linux isnt so bad after all.

[rcgamer]

ive given a few half hearted attempts at using linux before. and never really cared for it as i was simply to lazy to get it all set up right. using mandrake once before , as soon as i started it up i was like "i have no idea what this is" and formatted it after about 2 days.

this time i decided i would give it an honest effort. i installed suse 10. at first i thought it would be another big hassle. my 3d graphics accelration didnt work, sound card driver was buggy , didnt think there would be any games for it etc.

but once i took the time to find the answers and fix my 3d acceleration and sound and to learn some of the commands to do most of the necessary tasks it seems to be pretty great. i havent even used my windows xp for a couple of days now. plus it doesnt seem nearly as complex as it was before. there are graphical interfaces for most of the apps now, and installing things is pretty easy once you get used to it. theres even a way to run several windows games on it now with wine and its derivatives. i actually played worfenstien enemy territory for the first time ever since i was looking to find some games there was a linux build for free. and there are many emulators for it including hacs great mupen 0.5.

all in all , for free , this is a great OS if you dont mind putting in the effort to set it up. after that you wont really miss windows. i think ill stick with it now.

dont know why i posted this. just felt like saying it. its kind of cool that you can have a complete OS with more software than you will ever need included all for free.:bouncy: :bouncy:

[ScottJC]

Students get free windows xp and i'm a student, yay! :P - besides that there are "other" means of free os... *evil laugh*: Yes I Mean get someone else to buy it for you and never pay them back? what? don't look at me as if i'm crazy...

I hate linux, i've had similar experiences to you but even when I gave it a couple hours of serious effort I found it to be tedious, annoying and above all: Useless for my needs. I mean whats the point of this OS? sure its free but free isn't always better. I'd love for just one person to name one thing Linux can do thay Windows cannot (windows does it with less effort and less tediousness so it wins.)

[Fabricio_EX]

I installed Linux on my computer once, since I study computer engineering; for someone who's developing applications it's a great os and it's open source, so you can let it the way you want, not to mention it's a lot safer than windows when you're on the net and there's a lot of windows rubbish that can be avoided. But I didn't want to continue using it, maybe the version I installed wasn't that good after all... I don't know. Also, my brothers and sisters like to use windows and there's nothing I can do to change their mind :p. Besides, I don't want to install it anymore, at least until I have my own computer.

[WhiteX]

The main reason it is safer, don´t come with all that better programming crap, it is because it is the "hacker´s elite" system and they hate M$ guts, so they release more virus and study more of Windows exploits than Linux´s

[Sola Kusanagi]

i installed Gentoo Linux and Korora Linux on this computer Muti-Os on this HDD

didit have a prob with geting hardware working

the best way to get things working is to load ever kernal when your booking the liveCD thats what i did

[CF2]

I've been using Linux for a couple years now, and I really like it. It isn't yet ready to be used by everybody, but the level of customization, security, and performance is so much better than Windows (at least on my system). I am currently using version 6.06 Beta (recently switched from Gentoo) of Ubuntu Linux (http://www.ubuntu.com/) and it is actually very user friendly. Lookout for the final release in June (although the beta is already very stable). Another great thing about Linux is that you learn a whole lot about how software works by using it, especially if you are using a distribution like Gentoo or Slackware.

@ScottJC: try virtual desktops. They can really reduce workspace and taskbar clog. The default Linux desktop gives you four virtual desktops, each of which has it's own taskbar. Instead of having all your windows on one desktop, you can spread them out over four and easily switch between them. And you don't have to wait for Vista for cool 3D desktop features. (http://www.novell.com/linux/xglrelease/)

[Fabricio_EX]

White X: Yeah... Now that I thought about it, I'm still using windows so... Let's just forget about this.

Hah, and about the hackers, I remebered of a guy who was trying to be a "hacker" and created a virus that infected his own computer... Talk about stupidity!

