linux o/s

is there anyone who has or is using linux? i hear lots of good things and not too much bad. i can always re-boot my window o/s if i'm not satisfied, but should i even give it a try.

I wish more people would use linux. I'd do it, but I'm old and like my shit to just work.

I've been using linux for about 10 years.

You're best bet, to have a solid experience, is to use Ubuntu. It's the most user (read: n00b) friendly distro there is IMHO. Try to leave all ideas you have in your head of how an operating system should work and you'll love it.

http://www.ubuntu.com/

A very easy way to get a rough feel for it, to see if it's something that really interests you, is to grab one that runs entirely off of a CD. Just pop the disc in, set BIOS to boot off your optical drive first, and bam, you're running Linux. When you get bored, shut down, remove the CD, and there's your Windows, entirely untouched. Knoppix is the last one I played with.

thanx...that definitely narrows down the selection.

brandon. said:

I've been using linux for about 10 years.

You're best bet, to have a solid experience, is to use Ubuntu. It's the most user (read: n00b) friendly distro there is IMHO. Try to leave all ideas you have in your head of how an operating system should work and you'll love it.

http://www.ubuntu.com/[/QUOTE

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will have to give this option a try

d.s.m. said:

A very easy way to get a rough feel for it, to see if it's something that really interests you, is to grab one that runs entirely off of a CD. Just pop the disc in, set BIOS to boot off your optical drive first, and bam, you're running Linux. When you get bored, shut down, remove the CD, and there's your Windows, entirely untouched. Knoppix is the last one I played with.

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six8 said:

will have to give this option a try

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Definitely. d.s.m is right, a live cd makes trying out the os so trivial. All ubuntu discs give the option to load the live cd instead of install.

Heres the link http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/get-ubuntu/download


note: live cd won't run nearly as good as if you installed it. The slow speed of optical drives hinders it from running full speed and the operating system is loaded into memory so don't let the speed deter you from installing it if you like it.

Been running Linux for years...cannot remember the first year, but I do remember the distro - Slackware 1.2. Linux has come a long way since then.

Ubuntu is common and there is a good sized community to offer support. SuSE is another good distro that has a large user base. As long as you are willing to take the time to learn, you will do fine. For the most part anymore, it is point and click for most "jobs".

Always have a copy of some linux distro installed on a machine somewhere. Always need windows installed though as gaming is a strong requirement. There is also a bunch of rather vital software which just plain can't work on linux regardless of tricks and methods so again i need a copy of windows for using these applications on a daily basis.

klmmicro said:

Been running Linux for years...cannot remember the first year, but I do remember the distro - Slackware 1.2. Linux has come a long way since then.

Ubuntu is common and there is a good sized community to offer support. SuSE is another good distro that has a large user base. As long as you are willing to take the time to learn, you will do fine. For the most part anymore, it is point and click for most "jobs".

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Slackware was my goto OS up until version 10.X.X. That's around the time I started using debian based (namely ubuntu) distros.

tip top toker said:

Always have a copy of some linux distro installed on a machine somewhere. Always need windows installed though as gaming is a strong requirement. There is also a bunch of rather vital software which just plain can't work on linux regardless of tricks and methods so again i need a copy of windows for using these applications on a daily basis.

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I hear you on the gaming. At least that list is getting smaller!

klmmicro said:

I hear you on the gaming. At least that list is getting smaller!

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Yeah, i recall when i started out on linux having to buy wireless cards with specific modules and firmware etc, nowadays it seems i can plug literaelly anything in and it actually works. It even mounts all my windows harddrives as default which is a much needed change from me accidentally more often than not destroying the contents of the drive in attempt at mounting it sudo apt-get just rocks

Yeppers. It has grown up a lot. It was all command line and there was no such a thing as wireless when I first started messing with it. The same thing applied to network cards back then too. Had to figure out the module you needed, then build a kernel that included the module...NOTHING was automated. Seems the past 5 years has gotten quite a few good coders into the game and the distros figured out that if it is not automatic, most people will never even consider Linux as a toy.

Crap. Now I'm sitting here thinking that I need to set up a Linux box. See what you guys did?

d.s.m. said:

Crap. Now I'm sitting here thinking that I need to set up a Linux box. See what you guys did?

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You seriously should. Try out ubuntu, I think you'll like it.

I used to use linux, but in the end I got OSX working on my PC and prefer it dramatically to linux or windows...

poplars said:

I used to use linux, but in the end I got OSX working on my PC and prefer it dramatically to linux or windows...

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I had a go with OSX on one of my compatible boxes for a few months and just really couldn't get to grips with it easily, wasn't a huge fan. But well, after 10 years using windows it's probably to be expected.

i'm just looking for something new to exercise my brain with. if i don't like it, then oh well.

tip top toker said:

I had a go with OSX on one of my compatible boxes for a few months and just really couldn't get to grips with it easily, wasn't a huge fan. But well, after 10 years using windows it's probably to be expected.

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yeah for sure, it is different but I love it way more. hte modern methods of getting it running on PC are very stable...

Im still useing REDHAT on one machine and SUSE on my main computer......I have a windows laptop just to run a few things and keep up how crappy it is. PS in my SUSE box I havent rebooted in 6 months