Linux users

[Berticus]

It's been a while since I've been here. Now I see a few more penguins around. Someone has Tux armed and dangerous as their avatar, and another has a Linux counter sig. I remember someone else wanted to try out Linux last year, and am quite interested on the progress, if any, that's been made. Would be nice to know what other people are using, I think.

I'm sporting a desktop built by myself using an ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe with AMD Athlon64 X2 4800+, EVGA nVidia 7900 GT superclock KO, 2 GB of Corsair RAM with heatspreaders (DDR) and an M-Audio Revolution 5.1 sound card housed in an Antec p180b (original) powered by an Antec TruePower Trio 550, cooled with a Noctua processor fan and stock case fans.

I'm purchasing a Zalman VF1000 for my current and future graphics cards (I think my current cooling isn't cool enough), Enermax Modu82+ to replace my current Antec PSU (motherboard is very power hungry, and >200W causes the TruePower to make a lot of noise), and I'm adding a second TB to my volume (1 TB isn't enough, actually 2 TB still won't be enough).

Currently I have a Gentoo 2007.0 using Gnome as my desktop environment. However, when the new hard drive arrives, I'll be switching to Arch Linux, using either xmonad or awesome as my window manager (no desktop environments for me).

[jockeys]

At home I dualboot Ubuntu8.x and XP pro. wish I could get more done in linux, but the dev tools I have to use for work only run in windows >:-{ so I don't really have much of a choice.

tried gentoo once, 3 days later my computer still wouldn't boot and I gave up :-/ thankfully there are a lot of much easier distros out there.

[OLD_SCHOOL]

I was using Ubuntu up until a week ago. I had been using it for a month but there were just so many issues, I thought to myself it windoze is bad but hell it was never as bad as that. I tried ubuntu after getting majorly ed by a worm/trojan/virus whichever and a metric tonne of spyware, all of which I happened to pick up from a forum.

I hate both, wouldn't mind trying mac to see if thats any good.

[hoglahoo]

I have been running a quad boot Win95, Win2000, WinXP and Ubuntu at home for about a year now, and run XP SP2 at work. I prefer Ubuntu over all of them for my daily tasks, except for AutoCAD. Unfortunately I have yet to come across the rumored upcoming AutoCAD for linux.

There have been issues, but nothing as bad as winblows used to give me every six months or so. Every issue I've had I found a solution for that day. I use Ubuntu almost exclusively at home and have never had any internet-related issues

[Berticus]

Oh yeah... I dual boot with Windows XP SP2 (SP3 prevents my computer from booting up for a multitude of hardware discriminatory reasons). I'm rarely in there though. The only time I boot into my Windows installation is to game, everything else is left to Linux.

tried gentoo once, 3 days later my computer still wouldn't boot and I gave up :-/ thankfully there are a lot of much easier distros out there.

Yeah... Gentoo and Arch aren't for new Linux users... First time I tried installing Gentoo, it didn't come out right. Not sure why.

OLD_SCHOOL, sorry to hear your Linux experience wasn't all that prime... Odd how you had so many issues...

[rastewart]

I have a Mac at home and like it very well, but 've been thinking of trying Ubuntu. Thing is, I don't want to break the family computer --or even just make things more complicated. SWMBO doesn't like MACs as much as PCs in the first place, so I'm disinclined to rock the boat.

I've read that you can download Linux and a packet of basic freeware apps onto a flash drive of 4GB or so, which would give you a kind of ultra-portable computer, minus the little details like a processor, monitor, and keyboard of course. Have been thinking of trying it just for grins and seeing if I can get it to work; or maybe picking up a cheap laptop with a clean drive for Ubuntu-only use. But that's all idle speculation at this point.

Rich

[OLD_SCHOOL]

OLD_SCHOOL, sorry to hear your Linux experience wasn't all that prime... Odd how you had so many issues...

I think it has something to do with when I downloaded it, IIRC it took 3 or more downloads before I got one that was actually working, then it took as many attempts to get the bloody thing to install.
The main issue that pissed me off time and time again was I'd be surfing the net and then bam, the browser vanishes, nothing worse when typing a reply to a thread and have to do it again. The other thing was Ubuntu/firefox would freeze and there was absolutely nothing could be done other than a reboot. CTRL+ALT+Backspace would fix most things but to get the browser operational again a full reboot was necessary. Othe rissues were rather tiny but these 2 forced me to go back to windoze, which only took less than 24hrs of use before it had its first non responding episode.

What happened to the good old days when you could communicate with the world via telegraph?

[gugi]

I've been using mac mini for the last several years and ubuntu in a virtual environment. Can't do work on the mac - too quirky for that almost as windows. As a matter of fact macports still has a broken gnuplot - that's months since I last found out. I've tried doing work on windows and it blows too - last time it was a bug in fwrite() or something, had to write my own buffering around it to get my data written to a file - fugly enough to make me not want to deal with this ever.

What happened to the good old days when you could communicate with the world via telegraph?

I'm pretty sure you can still to. You should add it to your website as the preferred way to receive orders

[Presently42]

I've been using Debian GNU/Linux exclusively since 2003 or 2004 and haven't looked back once. The quality is much better, it's easier to use and I love being able to upgrade my system easily and with out having to reboot.

If any one is having problems, feel free to shoot me a PM and I'm sure a solution will be found.

Linux can be run on a floppy-disk, let alone a USB key. However, not all of the functionality that a full Linux installation provides will be available. I'm not sure if a GUI would be able to fit on to four GB, but if your are comfortable with a CLI then you've no problem. In any event, do some research and go for it! The worst that can happen is that you will have wasted a bit of time in learning some thing new.

I'm quite disturbed by one commentor's encounter with Ubuntu. I am wondering from where the CD image was obtained and ef the installation was done correctly.

For those wishing to try Linux, there is really only one option: Knoppix. I really don't even know why there are other LiveCD options available.

Finally, for those wanting to run Windows programmes on Linux, I would suggest looking in to Wine. This creates a Windows environment in which a Windows programme may be installed and / or run.

Hope that answers a few questions. Or, at least, provides a basis on which to ask others.

Cheers.

[gugi]

Finally, for those wanting to run Windows programmes on Linux, I would suggest looking in to Wine. This creates a Windows environment in which a Windows programme may be installed and / or run.

Well I wanted to use the MS book reader, but no luck thus far. The only way is to boot full windows and do it from there - rather stupid I thought.