[ScottJC]

Virtual Desktops can be achieved through third party software CF2, i've never really liked Linux because I know that basically it works like windows 95... the GUI sits ontop of a command prompt. Windows 2000/XP and onward does not.

Linux is a heavily command line OS and to be quite frank, DOS's command line is much easier than Linux's as well... I'd rather use dos than linux any day. There is absolutely no reason why any OS should be as tedious as Linux... its only secure because Windows owns the market and hackers have no interest in fighting Linux because they know that it wouldn't have the same impact.

Windows is getting more secure all the time, Server 2003 is a pretty darn fine OS, very secure... in any case just because you don't use or do use windows is nothing to be proud of, everyone has to make choices. All you need to make windows secure is a router and firefox. i've almost never got spyware and I can't remember a time where i've had a virus. routers protect linux as well though so i'd advise you linux dudes to get one.

[CF2]

Virtual Desktops can be achieved through third party software CF2, i've never really liked Linux because I know that basically it works like windows 95... the GUI sits ontop of a command prompt. Windows 2000/XP and onward does not.
Yes, virtual desktops can be achieved in Windows via add-on software (I actually use MS's powertoy) but it is a tedious process, something you condemn Linux for in your first post. Linux enables them by default. I have also found that every virtual desktop tool for XP lacks the simple intuitiveness of the many Linux counterparts. There is no simple graphical pager availible and I can't use the mousewheel to switch between them. If you could direct me to a tool that did this, I would be very happy as it would make Windows a lot more usable for me.

And yes, the GUI does sit on top of the command prompt in Linux, but so what? There are no negative performance implications. I actually find the command prompt to be a powerful tool and wish that they made a more usable one available in XP for all the times I have to restore the registry manually on somebodies computer. In a modern Linux distribution, the user doesn't even know the command prompt is there and everything is handled by the GUI.

I agree with you about routers (I assume you are refering to NAT). My home network functions this way and I have never had a hacker problem, plus I can host web pages on the router. Windows Server 2003 is a lot better securitywise than its predecessors, but it still has a way to go. IIS doesn't stand up very well to Apache very well, even in marketshare.

Anyway, you seem to be judging Linux from some experiences you had some time ago. The Linux desktop has really made a lot of improvements since then. If you have some time, you should try out a modern distribution like Ubuntu (get the 6.06 beta version, it is stable enough and has made a lot of user friendlyness improvements). I gurantee a lot has changed, and I would be interested to hear your thoughts on it.

[Sola Kusanagi]

Korora has the XGL Virtual Desktops but the only prob with it is thats its not all that stable yet

where can i dl and install a safe and clean Virtual Desktops addon for WinXP

since im still a linux n00b i keep window to (^^)

[smcd]

Korora has the XGL Virtual Desktops but the only prob with it is thats its not all that stable yet

where can i dl and install a safe and clean Virtual Desktops addon for WinXP

since im still a linux n00b i keep window to (^^)

The one I like most is http://virtuawin.sourceforge.net/ and Microsoft has a "power toy" for XP... http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx

The most useful powertoys on there, in my opinion, are the calculator, alt+tab replacement, and if you have an LCD, the cleartype tuner. Tweak UI isn't bad either.

[Toasty]

I guess I see kind of things in the middle of the hate/love Linux spectrum. I like the concept of Linux a lot - free, open-source, secure, not backed by M$. But at the same time, I prefer to use Windows for the time being. I've tried my share of Linux distros, and can see that progress has been made over the years in terms of user-friendliness, but I think it still has a lot of room for improvement before a Windows user can migrate to Linux without having to break a sweat. Despite many new GUI tools, the command-line is still an everyday part of the Linux experience (at least it has been for me). Dependency hell can easily take a Linux newcomer hours or even days to resolve. With patience and determination, these problems can be fixed, but most people who've had a stressful day at work and just want to play a game don't have a whole lot of patience. Don't get me wrong - Linux is a great O.S., but it needs to get some of these issues ironed out before an average computer user is willing to use it. Right now ReactOS (not a Linux distro, but an open-source Windows clone) looks promising to me, though they're still frozen in a code audit.

