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[Floydoid]

the way it does things really does annoy me and it seems to take so much longer to do some things :/

That's just how I felt when I first upgraded from 98se to XP, but once I learned how to tame it I was fine... and at the moment I don't feel like contributing any more to Uncle Bill's coffers, so I'll stick with what I know and like for now. 

Just digressing slightly, I often think it would be fun to try installing Linux on my old machine just for something to play with, but there are so may versions of it out there I wouldn't really know where to start.

[kitz]

It is something worth considering if you have the time to play and something that kept me amused for a while.. 
Was several years ago that I dabbled though.


/ cue eric

[guest]

We have no intentions of putting Vista on any machine here - ever. That's coming from someone who has (until February) 10 licenses of Vista to play with.

It simply offers nothing new or compelling but (once again) raises the bar for hardware requirements. Apart from DX10 (which WILL be backported) there's nothing in Vista that anyone needs or really wants. Aero (3d interface) isn't new - although it is for MS.

Its a waste of money in my very humble opinion.

[roseway]

>> / cue eric

Well yes, you know my views.

I've long ago passed the point where Windows became more difficult to use than Linux, but it took some time to get there. Lots of people try a Linux distro, discover that it doesn't work like Windows, and give up. That's a shame, because Linux really isn't more difficult, it's just very different. It takes time to learn it. The reward of perseverance is a big one - freedom.

If that sounds rather too philosophical, I can only draw your attention to the numerous postings on all sorts of forums (including this one) complaining about the various ways in which Microsoft takes information from you and makes changes to your system without your knowledge or agreement. That doesn't happen in Linux; your system is yours and yours alone, and only you can make changes to it.

And there's really nothing which Windows can do that Linux can't do as well or better, and it often is better. OK, there's a small list of hardware which hasn't yet got adequate Linux drivers, but it's really a small proportion of the total. But on the other hand, most hardware is automatically configured during installation, and for mainstream hardware it's usually the case that the drivers are already on your system as kernel modules supplied as standard.

You've pushed me into missionary mode so I'd better leave it there, but if anyone wants to try out Linux there's plenty of community support and I'll be more than pleased to do my bit to help.

[Floydoid]

Eric, I'm up for the challenge, so what do you recommend?

[kitz]

>> there's a small list of hardware which hasn't yet got adequate Linux drivers,

Regretfully that was the one thing that actually deterred me. 
I spent quite a while in search of a solution for my sound card.
- Bear in mind I was using an older "play machine".   TBH looking back (aside from the sound card incident) I spent most of the time setting up a partition and installation/ ensuring permissions were correct. 
Once it was installed (I used RH) and most of it set up then as far as the day to day stuff there wasnt anything too hard about the GUI at all.

Software apps back then for linux was also a concern of mine - at the time I was also playing a lot with photoshop/Flash...
but most linux users seem to do ok and find alternatives.

[kitz]

>> at the time I was also playing a lot with photoshop/Flash..

In view of what I said above - out of curiousity I just looked at GIMP to see how far that had developed over the past few years

http://www.gimp.org/about/introduction.html

Its come on a long way since I last looked... and pretty damn good for a freebie.

Big thumbs up to that one.

[Floydoid]

I tried the gimp once about a couple of years ago and gave up on it, I found the user interface such a mess I couldn't work out how to use it at all... I hope Linux isn't like that.

[exo]

Hi, many different choices out there. I had a frustrating time trying to find a version that would recognise all my computer hardware.
Ubuntu Feisty Fawn finally did the trick. Available here if you wish to try it.
http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/download-ubuntu-feisty-fawn-704-cd-dvd-iso.html

I have tried to persevere with Linux for some time but I am still not taken by it in comparison with Windows.
Each to their own I guess.

[roseway]

Not being any sort of artist, I haven't paid much attention to GIMP, but I agree that its interface used to be pretty horrible. I just ran it up to see what the current version looks like, and it looked pretty clean and accessible to me. It uses separate windows for different parts of the GUI (which you may or may not like) and by default just two windows open, but after that it's hugely configurable. Of course, for less demanding requirements there is a plethora of competent and easy-to-use image editing programs. My favourite is Kolourpaint. http://kolourpaint.sourceforge.net/about.html

As to what distro I would recommend, that question is a bit of a poisoned chalice of course but I'll stick my neck out and suggest Mepis http://www.mepis.org/ . Version 7.0 is on the verge of release, but the current RC1 pre-release version, which is what I'm using here, is as near complete as makes no difference. It has one notable bug, in that the setting of the locale and keyboard layout during installation doesn't work, so you have to correct it after installation, but that's easy enough to do.

Other very solid and easy to use distros are PCLinuxOS http://www.pclinuxos.com/ and Mint http://linuxmint.com/ . But these are all very personal choices, and others will have different opinions.

[jabns]

I personally like Gentoo(Programming), Ubuntu(Laptops,Day to day desktop) and CentOS(for servers)


I find it funny that on a Intel GMA intergrated GPU:

Vista with Aero: FAIL

Ubuntu with the exact same effects: PASS


Vista in my opinion is a OS for dummies so to speak. Its been dummyfied so much that people with more than one brain cell can't use it!

It is also sluggish compared to XP as the machine or OP code is executed A LOT slower. It is also little things like telnet.exe is not installed by default and you can't diagnose network problems as well because it has to "MAP" out your network before you can see any figures.

Maybe Windows "Seven" will save the day. Personally i think the only thing stopping linux been alot better than windows is that developers are to lazy to port apps to linux.

James

[Floydoid]

It has one notable bug, in that the setting of the locale and keyboard layout during installation doesn't work, so you have to correct it after installation, but that's easy enough to do.

What on earth does that mean?

BTW I'm not one for doing much graphics work - PSP 7 suits me fine.

[Floydoid]

Just had a quick look at some of the download sites and it seems you d/l an 'ISO' whatever that is (excuse my ignorance) - what on earth do you do with an iso file?

[kitz]

>> What on earth does that mean?

The layout of the keyboard settings ie UK or US etc.   If you have the US layout then certain keys are in a different postion - off the top of my head the most common ones are " above the 2 for UK and @ are in different places.  Therefore just like in Windows you have to set the country setting for the keyboard.

[kitz]

Just had a quick look at some of the download sites and it seems you d/l an 'ISO' whatever that is (excuse my ignorance) - what on earth do you do with an iso file?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_image