Discussion
Any recommendations for a useful/active linux forum?
I'm rather out of touch with linux having not used it for ten years or so. I'm playing with Ubuntu which appears to be very good, but has gone a bit windozy; a lot of wizards and utilities to 'make things simple' but which rather get in the way of doing things properly and not allowing me to understand what's happening. I'm more of a vi or emacs man than these new fangled 'graphical' text editors IYSWIM.
Cheers,
Grover
I'm rather out of touch with linux having not used it for ten years or so. I'm playing with Ubuntu which appears to be very good, but has gone a bit windozy; a lot of wizards and utilities to 'make things simple' but which rather get in the way of doing things properly and not allowing me to understand what's happening. I'm more of a vi or emacs man than these new fangled 'graphical' text editors IYSWIM.
Cheers,
Grover
It's all a bit of a jump really, whether I jump forwards or backwards is the problem. 
My linux experience was slakware which was downloaded onto eight or ten floppies! None of your X-windows then, unless you were rich & lucky enough to have a 386 with more then 1MB RAM. Them were the days, eh?
I'm only playing with ubuntu because I've recently gotten a mac and was really quite impressed by it - being a cheapskate, I wouldn't buy one for home but these new linux distros seem pretty much the same - but free!
My linux experience was slakware which was downloaded onto eight or ten floppies! None of your X-windows then, unless you were rich & lucky enough to have a 386 with more then 1MB RAM. Them were the days, eh?
I'm only playing with ubuntu because I've recently gotten a mac and was really quite impressed by it - being a cheapskate, I wouldn't buy one for home but these new linux distros seem pretty much the same - but free!
Hafta say; Ubuntu rocks!
Okay, so it's linux for the hard of thinking, but it works right out of the box. I have no experience of Debian or other flavours mentioned but for those who just want an alternative to Windoze that'll install with little or no grief it's just the job. I'm sure there are many others that'll do just the same, but I'm impressed thus far. Bear in mind though, this is just my play thing at home; primarily browsing & e-mail plus the odd spread sheet and letter writing so I'm easily pleased.
Okay, so it's linux for the hard of thinking, but it works right out of the box. I have no experience of Debian or other flavours mentioned but for those who just want an alternative to Windoze that'll install with little or no grief it's just the job. I'm sure there are many others that'll do just the same, but I'm impressed thus far. Bear in mind though, this is just my play thing at home; primarily browsing & e-mail plus the odd spread sheet and letter writing so I'm easily pleased.
Right.
I've spent the last week playing with ubuntu (debian), sabayon (gentoo), opensuse (novell/suse) & pclinuxos (mandrake). I'm amazed how easily they install and how well they detect and configure hardware. Surprisingly, ubuntu was the one I had most grief with, but that was only getting compiz to run and a quick foray into their support forum provided the answers. It is noticeable that online support for linux is generally more responsive, friendly and helpful than the redmond alternative - although it's a long time since I've needed help configuring windows so maybe that's a little unfair.
The only job I've given them to stress the systems is compiling the kernel, which was strikingly similar for all.
While these distros are not quite direct replacements for windoze, for anyone with a little enthusiasm they're pretty darn close, certainly a better prospect than macs so far as I'm concerned.
All in all it's been fun experimenting but I've still not decided which to go with 'full time' yet.
Thanks to those here & elsewhere who helped & guided me.
I've spent the last week playing with ubuntu (debian), sabayon (gentoo), opensuse (novell/suse) & pclinuxos (mandrake). I'm amazed how easily they install and how well they detect and configure hardware. Surprisingly, ubuntu was the one I had most grief with, but that was only getting compiz to run and a quick foray into their support forum provided the answers. It is noticeable that online support for linux is generally more responsive, friendly and helpful than the redmond alternative - although it's a long time since I've needed help configuring windows so maybe that's a little unfair.
The only job I've given them to stress the systems is compiling the kernel, which was strikingly similar for all.
While these distros are not quite direct replacements for windoze, for anyone with a little enthusiasm they're pretty darn close, certainly a better prospect than macs so far as I'm concerned.
All in all it's been fun experimenting but I've still not decided which to go with 'full time' yet.
Thanks to those here & elsewhere who helped & guided me.
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