Should I Get Linux?

[ICE]

so my laptop is running xp and i want to know if i should get linux in some form. i dont know much about it but im really sick of adware that i cant get rid of and windows stupid internet explorer wont uninstall.

[xg917]

1 word: mac :)

yea its a shit load of money but its worth it...

[ExcruciationX]

I'm not sure. You must have the patience to deal with it's little problems.

I use Suse 10.2, which works well.

[mexicansnake]

Easy: Dual boot and suse or ubuntu.

[SnesR0X]

Dual boot ubuntu with xp or vista. Macs are garbage

[xg917]

and y do u say they r?

[Triv1um]

They are, overpriced slop. The run quick but OS-x runs like a bag of sh1t.

I have gone off linux lately. Keep xp.

If your really into the linux idea dual boot Ubuntu and XP.

[sourced]

ubuntu. not linnux.

[Ari]

Eh, ubuntu's not that great. I'd go with either SuSe or Sabayon. But there are a ton of distros listed on Distrowatch (www.distrowatch.com), so there's a lot of choices. But SuSe is definately easier to use than ubuntu.

[Man]

Im running ubuntu, for about a 3 months now, if you switch be prepared to work out little problems, get angry, switch back to windows, then back to linux because windows is sh*t. Iv swiched my laptop from windows to linux a couple of times, and iv finally got it set up so i can do everything i need to.

[NoQuarter]

linux takes a little work but if you can handle putting homebrew on your psp then you can probably handle ubuntu.If you want to play windows based games I would suggest a dual boot.

[xg917]

They are, overpriced slop. The run quick but OS-x runs like a bag of sh1t.

I have gone off linux lately. Keep xp.

If your really into the linux idea dual boot Ubuntu and XP.

i dont want to turn this into an argument but yea i mentiond that it cost a shit load of money but os x isnt a bag of shit.. it never gets viruses and it can do anything windows can do. but w/e. i respect ur opinion as well

the linux idea seems an easier way out

[JKKDARK]

Linux is like Windows 95, why do you want it?

[ExcruciationX]

I disagree. Linux and Mac OS X have potential to be even better.

[wolfpack]

i actually still have the windows 95 cd

[mexicansnake]

Linux is like Windows 95, why do you want it?

MS just dreams having the power of linux, windows 95 is not the .000001% powerful than ANY linux out there,
if you dont know anything about linux I would suggest
you to dont make post like this one and use google and look at wikipedia for more info.

I dont know if you tried a linux by now, but I can tell that they are all different from each other.

For me backtrack is the best one.

And yeah, macs sux but is not because their design, I love the laptop but it hate the OS-X is a pain in the ass
to use it, also I think that it is mediocre.

And yeah, mac OS-X has virus!, not the same ones like windows but indeed there are many virus for that sh!t, also there are
some virus for linux, dont believe all what they say cuz they are really MEDIOCRE.

[jonezybaby]

dont wanna sound like a noob or anything but can sum1 explain wat linux etc does?

is there anything special about it?

[ICE]

ok so im a complete noob to this crap. how do i dual boot? i take it thats having say xp and ubuntu at the same time and choosing which to use at on startup?

[SnesR0X]

ok so im a complete noob to this crap. how do i dual boot? i take it thats having say xp and ubuntu at the same time and choosing which to use at on startup?

Good choice, I'm going to do the same thing soon, (except with vista instead of xp)

[ICE]

so everyone recommends a dual boot of ubuntu and xp?

how? lol

[parkermauney]

Pop in the install cd, it'll give you the option, choose yes.

=win

[ICE]

what install cd?

[NoQuarter]

allright theICE_MAN, first defrag your windows harddrive until it will no longer defrag :P
then put in a ubuntu install disk.Restart your computer with the bios selected to boot from disk.Once the ubuntu live cd boots click on the install icon.The default is to resize your windows and install in the free space, so clicking ok on everything should be allright.

[ICE]

and that will install ubuntu without messing with xp?

[BrooksyX]

Personally, I prefer Windows XP Pro SP2 over all other operating systems. With a little bit of tweaking you can get it to run really stable. Someday I will probably upgrade to windows vista, but for now XP gets the job done. I also don't have a problem with linux but I don't use it due to the lack of software support from developers.

[Bevvie]

I've thought about switching to Linux before, but haven't for a few reasons.
Firstly, I've heard about how hardware configuration can be fiddly. I get wound up enough setting up hardware with Windows, so really I want to deal with as few problems as possible during setup.
Also, the main function of my PC is for gaming, and I don't think I would ever be able to get the same support with Linux that I do with Windows.
Overall though, I guess the best decision has to be based on what the individual user needs.

[Junixx]

I've thought about switching to Linux before, but haven't for a few reasons.
Firstly, I've heard about how hardware configuration can be fiddly. I get wound up enough setting up hardware with Windows, so really I want to deal with as few problems as possible during setup.
Also, the main function of my PC is for gaming, and I don't think I would ever be able to get the same support with Linux that I do with Windows.
Overall though, I guess the best decision has to be based on what the individual user needs.

Actually (for me anyway) all of my hardware worked with Ubuntu without any tweaking, excluding the video card drivers. You've hit on probably the best thing right here


Overall though, I guess the best decision has to be based on what the individual user needs.

