[Azated]

Hey all.

I'm a bit of a geek (Bit = massive) and i keep hearing that linux is great for advanced users.


I'm just wondering what the advantages are; I've been using windows my entire life, and XP for the last 5 years. I feel very comfortable using XP, i know where everything is, i know how to access files buried so deep in my hard drive the search function can't find them, etc.

Also, how is the compatibility with linux? I have heard that it has problems with video editing software, and some video games seem to have a fatal alergic reactions.


PS: I would also like to know in as much detail as possible about windows 7; Vista is out of the question (2 gigs of ram for 512mb on xp? No thanks). How is the video game compatibilty, and does it run any faster or perform any more tasks than XP?

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To answer your first question, I suppose the best part of Linux is, it is all open source.
you really have a lot of freedom to tweak it to your hearts desire.

Try downloading and burning a Live CD and you can run it on your computer without it installing or making any changes to your system.

I use Ubuntu, but there are allot of other distros to choose from.

Here are some links that you can check out and see what all you can do.

http://www.ubuntu.com/

http://sites.google....ipsproject/Home

http://ubuntuguide.net/

http://my.opera.com/ubuntunerd1/blog/

[tholley]

To answer your first question, I suppose the best part of Linux is, it is all open source.
you really have a lot of freedom to tweak it to your hearts desire.

Try downloading and burning a Live CD and you can run it on your computer without it installing or making any changes to your system.

I use Ubuntu, but there are allot of other distros to choose from.

Here are some links that you can check out and see what all you can do.

http://www.ubuntu.com/

http://sites.google....ipsproject/Home

http://ubuntuguide.net/

http://my.opera.com/ubuntunerd1/blog/

[tholley]

As for Win7 compared to XP, I also have used XP for years, recently installed Win7 to make my system triple boot into either XP, 7, or Ubuntu, and I have to say I have really gotten to like Windows 7.

The boot time and shut down time is way faster than XP (similar to Ubuntu, which is fast also), and just in general, opening a file or document is quicker as well. In my opinion, it makes XP feel like a slow resource hog, waiting for a folder like My Documents to fully load before I can click on another folder, and hating when your in a hurry and double click too fast before it is ready, and it hasn't added all the folders in yet, so you end up clicking on the wrong file because it shifted everything right at that moment.

So I give Windows 7 a big thumbs up!

[Kemasa]

The main things with Linux is that it is free, generally well maintained, better designed and typically far more secure than Windoze. Not all applications will run on Linux, but if you have a fast enough machine you might be able to run a Virtual machine (virtualbox is free) to do what you need to do (which is what I do). When you consider all the malware, spyware, viruses, etc., it is easier to use Linux than Windoze, but there is learning involved.

Windoze7 seems to be better than previous versions and from the M$ talk I went to, it seems to be an update to Vista. The version number is still actually 6.x, but they did not want to break things by changing the number. The snap view is interesting, but they missed that you might want to do it top to bottom, rather than side by side.

[DaffyKantReed]

GNU/Linux has came a long, long way since I started using it in 2000. Editing config files has *almost* became a thing of the past. From a clean install, some distros have better multimedia support than Windows 7. Ubuntu 10.04 32-bit supported my cheap 2Wire USB adapter automagically, which was a bit of a surprise.


Frequently, I am told how fast *buntu is, even ran from a USB stick. This should be no surprise since no anti-virus, or anti-malware software is required.

Gaming is possible on the Linux platform, but do not expect the experience to be the same as Windows gaming, because it is not.

Install any versions of MS Windows, leaving 20GB of unpartitioned space to install Linux. Linux Mint 9, Ubuntu, Mepis, and of course Debian are all good choices for the novice user. Learn the command line as it will no doubt come in handy sooner rather than later.





References:

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html
http://www.gnu.org/p...hy/free-sw.html

[Azated]

Thanks for the info everyone.

I made a live startup on a USB stick, and it runs fine up to the Ubuntu screen, but won't go past that. When i press escape, a message says "Init: Line 7: can't open /dev/sdc: no median found", and keeps trying to startup with a bunch of numbers that look very similar to IP addresses, except without the . in between numbers.

[tholley]

When you say it runs fine up to the Ubuntu screen, which screen are you refering to? The Ubuntu desktop? Can you describe it?



Which Ubuntu version did you use? 10.04?

[Azated]

When you say it runs fine up to the Ubuntu screen, which screen are you refering to? The Ubuntu desktop? Can you describe it?



Which Ubuntu version did you use? 10.04?

It is a pink or light purple screen with Ubuntu in the centre, and 5 dots underneath it cycling through red and white.

[Azated]

Any help would be apreciated.