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Linux....Should I? And Which?

Matt8

Matt8

All? No, ALL!
NLC
Okay, so I am posting this from attempt number 3 at using Windows Vista. The previous two attempts were prior to service pack 1. So many people around here especially kept reassuring me that Vista SP1 isn't so bad, and that I needed to give it a try.

I hate it.

Its slow, its buggy, programs kept stop responding like every other minute. iTunes and my massive library of music keeps crashing and does weird graphical effects. I hate it, I hate it, and I hate it. I had none of these problems with Windows XP SP2.

So...now I stand before you, ready to go back to WinXP SP2. However, since I am giving everything a try these days, I am considering trying Linux. Last time I had tried Linux it was back a year or two ago and I know plenty has changed since then.

Here is what I need, and What I Want:
-In a perfect world, I could use an Activesync alternative in Linux to sync up my Pocket PC information.
-Read and write to my NTFS partitions. Formatting them and messing with them is NOT an option. Whatever it takes to get these working needs to be SAFE.
-Fast. I don't game, I just pretty much surf the web.
-I don't want to learn a bunch of shell commands. I am not as geeky as I used to be and certainly don't have the time or care to have to learn shell commands to do common tasks.
-Installing programs was a pain last time I tried Linux, and was probably the reason I abandoned it for WinXP again.

Is Linux for me? Which distro would you recommend? So many people say Ubuntu, then I read how many people hate the new version or versions?
 
Ubuntu has come a long way lately. I dont know if theres an app for syncing you pocket PC, but for general every day use for a linux nub, i recommend it. I personally cant see much difference between the 7.x version of Ubuntu and the 8.x

No need to be scared of installing other software too, you can use the package manager to install hundreds of other applications without having to worry about compiling them yourself.

Other wise, i like Puppy Linux.
Nowhere near as much support, but they are a close community, and ive never had any real issues with the Distros. Its great for an older PC, i use it on my lil old laptop.
 
Ok before you do ask yourself

Do you game? If you play games on windows then forget it. Dual booting is inconvenient and no point. Otherwise, I would definitely go with linux.

Ubuntu all the way.
 
Try out Kubuntu. It's a branch of Ubuntu but uses a KDE interface instead of GNOME. I just currently switched over to Kubuntu since I couldn't reinstall Vista. As for syncing your phone, I need to look into that but haven't seen or tried anything yet.

In Kubuntu, there is a new package installer called Adept. It's pretty simple to use. Type in the name of a program you are searching for. If it's available in the repositories, you can automatically install it after Adept downloads it.

I believe Linux should be able to read and write to NTFS partitions but am not positive on that one.

The only trouble I've had is really specific to my notebook and the hardware. My webcam that is integrated into the notebook doesn't work very well. I also have an error booting and shutting down but no one else seems to have that problem.

Overall, linux is quite lightweight and fast, at least it was for me compared to Vista.

Hope that helps.
 
Yes, Ubuntu is the best choice. The new version has a Add/Remove program which is way better than Windows'. You can also read/write NTFS partitions without any problems. It also comes with Rythmbox which allows you to manage your music just like iTunes. You will love it once you start using it.
 
I was going to say ArchLinux until you said you don't want to learn commands.

Try....
X/K/U/buntu
Sabayon
SuSE
Freespire

http://www.distrowatch.org

They link to reviews of distros, you can read about people's experiences installing and using various distributions.
 
For what you want to do, I would recommend Ubuntu. It's very easy to use and is the recommended Windows alternative.
 
if u r afraid that u can't get used to it, install LXDE desktop environment, it is quite similar to XP's interface
 
Linux Mint, it has codecs included, but you may need terminal for certain other things.
Or Ubuntu, but you may have to use terminal for getting certain things you want.
Kubuntu has and had issues with harddrive mounting with me, but it may be worth a try.
Fedora may be good too, though if you ask me, I often had trouble with it.

Debian itself may be more stable than Ubuntu though, as with Mandriva (Mandriva One doesn't come in x64). But I fear for it being much less easy to use them.
 
Last edited:
Junixx said:
Ok before you do ask yourself

Do you game? If you play games on windows then forget it. Dual booting is inconvenient and no point. Otherwise, I would definitely go with linux.

Ubuntu all the way.
Click to expand...


Why?
I can play cs 1.6 over steam perfect in wine.
And i also have dualboot winxp and debian linux...

I would recommend you Debian Linux or Ubuntu..
mounting a NTFS isnt a problem, and for writing access theres
something avaiable but i forgot the name right now...

Good Luck on your choice:)
 
@Antonio,
yeah, we can use wine to run windows apps.
but i found that the performance is a lot slower then running the same apps in windows...
so for me, i will avoid using wine...
 
@furnilover21,
if u copy ur whole c:\windows\system32 to ur wine, it will work.
lol
but i dunno if it is legal to do this or not.
i think it is still legal of u have the license
lol
 
katiekitty said:
@furnilover21,
if u copy ur whole c:\windows\system32 to ur wine, it will work.
lol
but i dunno if it is legal to do this or not.
i think it is still legal of u have the license
lol
Click to expand...

I use Vista, I don't think Vista system32 files work with Wine. Plus, system32 is 2.6 GB, I don't want that all on my flash drive.
 
Wine isn't good, it doesn't always work. Even if you copy the system files over, it doesn't need them but it'll use them if they're available.
But what is a good replacement for Windows messenger on Ubuntu?
I've tried aMSN before, I don't like it, I'm currently using Emesene, it's nice but it still doesn't support voice/video. I've used pidgin but yeah thats worse than Emesene. I've tried Wine, it doesn't work with WLM.

I'm going to give Skype a go though, for the meantime.
 
I do normally, but I want video.
No biggie though, if need be I'll just log onto Windows.
 
Pidgin isn't that bad really, I also use it on Windows. The only real difference is that WLM has a really nice UI.
 
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