This is really 100% true, I got sick of adware / spyware on WinXP so I installed Ubuntu and am now dual booting. IF you just use your computer for IM'ing, browsing websites, listening to music, and writing papers and such, ubuntu (or most distros of linux) will satisfy those needs very well, without worry of adware and such... Though there are some good games that have ports or were made of linux, a mod of "Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory" thats called "True Combat: Elite" is worth mentioning, it runs great on my computer

A more recent game thats having a port for linux is Enemy Territory: Quake Wars...

Some examples of OSS alternatives:

MSN - aMSN
Aim/yahoo/other - GAIM
Microsoft Office - Open Office
Winamp - XMMS

Those are just some.. Btw I will say that the default Ubuntu theme didnt look so great to me... So I got a better one :)

PS - I like your avatar Bevvie :thumbup:

[NoQuarter]

To try it out without commitment try a live cd, it runs from cd or dvd without installing anything.The thing is that how do you know whether you like something untill you try it

[CalcProgrammer1]

I definitely say DUAL BOOT Windows XP and Ubuntu Linux.

Ubuntu is great, it's super-easy to set up, fully open-source, and well supported. It has the excellent GNOME desktop, and the Debian package management system, which makes it easy to install and uninstall software. Be prepared, Linux is NOT like Windows, but it's easy in it's own way. Getting WiFi set up is a pain, but once it's set up, it's great.

My laptop dual boots Ubuntu 7.04 and W2K, though I rarely (RARELY!) use W2K on it (I'm using it to type this, in Ubuntu), since I use it mainly for Web browsing and chatting, all of which can be easily done in Ubuntu, which has a much nicer and more customizable interface than Windows.

I have Windows XP on my desktop, dual booted with Ubuntu, but I use that PC for homebrew developing for DS, and I prefer Microsoft Visual C++ Express to develop in, so I use Windows on that more than Ubuntu, but you don't get spyware while coding, I keep my browsing to my laptop, which is right here on my desk, running Ubuntu :)

I also have a 3rd PC, an old 500MHz desktop, which up until earlier today, dual booted Windows 98 SE and Ubuntu 7.04, but, seeing how incompatible 98 has gotten, today I updated it to Windows 2000, though kept Ubuntu in place as well, so now it runs W2K and Ubuntu.

[sourced]

Good choice, I'm going to do the same thing soon, (except with vista instead of xp)

eww, vista.

[dark heart]

macs are for media, useless for other things in my opinion. get a windows computer with "windows xp"
it's commonly used and efficient. don't get vista, because I've heard bad feedback on vista.
if you want you can get a computer with a dual hard drive, so you can use mac osx and windows xp.
then you can do media, and other things :D

[Cap'n 1time]

If your primary use for your computer is gaming, I'd still recommend windows, though a lot of games run very well via Cedega or Wine.

If you are wanting to do stuff such as school work, development, host web pages or ftp, graphic design with the GIMP, or just have a secure computer I highly recommend the ubuntu distro as it's very easy to configure and get what you want. The security is vastly superior to windows.

[ICE]

thanks for the advice guys. im now running ubuntu and loving it.

[AvengedSevenfold Fan]

I think you should get Kubuntu. it has all the power of ubuntu, without the shitty look

[Bevvie]

thanks for the advice guys. im now running ubuntu and loving it.

Wow, that was quick... I guess it really is easier to set up than I thought.

Oh and Junixx - Phoenix Wright FTW! :)

[Cap'n 1time]

I think you should get Kubuntu. it has all the power of ubuntu, without the shitty look

BAH! I'm just fine with gnome as it doesnt have the bloat KDE has. In fact, I'm just fine with iceWM as it doesnt have the bloat gnome has ;) .

He can install the kde packages from inside ubuntu anyway by opening up a terminal and typing in


sudo apt-get install kde


Also, for some reason they dont put the g++ package in there repositories, but rather on the cd. once you installed ubuntu I recommend you pop the CD back in and type


sudo apt-get install g++

This way you can compile c++ stuff from source (which is pretty important if you are a developer, or just like compiling your software).

Also, if you havnt already you are going to want to get your video drivers. In 7.04 they made this very easy to do!

in gnome go to System > Administration > Restricted Drivers Manager.
If you get a request for some dependency simply open up the terminal and "sudo apt-get install" it.

If you have any questions feel free to pm me, but I HIGHLY recommend you check out ubuntu wiki (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/) as it is part of the reason why I like the distro. The documentation is very good and explained very well.

[ICE]

you're very helpful cap'n ;)
thanks

[Junixx]

I think you should get Kubuntu. it has all the power of ubuntu, without the shitty look

I think GNOME can look fine with some tweaks =]

http://img455.imageshack.us/img455/2947/screenshotgz3.th.png (http://img455.imageshack.us/img455/2947/screenshotgz3.png)

[yaustar]

Switched completely from Windows to Ubuntu 7.10 about a month ago. Tried a couple of other Distros (Sabayon and Suse) but neither worked well with me or with the laptop. Whenever you switch OSs, you have to accept the fact that you will need to relearn some things that you already knew how in another OS.

To OP: download VMware Player and an Ubuntu image. Force yourself to run it for a day in fullscreen. without touching XP. By that point, you should have got a rough idea if a Linux based distro is for you.

At the moment I am sorely tempted to get a Mac and use parallels as my main PC.