[Sola Kusanagi]

cant really Hate linux unless you try it thats what i tell ppl it verys on Distro

i love the whole XGL thing

i hope in the next release of Gentoo thay will have XGL

also Kororaa needs to fix alot of things b4 alot of Linux users come to se it

[BoggyB]

Linux and I haven't got on too well over the years *glares at old IBM Aptiva running Slackware 10.1*. Things like XWindows deciding to run at 320x240 (with a 640x480 virtual screen), or the installer for Slackware blowing up in my face less than 5 seconds after starting (along with a Knoppix LiveCD doing the same). When I encountered the first problem many years ago, I gave up. With the second one, I poked around and discovered that some utter moron had broken the Sil5513 IDE driver somewhere in the 2.4 series, in such a way that meant I either had working CD drive or working Linux install. Given that I was installing from CD, this made things interesting, and IIRC I resorted to abusing wget, nc and tar to transfer the files over from another computer.

Nowadays it works as well as any of my machines, although I only ever drive it through a SSH connection. The 2.6 kernel magically fixed the IDE driver (but they took the network driver I was using out of the stock config). I'd probably never use Linux as my main system, however a friend of mine does (the poor fool). His system generally runs rather well, except for when he manages to destroy the audio subsystem in some amusing way.


The main reason it is safer, don´t come with all that better programming crap, it is because it is the "hacker´s elite" system and they hate M$ guts, so they release more virus and study more of Windows exploits than Linux´s
Linux has its fair share of viruses, and Linux systems do get actively exploited (usually more thoroughly than Windows).

[CF2]

Korora has the XGL Virtual Desktops but the only prob with it is thats its not all that stable yet

where can i dl and install a safe and clean Virtual Desktops addon for WinXP

since im still a linux n00b i keep window to (^^)
I use Microsoft Virtual Desktop Manager (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx) but there are others available (just google Windows virtual desktops). I have yet to find a better option though.

[Sola Kusanagi]

Linux and I haven't got on too well over the years *glares at old IBM Aptiva running Slackware 10.1*. Things like XWindows deciding to run at 320x240 (with a 640x480 virtual screen), or the installer for Slackware blowing up in my face less than 5 seconds after starting (along with a Knoppix LiveCD doing the same). When I encountered the first problem many years ago, I gave up. With the second one, I poked around and discovered that some utter moron had broken the Sil5513 IDE driver somewhere in the 2.4 series, in such a way that meant I either had working CD drive or working Linux install. Given that I was installing from CD, this made things interesting, and IIRC I resorted to abusing wget, nc and tar to transfer the files over from another computer.

Nowadays it works as well as any of my machines, although I only ever drive it through a SSH connection. The 2.6 kernel magically fixed the IDE driver (but they took the network driver I was using out of the stock config). I'd probably never use Linux as my main system, however a friend of mine does (the poor fool). His system generally runs rather well, except for when he manages to destroy the audio subsystem in some amusing way.


Linux has its fair share of viruses, and Linux systems do get actively exploited (usually more thoroughly than Windows).

well everyones first Exp installing Linux is always or not always bed hell my frist round installing Gentoo i fucked up on my Partitions so i learned from my mistakes
reinstalled WinXP, then installed Gentoo, then Kororaa

I use Microsoft Virtual Desktop Manager (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx) but there are others available (just google Windows virtual desktops). I have yet to find a better option though.

i see if WinXP had a Virtual Desktop Manger like XGL or i would like to call it "Cube Action" il be happy

[Quvack]

A lot of my original problem with Linux was simply that I was expecting it to behave the same as Windows, once I realised it's totally different I was kinda able to overlook the differences and just learn how to deal with them. The latest releases of SUSE/Ubuntu I've tried are leaps and bounds above the older distros that I'd tried, its getting more n00b friendly by the day.


Right now ReactOS (not a Linux distro, but an open-source Windows clone) looks promising to me, though they're still frozen in a code audit.

