[DaffyKantReed]

@kristain:

I agree with you about Windows 7. It runs as quickly as 64-bit Debian Testing on this 2.66GHz Pentium D with 1GB of RAM. Hardware detection is very good as is ease of installation.

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Each to his/her own i suppose. But i would personally choose a Linux OS. Ubuntu, Mandriva and Linux Mint are three of the very best (in my humble opinion), Linux distro's that are currently available today. Linux affords users the luxury of trying out a distro(s) as "Live CD's" and then if you like what you see you can install it to you're hard drive, free of charge! You can also install and uninstall whatever software takes you're fancy or dislike. At the end of the day it is up to the individual concerned. So just take you're time and enjoy!

[calamitous]

Each to his/her own i suppose. But i would personally choose a Linux OS. Ubuntu, Mandriva and Linux Mint are three of the very best (in my humble opinion), Linux distro's that are currently available today. Linux affords users the luxury of trying out a distro(s) as "Live CD's" and then if you like what you see you can install it to you're hard drive, free of charge! You can also install and uninstall whatever software takes you're fancy or dislike. At the end of the day it is up to the individual concerned. So just take you're time and enjoy!

[DaffyKantReed]

I'm partial to Debian and Gentoo myself, but Ubuntu and Mint do work very well right out of the box. Most apps the average user needs are installed and easy enough to configure. I often recommend *buntu as an alternative to Windows in a dual boot configuration or even as a live CD.

[6466]

I might as well throw in my 2cents worth. I would recommend Linux Mint. Without ever having done any partitioning, I made a dual boot with Vista Home Premium and Mint 8. I love Mint 8. I have always liked the idea of free, open source, GPL applications and software. Tried Freespire once but Linux was a long way from having compatible hardware, so I installed XP.

I heard so much about Ubuntu and Mint, though, that I decided to try Mint, and I do not regret it. On this machine, it detected all peripherals and hardware and also my private network with a Windows machine. There is a learning curve---you have to quit thinking like a Windows User---but I am very happy with Mint. It is built on top of Ubuntu, and can use Ubuntu repositories, as well as it's own software repository. It is a more user friendly version of Ubuntu, essentially. I have learned to substitute apps. Sometimes it takes two apps to one of Windows, but I don't mind that. For instance, I use Gimp combined with gThumb image viewer to do my image manipulation.

The only reason I go to Vista now is to let it update, and to listen, I confess, to my Media Monkey media player. Mint has several good players, but none does all that MM does.

I have been told by Ubuntu and other Linux experts not to try to upgrade from an older distro, but to do a clean, new install of the newest version. Mint 9 comes out end of this month and that is what I will be doing. I've been told that upgrading sometimes goes way wrong.

And that's my (several) cents. I will never willingly put Microsoft on a PC of mine again. I'll keep what I have, but I will not go back to Windows as major OS on my PCs. P.S. I have a post in Hardware issues. Anyone care to help?

[jake petre]

If I am not mistaken I believe you can use Wine (a free application) to run Windows applications on Linux systems.

WINE is one of the most successful Windows emulators available, though its developers don't call it an 'emulator' specifically. Unfortunately, not every program is compatible with WINE. It takes a little bit of testing and research to get accustomed to using WINE, but it's definitely a useful tool.

There is also a program called Play on Linux, me and my friend was playing around with it and it allowed us to run all our paritioned windows apps.

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Do you know what "nemesis" means? A righteous infliction of retribution manifested by an appropriate agent. Personified in this case by a...

[Shaggs]

i recommend using windows 7 and just buying separate recording softwear i have an amature recording studio at home.... for starters i would buy sony acid ....also wavepad is a free recording multitrack recorder and VERY easy to use and its abosolutly amazing for recording and editing for being free and will also work with windows xp

WAVE PAD