a magazine coverdisc the other day, and it seems fairly classy. It was awesome to find they were offering completely free install discs, so I ordered a bunch of those and shall be using it ASAP. Is it possible to strip Ubuntu down enough to get it to run on something like a 133MHz, with under 100Mb HDD usage? It looks like something I could use for my primary computer quite happily, but I'm also after something that'll work well on older machines. Thanks for the help, y'all.

You could strip down ubuntu....but if you are going to do that you might as well build up a debain install (on which ubuntu is based). Steer clear of both gnome and kde and go for a light-weight window manager like xfce.

The GUI is not the problem. KDE operates no differently than what you find on XP, and actually offers more tailoring for the user. Check its control center.