ReactOS is an amazing little project, I've been following it for ages now and it's improved so much over the last year or so. It's still a way off being usable as a every day type OS but watching it progress is kinda fun :)

The code audit did slow things down but now they've changed from frozen to still developing + having the unaudited bits 'locked' until they are checked and proven to be clean. They branched the 0.3.0 release yesterday which is a nice step for them, it's been a long time coming.

I realise this rant is probably a little OT but its sort of related =P at least the topic was bought up hehe

[Clements]

I see no reason for me to switch to Linux. Windows serves my needs perfectly. I could not sacrifice any gaming or emulator compatibility since that is the primary purpose of my PC.

[CF2]

I see no reason for me to switch to Linux. Windows serves my needs perfectly. I could not sacrifice any gaming or emulator compatibility since that is the primary purpose of my PC.
Yeah, gaming on Linux in next to nonexistant with very few titles being ported, forcing me to boot into Windows for my Counter-Strike: Source fix. Wine and Cedega (Windows emulators) are just too dodgy to be acceptable to me. Fortunately Epic and id take care of us, and emulation is doing pretty well with ZSNES, VBA, and mupen64.

[Sola Kusanagi]

A lot of my original problem with Linux was simply that I was expecting it to behave the same as Windows, once I realised it's totally different I was kinda able to overlook the differences and just learn how to deal with them. The latest releases of SUSE/Ubuntu I've tried are leaps and bounds above the older distros that I'd tried, its getting more n00b friendly by the day.

i didit like Ubuntu cuz its to ez so my friend distro was Gentoo



Yeah, gaming on Linux in next to nonexistant with very few titles being ported, forcing me to boot into Windows for my Counter-Strike: Source fix. Wine and Cedega (Windows emulators) are just too dodgy to be acceptable to me. Fortunately Epic and id take care of us, and emulation is doing pretty well with ZSNES, VBA, and mupen64.

wine and Cedega never givein me prob

but if there was a Distro that lets users open Window base programs and installers without useing the Windows Emulator Wine or Cedega linux will be even more user friendly

[zAlbee]

@Scott: command line is the best part of linux. and DOS is boring, once you get used to unix commands, you'll never want to go back =D. i had to download a library of compiled unix utilities for Windows, because I kept typing LS out of habit instead of DIR

[BoggyB]

@Scott: command line is the best part of linux. and DOS is boring, once you get used to unix commands, you'll never want to go back =D. i had to download a library of compiled unix utilities for Windows, because I kept typing LS out of habit instead of DIR
Rather than download ls for windows, I set up a few doskey macros instead:

C:\>doskey /macros
lcd=CD $* $T DIR
exp=explorer .
now=ECHO %TIME% %DATE%
pot=PUSHD "%TEMP%\$*"
got=CD /D "%TEMP%\$*"
poh=PUSHD "%HOME%\$*"
goh=CD /D "%HOME%\$*"
mcd=MD "$*" $T CD /D "$*"
wordpad=write $*
quit=EXIT
bye=EXIT
ls=DIR $*

C:\>
This is loaded from a script that runs whenever a command prompt (cmd.exe) is started, and sets up a few other things as well. It has confused a friend of mine who typed "ls -lh" and then wondered why it didn't quite do what he was expecting.

I did download bzip2, tar and wget however. wget works very nicely for downloading stuff, and bzip2 and tar get abused with netcat for file transfers.

BTW, doskey is integrated into cmd.exe under NT, 2k, XP and 2k3 so there's no overhead to using it.

[rcgamer]

i wasnt trying to say that linux is better than windows.

i was just meaning that for someone who doesnt care a whole lot about playing pc games and who wants a good , reliable and best of all legally free OS its really nice.

BTW, i switched to fedora core 5 and so far it is even better than suse. no problems installing drivers now with yum and some configured repositories (wich took only about 2 minutes. ) . adding new programs and drivers is a snap with it. of the ones ive tried so far, fedora core 5 is now in the drivers seat wich is saying something as both suse and mandriva were pretty good to. might try some others later.

