Linux Fans!

Mac OS X is now a certified Unix operating system. Does that count? :-D

If I couldn't use OS X, I'd use Ubuntu.

 

I recently started dipping my toes into Linux, and installed Ubuntu on my old computer. I haven't figured much of it out yet, but I'm trying.

 

What's Linux like? I've been using Windows XP for the past few years, I could use a change.

 

With many of the mail Linux distros, including Ubuntu, you get a live CD which you can use to boot your PC into Linux without affecting anything on the hard disk. So you can try a few and see which ones you like. Because nothing is installed there is no risk to your Windows installation, and if you don't like it just remove the CD and boot back to Windows.

The live CDs will generally let you install it too, if you like it. If you want to have a dual-boot arrangement where you can choose Linux or Windows when the PC boots up, read the instructions on the website carefully first (the installers often default to wiping the hard disk which would lose your Windows).

You need a broadband connection to download live CD images and some CD writing software (such as Roxio or Nero) that can create a CD from an image file. The CD writing in Windows doesn't do that.

 

The Linux penguin is cute, but I've never actually used Linux except to reset the password on a Windows system.

 

When I get bored and don't have a lot to try I try playing around with linux distros, usually in a virtual machine. I think linux makes an excellent server software, and I'd like to use it full time use however some problems with it I have:

a) Installing software that doesn't come as part of a package (.deb for debian distros) starts becoming a major pain in the neck with dependency heck and other problems. Sometimes third party packages can cause problems. I had a prof that uses FreeBSD on his machine, and he went to install a CAD package and it trashed his OS because of dependency issues.

b) With a lot of distros, apps, etc (KDE, and Gnome environments are really bad for it) Linux can suck a LOT of resources without even doing a whole lot. The hardware requirements for a lot of normal desktop distros is as bad or worse than Windows. And there seems to be a lot of development effort going into making it pretty instead of making it function better or easier to use, etc. I know I could use twm as a window manager but that's just ugly.

c) It lacks the polished feel. The whole system is a cabbage patch system that doesn't fit together nicely. Since there are millions of distributions that do more or less the same thing, it makes it harder to get software to run, etc. than if there were only a single distribution that everyone used.

Apple finely came out with a Unix OS that is so easy anyone can use it. And since there's only one stream of OS X, there's only one package format, so it's easy to get things installed. However a lot of Apple's business practices makes them as bad or worse than Microsoft in many regards. Plus I hate the fact that as best I can tell, there's no "free" way to load on a custom theme or otherwise customize visuals. I found a third party utility that can remove shadows, and I've found shareware Shapeshifter for themes, but I can't for the life of me find a free way to load a theme or customize it myself that removes transparencies and fancy textures so I can get quicker response over a network connection.

As far as distros... personally I like DSL (Damn Small linux) since the LiveCD is only 50MB it will run on anything, and quite quickly on any modern machine. It comes ready to use with a lot of software that most people used (web browsing, word processing, media playing). I tried running an installation with it, got the DSL packages to work fine. I tried using the conversion option to convert it into a debian install, but it is an old kernel version so a lot of packages aren't available. I tried upgrading the kernel and that didn't work. And on and on it goes.

 

I use openSUSE 10.2 (x86-64) and absolutely love it.

 

I thought you'd post Mia
I sometimes use Kubuntu/Ubuntu and my little brother (9yo) uses Edubuntu everyday.

 

Well... I'm not so in love with openSUSE anymore. It is great but it has a major problem - RPM. Whenever I try to upgrade something, it gets all f***ed up............................. so now I'm on Kubuntu Feisty.

 

I recently installed slackware 11.0 on my laptop. This should be an interesting experience, I think...

I had been using ubuntu, which was nice, but I really want to try something a little more unix-y. I'm actually trying to get into systems administration, so I want to get really, really familiar with how linux works underneath.

 

I have used Ubuntu for a few years now. (I prefer KDE though)

 

So do I...

 

I've been using Xubuntu for almost a year, now. I'm a big fan of it, and use it a lot more than Windows XP (they're both installed on my laptop). I do have the advantage of not being a gamer, which really made the switch from Windows to Linux much nicer. I also like the free web developing tools that are out there for Linux (XAMPP + me = :icon_bigg )

I've used KDE and Kubuntu a little bit, but the animated mouse icons annoy me (yes, i'm sure i can disable those, but i'm lazy. xubuntu works, so i'm sticking with that).

 

i just tried out puppy linux and wasnt impressed.

 

Well, Puppy Linux is a minimal version, not designed for everyday use... It's more of a proof-of-concept than anything else.

Try Ubuntu, or openSUSE.