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"best' linux distro - fast, lightweight, easy to use, can be installed on hard drive easy?

I suppose there's no 'right' answer - share your thoughts and I'll give you points for your time.

Looking for a simple linux to have on a thumb drive / can install on some old PCs.

someone mentioned MakuluLinux Aero as a win 7 look alike, but when I (try to ) download it from several mirrors, I don't get the file.

I was trying cloudready - a chromebook knock off, but that didn't install successfully on 1 of 2 computers I tried it on. And when running from the USB stick or when installed on the other machine, it really just lets you browse via chrome.
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Russ Suter

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can I install unbuntu onto the internal hard drive so I don't need the USB?  

Install easily?

Like there's loads of various 'Linux' distros, are there different Ubuntu distros?

Do drives need to be mounted or they just show up like in windows?
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Mint http://www.linuxmint.com/ is another popular version.  Based on Ubuntu.
What problems did you have downloading Makulu? It definitely is the best Linux distro, and you should try again. It performs much faster than Ubuntu or Mint, and it's UI definitely beats beats Ubuntu 1000's of times, unity being the worst UI one could invent for Linux, definitely something no-one would ever have needed. It uses cinnamon as UI, the same thing Mint uses, but it is much more refined and faster:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/makulu/files/?source=navbar

In this Link you'll also see the XFCE 9 version, which is even faster, also looks very good and runs very well. But the guy who builds Makulu is planning to push out the XFCE 10 version at the end of this week, so it may be a good idea to wait.
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goal is to have a fast machine for browsing and maybe type a doc or 2.  Certainly a gui interface, looking / acting as close to win 7 as possible.
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thanks. Yeah, I've booted up puppy.  But even under puppy, there's different versions, right?  I tried slacko.

the initial startup / networking wizard, etc is just a first time setup thing, right?  Then it's simpler?
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no thanks. I can find those (although if you have them handy, feel free to post : )

I appreciate the info!!
Puppy has a huge Disadvantage though. You always run it as the root user, so you have zero security. An installed OS must always allow you to create user accounts that don't have root access, puppy doesn't give you that option. Puppy should therefore only be used from the LiveBoot media, and never be installed.
Indeed Like @rindi said Running as Root full time beats the security Model that was placed long time ago ,but it does not guarantee 100% Security tough  ,even without full time root access ,Sudoer's can Harm their Linux Core if they don't pay attention  or if they give Root access to some App that needed it ...

Like i said they are Multiple flavors of Puppy ,  all kind of versions ( all with pet names heh) , Its easy to spin your own Version of it

There is a specific Multi User(where you can create users) Version Of puppy if you need it , the regular Puppy distro has 3 Accounts ( one with root Puppy , Spot with less privileges , and one with very restricted privileges Fido).
It's linux.  You can add and configure users accounts.  They're all configurable.  The different distributions just come with different preferred tools and settings as defaults, but the underlying kernels and basic tools are the same.
The problem is that with Puppy it isn't that easy to create other accounts and have the system working normally under those new accounts. It needs linux knowledge which I doubt the asker has. The other distro's do that easily during installation and you don't need any previous knowledge of Linux to do that.
If you're going to use linux, especially one of the "lightweight" distros, you should learn linux on the command line.  They'll be missing some of the GUI tools to make life easier.  Creating accounts is not difficult.  You've always been able to directly edit /etc/{passwd,group,shadow} as root to create accounts.  That's not deep linux knowledge.  It should be one of the first things you learn about linux accounts.

Even using the useradd and groupadd commands becomes a crutch.  It just made it "safer" and easier in case someone messed up the files, but hides the details of everything's that's been done to the files from the user.  If you're not really willing to learn the details, then you shouldn't be playing with linux on old systems.  Linux systems needs someone knowledgeable to manage or they'll be more vulnerable to attacks than Windows.
Thanks guys!  I enjoy seeing the enthusiasm for anything non-MS : )

For me, I'm just looking to eke some use out of older cheaper machine that would crawl with anything MS.

So for me it'd be things like  booting a machine with a damaged MS OS just to get files off the machine, as a streaming radio appliance or to be able to take a cheap laptop on the road to surf. if it breaks or gets stolen, it won't be a big deal.  

so  the concerns you raise don't apply to my situation.  But again, it's interesting to see the enthusiasm / somewhat reasurring that there isn't a clearly magic pill to simplify / get away from MS OS (as much as I'd like that : )