[Blacklord]

Linux is a good OS. It is safe and i like it. People which find Windows's click-on interface should not try it. Other thing people with connexant integrated modems should shoot themselves than install a Ubuntu.

[smcd]

conexant modems will work in linux... get linuxant drivers, though if you're still using dialup then you've got other problems to worry with :P http://www.linuxant.com/drivers/ seems it is no longer completely free, but there is a crippled version available freely still

[Blacklord]

They may work but i clearly remember having evil thoughts of destoying my laptop when it didn't work. (actully not mine). Them piece of shit drivers wouldn't compile and said that some shit was in use. I neded a exterior modem.

[arnalion]

Students get free windows xp and i'm a student, yay! :P - besides that there are "other" means of free os... *evil laugh*: Yes I Mean get someone else to buy it for you and never pay them back? what? don't look at me as if i'm crazy...

I hate linux, i've had similar experiences to you but even when I gave it a couple hours of serious effort I found it to be tedious, annoying and above all: Useless for my needs. I mean whats the point of this OS? sure its free but free isn't always better. I'd love for just one person to name one thing Linux can do thay Windows cannot (windows does it with less effort and less tediousness so it wins.)

The system is better than Windows in everything except gaming. The system is stable and not as hardware demanding. You can use WINE to run windows applications in Linux. I saw a test between WINE and Windows, they ran diffrent applications to test the performance. WINE did better than Windows itself on more than 50% of the applications, Windows is so effective :rolleyes:.

[arnalion]

The system is better than Windows in everything except gaming. The system is stable and not as hardware demanding. You can use WINE to run windows applications in Linux. I saw a test between WINE and Windows, they ran diffrent applications to test the performance. WINE did better than Windows itself on more than 50% of the applications, Windows is so effective :rolleyes:.


Yeah, gaming on Linux in next to nonexistant with very few titles being ported, forcing me to boot into Windows for my Counter-Strike: Source fix. Wine and Cedega (Windows emulators) are just too dodgy to be acceptable to me. Fortunately Epic and id take care of us, and emulation is doing pretty well with ZSNES, VBA, and mupen64.

Wine is actually not an emulator...

[ScottJC]

The system is better than Windows in everything except gaming. The system is stable and not as hardware demanding. You can use WINE to run windows applications in Linux. I saw a test between WINE and Windows, they ran diffrent applications to test the performance. WINE did better than Windows itself on more than 50% of the applications, Windows is so effective :rolleyes:.
Rubbish. My system hasn't crashed in years - XP is remarkably stable, it isn't hardware demanding either, i've seen PCs way worse than mine cope effectively with XP...

From my personal experience with Mandrake (Mandriva now) Linux took about twice as long to boot or shut down. I was able to break XWindows whatever its called twice by checking some boxes and was left with command line... yeah its a great OS if you can break it that easily. I've installed Linux about six times and had a play around with it...

Couldn't get a lot of hardware like the video card to work and had to do a lot of tedious compiling... needless to say that got old fast. I'd rather use an OS that doesn't rely on me having to constantly type commands personally and that is why the general population will not use it as well. Just because something is free doesn't mean it is better and everyone has different experiences with Linux - I hated it the moment I clapped my eyes on it quite frankly.

[arnalion]

Rubbish. My system hasn't crashed in years - XP is remarkably stable, it isn't hardware demanding either, i've seen PCs way worse than mine cope effectively with XP...

From my personal experience with Mandrake (Mandriva now) Linux took about twice as long to boot or shut down. I was able to break XWindows whatever its called twice by checking some boxes and was left with command line... yeah its a great OS if you can break it that easily. I've installed Linux about six times and had a play around with it...

