Is anyone on here runnig this OS as opposed to Windows?? I am contemplating making the swap as I am sick to death with windows XP. My only concerns are drivers for various pieces of equipment I have e.g mp3 player, adsl modem etc. I don't rellay use my PC to play games so that is not a problem b ut if I wanted to is there a windows emulation tool. Also what are the best versions for newbies.

Do you have a beard and sandals?

No just sick of windows it's crap!!!!!

Linux is for servers. There's nowt wrong with XP, it works fine on the five PC's I have use of. It's users that are the problem not the operating system

Want to try before you buy... ? ... ehm... it's free! Download Ubuntu and boot from the CD. No need to install it yet, it will run just as good. Once you're convinced there is a plethora of distro's to choose from (personally I favour Gentoo, others swear by Freebsd or Slackware or ... you get my drift).

If you want the best of both worlds... buy a Mac

It's users that are the problem not the operating system

Hmmm don't think so somehow!! I am not an IT novice, just not 100% fully gened up on Linux. Also if Windows is so great how come it has so many holes in it? How come it sucks your system resources dry?? Why is it that Windows systems get hacked to pieces?? I have worked with Linux in a network enviroment briefly and it was far superior to any Micro$oft drivel. The tasks being performed on a low powered processor where amazing. My only concern was compatibility issues. But after having a looksie around the only problem I am seeing at the moment is a driver for my graphics card.

If you want the best of both worlds... buy a Mac

I like Macs but do not like the cost involved :eek:

Hmmm don't think so somehow!! How come windows has so many holes in it? How come windows sucks your system resources dry?? Why is it Windows systems get hacked to pieces?? I have worked with Linux in a network enviroment briefly and it was far superior to any Micro$oft drivel. My only concern is compatibility issues.

Linux has holes just the same as MS OS's , and it isn't a target for hackers (yet) because it's a tiny minority of the market.

Once it becomes more popular it will become more appealing to those up to no good , and in MS's favour they may have holes but it's easy to find and fix them which isn't always the case with Linux where you have no guarantee of any support at all.

Don't get me wrong , there are advantages to both sides , but linux isn't the perfect be-all and end-all of computing that some people make it out to be.

Is anyone on here runnig this OS as opposed to Windows?? I am contemplating making the swap as I am sick to death with windows XP. My only concerns are drivers for various pieces of equipment I have e.g mp3 player, adsl modem etc. I don't rellay use my PC to play games so that is not a problem b ut if I wanted to is there a windows emulation tool. Also what are the best versions for newbies.

I've been using Linux at home for the past week. So far, I like it a lot. I bought a new hard disc for it. The Linux installer found my XP disc, left it alone and installed on the new disc. I now have a dual-boot PC. Installation found all my bits and pieces (including a bluetooth dongle and a plug-in SD card reader). Linux can see the Windows disc, but Windows doesn't recognise the Linux disc, so it offers to reformat it for me.

Cheers for the website Q, looks like something I will looking at on my off days.

Knoppix is another version of linux-on-a-bootable-cd you can try

Essentially, the front-end varies between distros, but the command-line stuff is pretty much the same (I think )

I'm going to try Ubuntu i've been reading up on it and it seems quite painless to swap to. But I am going to try the live version first to make sure I am happy with it or I may even dual boot.

I've been using Linux instead of Windows for years - I started off with Slackware Linux back in the mid-1990's; since then I have used Debian and (more recently) Ubuntu Linux.

There are loads of applications available. If you can do something with Windows, the chances are that there is a GNU/Linux application which achieves the same thing - but maybe in a slightly different way. For example:-

- Open Office is a good replacement for Microsoft Office

- The GIMP is an excellent image manipulation tool (some say it's better than photoshop).

- Mozilla Firefox beats IE hand down.

- There is a choice of desktop environments (Gnome and KDE seem to be the most popular).

- There are dozens of mail agents, from the simple text-only "mutt" right through to things like Evolution, whic can do all that Outlook Express can do, but without the security/virus problems.

Try Ubuntu Linux - you can run the demo version off the CD, without having to install it on your PC.

I have recently tried out ubuntu, it is defnitely worth looking at it is probably one of the easiest distro's I have used. Others being SUSE, Redhat, Gentoo, Mandrake.

Also if you do use ubuntu, this site is a fantastic resource... http://www.ubuntuguide.org

K

-Open Office is a good replacement for Microsoft Office

I have heard it is better off a majority of people.

- Mozilla Firefox beats IE hand down.

