[Usability] distro for novices?

[David Feldman <mailing-lists interfacethis com>]

In the course of writing some articles on security, I'm trying to  
recommend one or more Linux distros for novices, particularly Windows  
switchers. I've been doing a lot of testing on my own and have some  
ideas, but am interested in others' opinions. Except for specific  
distros that customize their KDE installs (such as Xandros), I'm  
favoring GNOME because I think it's a better option for novices.  
Distros that seem promising:

Xandros 2.5
SuSE 9.2 Pro (with GNOME)
Mandrake 10.1 (with GNOME)
Ubuntu Warty
Fedora Core 3

I particularly like those distros that allow resizing of an existing  
NTFS partition during the install process, i.e. Xandros, SuSE, and  
Mandrake. Xandros' inclusion of Crossover Office is also appealing, but  
I'm reluctant to suggest Xandros because I think Nautilus is an easier  
file browser to use than KDE's, and though Xandros has the advantage  
(for switchers) of being fairly Windows-like, so does FC3, and  
installing Crossover shouldn't be too hard via RPM.

Any thoughts?

--Dave

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--
David A. Feldman
User Interface Designer
http://InterfaceThis.com