Couldn't get a lot of hardware like the video card to work and had to do a lot of tedious compiling... needless to say that got old fast. I'd rather use an OS that doesn't rely on me having to constantly type commands personally and that is why the general population will not use it as well. Just because something is free doesn't mean it is better and everyone has different experiences with Linux - I hated it the moment I clapped my eyes on it quite frankly.

:doh:

[ScottJC]

On the other hand, Windows is easy to make slow - you go mad installing and before you know it you have a bunch of crap in your system tray - but thats easily remedyed with msconfig. If you really find XP slow then either somethings wrong with your computer or you just need to do some cleaning and tweaking.

[arnalion]

*sigh*

[ScottJC]

*sigh*
Look, either provide a counter-argument or quit wasting everyones time with useless emoticons and sighing. Say nothing at all if thats all you're going to do. *sigh* interprets to me as you don't have anything to say to disprove me.

[arnalion]

Well get the facts! Windows XP is unstable, hardware demanding, got slow networking and is after its time. I'm not a common user and i don't let shitty applications slow down my computer. The main thing that slows windows down is the registry which is the dumbest thing ever invented. Only because you apparently not have worked Linux out doesn't it mean that others haven't done it.

Rule nr.1 - Keeping a Windows OS safe: Avoid Microsoft applications.
Rule nr.2 - Be able to use a Windows OS: Get Registry Mechanic and Ad-Aware.

[Clements]

CCleaner is a nice free app for cleaning out the registry among other things. It surprising how many things get left behind in there even after you uninstall the programs.

It is fairly annoying when emulators use the registry instead of ini files, makes it a pain to transfer settings across my computers.

[smcd]

CCleaner is a nice free app for cleaning out the registry among other things. It surprising how many things get left behind in there even after you uninstall the programs.

It is fairly annoying when emulators use the registry instead of ini files, makes it a pain to transfer settings across my computers.

Exactly! Where MS/Windows went wrong was encouraging/requiring the (over) use of the registry. Management and developers were like "Hmm, wherever to store this very small handful of settings... I know, the registry!" - some programs, like MFC appwizard generated ones, will make a registry key "just because" even if you never use the registry directly in your program.:(

[ScottJC]

Well get the facts! Windows XP is unstable, hardware demanding, got slow networking and is after its time. I'm not a common user and i don't let shitty applications slow down my computer. The main thing that slows windows down is the registry which is the dumbest thing ever invented. Only because you apparently not have worked Linux out doesn't it mean that others haven't done it.
Facts? you're seriously suggesting your PC which is ten times that of the recommended spec has trouble running XP? get real. My networking isn't slow either. The main thing that slows down XP is third party applications that run on startup... on the last point i'll admit but you're talking as big amount of shit about Windows as I am about Linux.

[revl8er]

I tried Redhat a few years back. I didnt see too many problems with it, but I would rather use Windows right now due to the fact that I use my pc primarily for gaming.

[BoggyB]

Personally I rather like the idea of the registry. It's a lot easier than playing "find the config file" and at least the format is standard. With one program I installed recently, there were at least 6 different config files, of which one looked like an INI file (but wasn't) and the other I had to edit followed the format of the hosts file (but with differences). Not to mention the second one had support for comments, but then decided to put significant data in comments so they're not really comments.

The registry's also a lot faster to do random-access lookups, whereas with an INI file each call to GetPrivateProfileString results in the file being opened, a linear search for the section, a linear search for the key, and then the file being closed.

As far as transferring settings go, it's still possible with the registry. If you know what you want in advance then just export the relevant key and re-import afterwards. Or just save a copy of "C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\ntuser.dat" (assuming WinNT/2k/XP/2k3), and then use regedt32 to load that hive. That does assume the programmer did the right thing and used HKEY_CURRENT_USER.

[arnalion]

Facts? you're seriously suggesting your PC which is ten times that of the recommended spec has trouble running XP? get real. My networking isn't slow either. The main thing that slows down XP is third party applications that run on startup... on the last point i'll admit but you're talking as big amount of shit about Windows as I am about Linux.

