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Maybe it's time for a switch. Gonna download Ubuntu to load on an old system to give it a try.

Just out of curiosity. How many people here use Linux?
 
About a month ago, I installed (long story short) ubuntu and so far I like it. It's a bit of a challenge moving from the Microsoft mindset, but with perseverence I have it running nicely with XGL/Compiz (3D desktop effect), mame (runs alot better than Windows counterpart) and even Doom 3 fps locked to 63. So far the hardest part was getting ATI drivers installed. I also installed wine, which alllows you to install and run windows apps, and got Warcraft 3 running.

The only thing about Linux is, it does take alot of time treading through forums, just to find out about simple tasks. Also you'll need a decent internet connection to download all the updates. I've been doing this using GPRS which has been a bit of a nightmare and is going to cost me an arm and a leg.

Note: I did have some issues installing ubuntu, but it turned out to be a simple fix:

If you have SATA and IDE hard drives, you need to ensure your IDE HDD is the first boot drive, or it will boot right back into Windows XP (if you're dual booting). You can set this in the BIOS.
 
There is no doubting Linux (uBuntu) give one a serious 'bang for the buck' computing environment, however when stacked up against Vista RC1 + Office 2007 B2TR it looks very antiquated from a features & presentation point of view.

We could all drive to work effectively in a Tata, but if you can afford it most would prefer a BMW.
 
Been running Linux (mainly Slackware) at home since 1997. Currently using Gentoo.
 
Using Ubuntu here - got rid of the Windows install completly last week :D - works near perfectaly, having less problems here than I did with Windows...
 
I'm also using SuSE Linux.

For those of you concerned about your children's safety, or those who does not want to view pr0n sites, there is also an Ubuntu Christian Edition.

This edition uses the highly-efficient Dansguardian content filter to filter out sites with pr0n, hate speech and the such, which you will deem as unsuitable to your children.

I also played around with Dapper Drake, and found it faster than the previous release.

Also I tinkered with Linux 10 years ago - when it was a mission to install.

And, yes, used Knoppix for data rescue to get critical data off a dying Windoze hard drive :D
 
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Running Centos 4.4 (Redhat clone) as a firewall for the rest of my home network, which runs on M$ Windows (mostly for the wife and kids). Mail server, HTTP Proxy, FTP, VPN and intrusion detection all running on the oldest box in the house, with hardly ever a reboot required! It can do things you cannot dream of in Windows. However, NOT advisable for someone with limited computer skills.
 
Ubuntu 6.06 is the shizz. I'm trying Suse 10.1 for a while, but suspect I'll be going back to Ubuntu soon.
 
I've used linux for work and at home for quite a while, gentoo was my prefered distribution, but since I got my MacBook Pro I have realized how far desktop linux still has to go.

No doubt it has improved greatly but its still not there yet. Its no longer big, glaring things that are standing in the way, its the small integration things.

I think anyone with an interest in computers should try out one of the new user-friendly distros but don't give it to grandma unless you can and are prepared to be doing tech support on it.
 
For Ubuntu, you need decent internet ... it's ironic that that SA is the one place that will struggle the most with Ubuntu, due to high charges for bandwidth. Shuttleworth must make a plan dammit!

SuSe is better for SA, cause at least they have a DVD version with all the packages!

I've tried Ubuntu and EasyUbuntu/Automatix and they always fail to download the codecs... so no joy yet, but it's probably my internet connection.
 
Roman4604 said:
There is no doubting Linux (uBuntu) give one a serious 'bang for the buck' computing environment, however when stacked up against Vista RC1 + Office 2007 B2TR it looks very antiquated from a features & presentation point of view.

We could all drive to work effectively in a Tata, but if you can afford it most would prefer a BMW.
Click to expand...

Looking at eye candy ,perhaps what you're saying is true.But going beyond that (kernel level ,etc) Linux becomes the BMW.I'd rather drive in a TATA with a BMW engine than a BMW with a TATA engine.


GoogleTalk : ejbengine
Skype : ejbengine
Registered Linux user number 366042
 
capdog said:
For Ubuntu, you need decent internet ... it's ironic that that SA is the one place that will struggle the most with Ubuntu, due to high charges for bandwidth. Shuttleworth must make a plan dammit!

SuSe is better for SA, cause at least they have a DVD version with all the packages!

I've tried Ubuntu and EasyUbuntu/Automatix and they always fail to download the codecs... so no joy yet, but it's probably my internet connection.
Click to expand...

Have you looked at Fedora Core 5?


GoogleTalk : ejbengine
Skype : ejbengine
Registered Linux user number 366042
 
I'm on Gentoo 2006.1 AMD64 dual-booted (or rather duel-booted) with Windows XP SP2. I would scrap Windows alltogether were all my games able to run on wine/cedega.

:(
 
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