Well, given that this machine’s got a 750 Mhz processor, if I’m going to be plunking down money for a new drive, I might as well get a new whole PC while I’m at it.
For the record, I did it about four years ago. The only time I go near a Windows box is if I have to grade code (one project out of five this semester), for which I use a University computer. Trying to use XP was incredibly frustrating – no middle-mouse-click-paste-highlighted-text? Bah!
I could say that I’ve been running Linux on my laptop (Dell Inspiron 600m) for about a year now just fine, and have even upgraded from Fedora Core 1 to Fedora Core 4 successfully, but I know that wouldn’t satisfy Winston Smith and it wouldn’t stop the next rant in this thread.
Why can’t we have one single tech thread without endless griping from the peanut gallery?
You know how when you were a kid, and you woke up early on the weekend, and you were trying to keep your little brothers and sisters quiet so that your parents could sleep in, or at least you thought they were sleeping in, so you’re telling your siblings to be quiet, and suddenly the voice of doom emerges from behind the closed door, “Frank, the only one we can hear is you!”
This is the only rant-like post I see in this thread. Let’s not have anymore, from anyone, OK?
Winston Smith offered his opinion. Feel free to offer your experience on your laptop in response, but we can do without the inflammatory remarks in this forum.
Good advice. I have Kubuntu with an Ubuntu install over the top (I installed Kubuntu then Ubuntu along with it). You can install Gnome programs in KDE though, but they can be buggy. I can’t stand Gnome for some reason, and have only booted into it twice or so.
Kynaptic/Synaptic are heaven to a noob linux user.
Tuckerfan, why don’t you like Firefox? It now has extensions so it an act like Opera.
Opera tends to run faster on my machine, and AFAIK Firefox doesn’t have the “paste and go” function for the taskbar like Opera does, and even if it did, I’ve got enough problems trying to sort out a whole new OS on the fly, with no real documentation (yes, I know there’s plenty of books you can buy on Linux, but I’m unemployed at the moment), so the last thing I need is one more thing to figure out. I had enough trouble getting my TV tuner card working right (ended up having to use my VCR as the tuner, since the software wouldn’t find certain channels).
Geez. Try to offer an opinion and it’s like an AOL chat board circa 1998.
Tuckerfan, if you’ve got a 750MHZ & 18GB disk, you’ve got more than ample resources to dual boot. I did this on an old Gateway with 6GB disk and a 200 MHZ proc. Just trying to help, anyways.
Digital Stimulus, I stand corrected. Or not.
Derleth, you can chew my poo. That wasn’t a rant. Wasn’t even close. I stand by that advice I gave earlier.
This Year’s Model, thanks for getting my back.
Ah, don’t worry! Plenty of free documentation floating around on the net. And I don’t mean disorganized collections of web sites: you might be aware of the Linux Documentation Project. Also consider Linux Questions, with its very extensive forums where you can ask for help for your complex problems; they also have wikis dedicated to the installation and configuration of most popular distributions.
Another idea, since you are thinking of using Mandriva, could be to browse their web site; I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a forum for new users somewhere.
Yeah, well, if you’ll remember from my OP one of the reasons why I switched to Linux is that all the anti-spyware stuff was really slowing down my box, and while doing a reformat/reinstall no doubt would have helped, I’d only have to do it again at some point in the future for the same reason, and that’s a royal PITA, IMHO.
Lars Aruns, hadn’t heard of the documentation project, thanks.
Just for clarity, I don’t disagree with you. Many, if not most, people have a certain app that will only run on Windows. I’m pretty sure, from “talking” to Mac head friends (quotes are to indicate that they lean towards ranting and witnessing, not talking), lots of people feel the same about apple. At this point, after going 4+ years on linux, using Windows is bizarre and difficult for me (as is OS-X, or Solaris, or …), and there are certain apps and functionalities that I miss terribly.
I suppose my overall point is that most (but certainly not all!) computer debates come down to what you’re used to (witness a vi or emacs flamefest), not to what the computer’s (or OS’s, or app’s, or person’s) actual capabilities are. Linux is at a point where it can be the exclusive OS for someone, though dual-booting is a pretty good option to have.
To get this back on topic, I found that one way to “get up to speed” with linux is to browse the packages available in whatever repository you’re using. Amazing what’s out there. And google; without google (and a lot of time, effort, and willingness to follow tangential links), I’d know a whole lot less than I do today.
But the LDP is an excellent resource; good call, Lars Aruns.
This is true. One thing I need that cannot be done with Linux is high-quality music notation. I’ve got software running 95%-correctly under Wine, but that’s not good enough.
Another huge problem remains: hardware support. Whether or not the blame lies with manufacturers for lazily relying on firmware, many people’s daliance with Linux will be scuppered by difficulties with their modem, or printer, or something else. I’ve given up any hope of my cheap-ish laser printer working with Linux, and the consensus online is ‘it works for some people, some of the time’. I can’t afford to buy a new one. This isn’t a rant, it’s a statement of facts.
Yes, I agree on that, and that’s what I do: I do most of my work under Linux and boot into Windows when I want to play some game.
GorillaMan, do you have an old computer lying around? Or a friend with one that is not needed? That could happen, I have two or three computers lying around unused! You could install Windows on the old box, connect it to your main computer and do a network print using Samba. Not as linear as connecting the printer to your computer but definitely cheaper than buying a new one, right? 
I tried that, then decided my life was too short to figure out all the problems 
Anyway, doesn’t this kinda defeat the purpose for many people making the switch, which is to avoid having to rely on Windows?!
Well, short of suggesting you to post the problem on LinuxQuestions (link mentioend earlier), I really don’t know what to say. Sorry, mate; you might want to argue with the manifacturers of your printers for not releasing drivers for Linux, and not even bothering to open the technical specs so someone else can do it for them.
I bought my last printer almost primarily for it’s linux compatability. This was when I was contemplating the switch. I still haven’t made a clean break, and dual boot. But if/when I buy a new comp in the near future, it will be linux only. Of course I will still have this computer with windows.
I too will ensure 100% Linux compatibility.
However, we’d be kidding ourselves if such a decision wasn’t likely to be more expensive than a similar setup that would work under Windows. I don’t care about blame - the few that I’ve encouraged towards Linux don’t care why their printer might not work, just about whether it will or not.
Oh, the failure to deal with the problem came from there and from LinuxPrinting. I’m still loathe to criticise private companies for not doing what we demand. But the fact is that persuading Average Joe across to Linux is more-than-likely to involve cheap firmware-reliant hardware.
My printer is a Brother BTW, who make most, if not all, of their printers linux compatible. It works well and I admire the fact that they bother with linux. I will buy Brother from now on even if I don’t run Linux.
Canon, however, does not support linux.
This sort of inflammatory comment is not welcome here either. You may restrain yourself in this forum, or you may take it to the Pit.
Well, I’ve had a few problems that are somewhat bizarre. I had to yank some hardware out of the box, and when I put it back (the box stayed off while everything was out), I couldn’t get it to boot properly. Even going to failsafe mode wouldn’t fix things, so I did a reinstall with a Debian flavor of Linux, and lord, did that ever suck. Everything worked, but it looked like crap, and there were apparently two “layers,” one that was Linux, and one that was Debian. To find anything in the GUI, you had to first dig through the Linux menus to see if it was there, then, if it wasn’t, you had to hunt through the Debian stuff. Everything was slightly confusing how it was labelled, so I said “the heck with it” and reinstalled Mandriva. Now I just have to remember how to install all the plug-ins, etc.