Been using Mozilla products for a couple of years now. I rate them highly already, Micro$oft IE is cack!!! But I read Opera is supposed to be quicker than Firefox on Linux?

- There are dozens of mail agents, from the simple text-only "mutt" right through to things like Evolution, whic can do all that Outlook Express can do, but without the security/virus problems.

I believe Thunderbird is supposed to be quite good.

Also if you do use ubuntu, this site is a fantastic resource... [url']http://www.ubuntuguide.org[/url]

For those ubuntu users I found this http://placelibre.ath.cx/keyes/index.php/2005/09/29/45-easy-ubuntu-23 it's called easy unbutu and basically installs all the drivers, codecs that you need.

I spent ages last night reading up on ubuntu and tripped onto that site, but thanks for the link anyway.

Cheers for the responses linux fans you have helped me make my decision of giving it a go.

I had Opera on my old PC which run much faster than IE. Must remember to copy it across to the laptop now i think about it...

we use IBM os/2 at work (legacy of the banking industry, me thinks) and i thought i'd try a dual install on an old windows 98 machine. was really amazed at how fast ir ran - on a 300MHz machine with 32Mb ram!! mind you, could do bugg*r all with it... :thumbdwn:

linux, now that's a possibility...

amazed at how fast ir ran - on a 300MHz machine with 32Mb ram!! mind you, could do bugg*r all with it...

I was amazed at how fast Linux ran on legacy equipment.

I'm just in the middle of installing a Linux virtual PC on my machine!

We need it for work so I'm having to give it a go.

I feel so dirty !!!

I feel so dirty !!!

Are you eating Pot Noodle as well????

I've used GNU/Linux on my desktop PC as pretty much my sole OS since 2000. It's just so much better in so many ways. But don't take my word for it. Try it for yourself!

Things to look out for:

If you use KDE as your desktop, type "audiocd:/" as a URL in the file manager program (Konqueror). You can then drag and drop to rip CDs as MP3s or WAVs or OGGs.

If you have a website, try putting in "ftp://myhost.com/freddybloggs" or whatever the FTP details are. You can then right click on a text file and edit it in KWrite. Whenever you click save in KWrite, it automatically uploads the new copy to the FTP server. Even if you've taken so long it has dropped the connection - it just sorts it out for you. This is so useful for doing web stuff.

For playing music, try amaroK. If you've got some MP3s with no tag infomation on them (how does that even happen?), you click go to Properties and use the MusicBrainz service. It will scan the MP3 (or OGG or whatever) and tell you who it was by and what it's called. Amazing! You can also automatically search for and download albumn covers from Amazon.

I think the most important thing to remember is, it was designed by people who like to personalise things. They write everything to be really flexible, so they can all have it exactly how they want it. You might feel that gives you too many options, like, why should you chose between GNOME and KDE as a desktop? Well, once you've been given the choice, you'll feel Windows is a bit too restrictive.

Ugh, that was way longer than I was planning. Sorrrrrryy!

J

Well I am dual booted with Ubuntu, took some tinkering and what not. I had to finally sucombe to getting arouter/modem, as Linux doesn't like those pesky winmodems. The only prob I have is I have 120Gig of NTFS stuff, so I need to sort the drive out so I can get it converted to FAT32 so I can mount it with the rest of the drives I have. But overall I like it, and I am using it at this moment.

As for linux running on a dog of a PC - yeah it does, if you rip out all the GUI stuff...

Windows XP is designed for a modern PC, with sufficient RAM. OpenOffice is good, but it's not perfect. It is however free of course

I've used Win XP for years, and it's a good OS, and it works. My experience with linux has been a hit-and-miss affair. A lot of stuff works well, networking in particular is considered (not necessarily always justified IMHO) better.

I use linux for my servers, winXP for workstation. That's the Pro version..

Winmodems suck for sure, but non-Winmodems are WAY too expensive. Best bet - buy an ADSL router and a NIC instead if you're on ADSL, or grab yourself a broadband router if you're on cable. Much more stable, and very easy in every OS.

Knoppix is very handy to try things out with, should try Ubuntu if I can find the time as that sounds interesting. Red Hat and Debian I've used before, both are good for their own uses

buy an ADSL router and a NIC instead if you're on ADSL, or grab yourself a broadband router if you're on cable. Much more stable, and very easy in every OS.

I have a modem router and it is way better.

should try Ubuntu if I can find the time as that sounds interesting.

Ubuntu is good, the support that is it has in it's forums are second to none! I am well impressed.

I take it you mean that you have an ADSL router then :P

Yup ADSL Modem Router