Tell me about Linux

GhettoDogAllStars

Not sure if you made your decision yet Matty, but this would be my major concern -- hardware drivers. Some vendors don't have drivers for linux. Although sometimes 3rd parties will develop them, or different drivers will work, it can be a pain in the ass. There will always be drivers for windows.

It's really a drag because I dual boot, and I would love to use linux more. However, there are no drivers for my skype phone. I use my skype phone for work, so I can't go without it. Everything else I need works (with very little config), yet I can't use linux because it lacks support for just one of my devices. For shame.

So basically, if you get a system with linux, of course it should work correctly right out of the box. However, if you ever want to add new hardware, you could run into problems.

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Mattyk

I ended up going with Windows XP

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tryfuhl

The computer and OS were made for each other, not in a lovey dovey way, but the OS was designed around the particular hardware in those machines.

tryfuhl

nothing wrong with a lil dual boot if you still want to try it out

if you want something small and simple you can run kubuntu or xubuntu

of course you can run ubuntu "live" (boot from cd) to try it out

knoppix is another popular bootable solution, you can boot it to a thumb drive and since the data is re-writable, you can actually save changes

BDBohnzie

Read about this a bit the other day: Wubi - Ubuntu Installer for Windows

It allows you to install Ubuntu inside Windows, so you don't have to mess with any partition managers...just install it where you have room, and it adds Ubuntu to your boot menu. Don't want it anymore? Just go into your Windows Add/Remove Programs and uninstall it...

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tryfuhl

Not worth it honestly. It's really easy to create a new partition in Ubuntu without messing up your current data. Now it's EASIER to use Wubi but it's going to be VERY dependent on your disk being nearly perfectly defragmented. When I used Wubi to install Ubuntu it worked fine from the start, but sometimes it wouldn't go as long as a day before I'd have to defrag the disk from Windows to make Ubuntu boot properly.

Most Windows users aren't going to know how to properly launch the linux kernel from the GRUB command line since it doesn't come up with the GRUB menu in that case. I got really tired of defragmenting every day or three to bring up a silly boot menu so I uninstalled and did a proper install which is only a tiny bit more time-consuming and TOTALLY worth it.

Monkeydad

Good decision to avoid Vista.

I am dual-booting with XP and PCLinuxOS 2008(a good starter Linux to play with and learn).

PCLinuxOS - Home

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