Kickstart the new year with Linux

If only games would work at windows performance levels and without hickups, linux would have a huge adoption rate.
 
JIMMYtheSKULL said:
If only games would work at windows performance levels and without hickups, linux would have a huge adoption rate.
Click to expand...

Very true Jimmy, but on the other hand the power and control of Linux devastates Windows. I personally run Mint and its awesome.

Inside Mint I run XP and Vista flawlessly (with Vitualbox) and can run any native Windows games and applications I want (almost always faster than a clean Windows standalone installation).

That said you will need alot of RAM (4GB+), but at the end of the day it is all worth it when you realise how primitive Windows really is.
 
I must admit the older I get, the less I am interrested in Linux. Hell I installed Slackware 1.3 back in '98/'99. Had to compile my kernel to have sound. Back then any hardware change needed a kernel re-compile. It is a lot better today, but lately I see my OS a just something that allows me to run my apps.
 
MarthinusSwart said:
I must admit the older I get, the less I am interrested in Linux. Hell I installed Slackware 1.3 back in '98/'99. Had to compile my kernel to have sound. Back then any hardware change needed a kernel re-compile. It is a lot better today, but lately I see my OS a just something that allows me to run my apps.
Click to expand...

Agree and must say that LINUX in general has caught up. With the exception of my Neotel device, everything works 100% out of the box now at the performance that I expect from my hardware.

The only thing that gets me about Windows is that I still need to hunt for drivers if I tossed the disks - with my Ubuntu install its plug 'n play. Not tried Win7 but I do understand it has good default driver support.
 
I run Debian and ubuntu servers and for the first time yesterday actually installed a Linux GUI (Gnome using FreeNX) as I was just tired off messing about to get VirtualBox to work.

Out of Linux, Windows and Mac OSX, Windows is still just the easiest to get going and still pretty much a must have for corporates using proprietary software and gamers.
 
As mention above, the only thing stopping me from switching to Linux completely is the lack of game support
 
If you want to learn Linux in a Windows mindset frame, then yes, go ahead install all the nice top 10 flashy Linux, they will give you what you want. Then if your not fed-up with binary libs clashing, static paths, no easy way of supporting a latest/new "un packaged" application without upgrading the whole Distribution. Then go Gentoo, all I had to say :D
 
That was exactly my plan for this holiday break. Studied which one to install and chose Linux mint as it was a good start for beginners. Pulled the iso file down tested it with md5sum and burnt it to disk and tested the CD again with md5sum everything was fine. The installation seemed to install fine and the CD booted. What I did not realize was that the mint menu bar was missing. I installed it to my hard drive as a dual boot with XP. It booted from my hard drive again without the mint menu bar. My mouse did not work and I was forced to use my mouse touch pad built into my notebook computer which annoys me. The biggest problem though was the help (F1) never worked, brought up the menu but as soon as I clicked on a link brought up an error. 'Unable to load page' 'The requested url 'ghelp:user-guide#gpsnautilus-1' is invalid.

I did read the basics readme file before hand which helped and showed me that mintmenu bar should be at the bottom of my screen. After hours or reading, leaving messages on the mint forum I managed to find (I think) template – where you run basic commands and I typed mintmenu (purely a guess) and low and behold I got the menu bar which I managed to find my screen display resolution and changed it so my menu bar appeared.

To sort the other problems out I thought I would try reinstalling again just in case an error in a file copy happened. I even went and bought a decent TDK CD to make sure it was not due to a crappy cheap CD which I used first time. Did all the MD5sum test and all passed with no problem. Did the reinstall and it had the exact same problems as the first installation. All this reading , searching internet, updating files, and installing took two full days. I never did find the solution for the help not appearing or the mouse not working. Included though in the two days was 3 hours of getting rid of the partition and and dual boot.

This might be a negative account on Linux mint but I really like the idea of linux and the way they install all there software etc. I do believe it was more my notebook just not being compatible with this version. It is a Fujitsu Siemens Amilo 1.5Mhz Celeron, 1gb ram, about 4 years old and using VIA chipset, the chipset is probably the problem. I will certainly give it a go again maybe next version as what I saw was impressive and as I am use to open office, firefox and thunderbir it would not have been a major change for me. I would also like to say that if I was just getting into computers and did not know windows or linux, Linux would be the way to go, just that I have been brought up on computers from the Dos days.
 
chubster said:
If you want to learn Linux in a Windows mindset frame, then yes, go ahead install all the nice top 10 flashy Linux, they will give you what you want. Then if your not fed-up with binary libs clashing, static paths, no easy way of supporting a latest/new "un packaged" application without upgrading the whole Distribution. Then go Gentoo, all I had to say :D
Click to expand...

Arch will do the same without the gentoo compile times and if you still want to compile there is AUR for Arch.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X