[nylug-talk] distro recommendations (cjk input and other concerns)

[Allen Shaw]

Hi,

I'm looking to move move my wife's computer from Windows to Linux and 
would like your recommendations.  Specifically, I'm concerned about:

1. CJK (Chinese/Japanese/Korean) input (not just reading): hopefully 
similar to -- and as simple as -- she's using now
2. Hardware:
    - Processor: AMD K6-2 / 500Mhz
    - RAM: 312 MB
    - HDD: 8 GB
3. Learning curve and maintenance:  My Linux experience is only on 
RedHat and its clones.  My wife will be doing Zero 
configuration/maintenance on this, so it's all on me.  I want to be able 
to set this up for her fairly quickly, and then have it run reliably 
forever after.

This machine will be used almost exclusively for Web surfing, and the 
rare viewing of PDFs and MS-Office documents.  I'm already expecting 
that with the given hardware I'll need a lightweight desktop like IceWM 
(which I use everyday on my RHEL desktop anyway).

I've read the Ubuntu and Gentoo make it fairly easy to setup CJK input.  
Can someone with more experience recommend either one of them -- or 
another distro -- for this particular situation?

Thanks,
Allen