I don't say that my PC got troubles running XP, my point was that Linux is faster than Win XP. You can send data faster on a local DC hub (in win) than XP's built in network. Linux with Samba network can send data faster to a XP system than two XP systems can do to each other. My opinion is that Linux network is superior the XP's ones.

[Flash]

Yeah, gaming on Linux in next to nonexistant with very few titles being ported, forcing me to boot into Windows for my Counter-Strike: Source fix. Wine and Cedega (Windows emulators) are just too dodgy to be acceptable to me.
Wine and Cedega is great stuff - for example Kega Fusion (Genesis emulator) runs faster with
Cedega. I've played StarWars: KOTOR, UT (i'm just lazy to install native version, i have UT:GOTY installed on windows partition, why not to use it runs at ~190fps and native version at ~120), NWN (native linux version lacks movies), Baldur's Gate 2, HL1-2, CS1.6-CS:S and lots of other games. Latest version of Wine even runs Guilty Gear XX #Reload and GG Isuka (i have PS2 versions but still play it on PC sometimes)

[Slougi]

I think most people who have trouble with GNU/Linux distributions just expect it to be like Windows. Like ScottJC said


On the other hand, Windows is easy to make slow - you go mad installing and before you know it you have a bunch of crap in your system tray - but thats easily remedyed with msconfig.

So using msconfig is simple? Is it easily discoverable? Would someone who has never used Windows before know where to find it, how to use it, and when to use it?

Not to talk about spyware, viruses etc...


If you really find XP slow then either somethings wrong with your computer or you just need to do some cleaning and tweaking.

Right, that applies to Linux too. The rules are different, the methods are different, but essentially you need to make some adjustments to any OS before you can be really productive using it.

On Windows, you need to install:

All your software
Drivers individually for all your HW.
Windows Updates
Video codecs
etc.

Very little of that is automated. You have to reboot after many of these steps. Installing updates to the OS itself is tedious at best, as many updates must be installed one at a time. You have to intricately know exactly what HW you have, and exactly where to find updated drivers.

How is that simple and straight-forward?

Compared to that, I'll take a Linux distro any day. One click upgrades for the *whole* OS, including all the software. Easy software install, minimal amount of reboots. Drivers that come with the OS. A lot less hassle from my POV.

And if you had to compile lots of things, look for another distro. Personally I can recommend Kubuntu. You can order a free CD here (http://shipit.kubuntu.org).

Note that delivery will take a while, as the next Kubuntu release is scheduled for a June release. In the meantime, you can download the current version and try it out. I recommend trying the LiveCD first, so if you absolutely abhore it the only thing you lose is some time and a CD-R...

[rico001]

Linux and I haven't got on too well over the years *glares at old IBM Aptiva running Slackware 10.1*.

Play with Linux

Run DamnSmallLinux iso under Windows using a computer Emulator.

1. Download and install a pc emulator for Windows qemu using the default installation options: http://www.oszoo.org/ftp/qemu/win32/daily/QemuInstall-20051127.exe

2. Download the latest DSL iso image: http://dsl.thegeekery.com/current/dsl-3.0.1.iso


Rename it as DSL.iso and Put it in the directory with qemu.exe (C:\Program Files\Qemu)

3. Create a DSL.txt file in the qemu directory.
Add the Line "qemu.exe -L .\bios -cdrom dsl.iso" (without quotes).
Close the file and rename it as DSL.bat .

4. Double-Click the DSL batch file to run it. Close out other Windows programs for better performance.

5. To exit press 'Ctrl+Alt' then click the 'X' in the upper right hand corner when the windows is highlighted.

[t0rek]

I used Slackware 9, and SUSE 9 as well. They both are great. I don't use Linux anymore because my ISDN modems doesn't have good support on Linux, so I never managed to get connected to Internet (windows drivers of that modem are buggy as well but work).
I feel Linux more stable, and safe to use, however you have to put more effort in order to customize it. I'll probably use Linux again when I get an ADSL connection at home, probably soon...