YMMV, but MY Linux desktop stinks (Victor Odhner)

Victor,

We can help you work through your desktop problems on Redhat if you
want, but I usually try to steer people away from Redhat who are mainly
looking for a desktop system. I ran linuxfromscratch and now run gentoo
on my main computer because of the customizability, but wanted a more
standard distro on my laptop. Mandrake worked great. When it came time
to do an upgrade, I thought I should try Redhat because it was so
popular and I could better give assistance to newbies.

It was almost as much trouble to get everything to work as
linuxfromscratch was. For an easy to set up desktop system I highly
recommend Mandrake over Redhat. I would only recommend Redhat for a
server system or highly standardized deployment of enterprise desktops.
All distros are not created equal for every purpose. I've heard that
there are other good desktop distros, but haven't tried any of them
personally. I guess what I am suggesting is to try a few different
distributions until you find one that meets your needs best. Don't
assume that because one distro worked for someone else, it will work for
you.

Also, I highly recommend upgrading to OpenOffice 1.1 if you want better
word/rtf compatibility (and my favorite feature, the "save as pdf"
button). I've also been very pleased with Abiword, which runs much
faster than openoffice and has good word/rtf compatibility, but is
somewhat limited in features. My Mom uses Abiword for her work.

Whatever distro you choose, don't give up on getting the desktop to
work. Once things are set up, they are very pleasant to maintain and
use. My wife and I use our gentoo system heavily for desktop use,
including connecting digital still and video cameras, non-linear home
video editing, burning CDs and DVDs, email, web surfing, IM, all my
master's degree school work, etc.

--Karl