I got tired of using XP as my primary OS so I gave pc-bsd a shot. It's pretty bad IMO. No Flash support FTL. Buggy GUI functionality/video issues. Anyone happy with any other Linux based OS's?

 

I built a Hackintosh last year at my buddy's house. It ran pretty good.
Owait, you said open source

 

Ubuntu

 

I would vote for Ubuntu.

 

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Ubuntu

I have it running on one machine.


My list of OS's running
XP
Vista
2003 server
Ubuntu
hackintosh
Solaris 10 x86

They all have their good points and bad points. I actually find that my 2003 server was the most stable of all the operating systems that I am currently running, it has never had a crash since I built the machine and the machine was running for 4 months before I lost power today and had to reboot

 

Geez, that vid makes mac look boring. Is that Gnome?

 

Am I the only one that finds most of that stuff either unoriginal (hey lets have a dock and a taskbar at the same time) or gimmicky (hey lets make the windows wobble when we move them around!):ghey:

 

nice. thanks for the info, downloading Ubuntu right now...

 

I'm a sucker for that crap. I'm still waiting for the computer I can fly through like in Hackers the movie

 

 

I have been using ubuntu as my primary os on my desktop for over a year now. Right now I'm using the hardy beta and i'm pretty happy. I switched my dad over about 6 months ago, but he isn't exactly a power user.

I have also tried using debian and openSUSE, but just found answers easier to come by in the ubuntu community forums. When things get a bit more technical I usually end up looking through gentoo walks throughs and forums.

Issues I've had

Display drivers for newer video cards and some older ati cards can be a pain in the ass.

Midi isn't fun to set up.

Wine is great for running windows software, but newer programs are hit or miss to set up. Especially programs that use some sort of drm sceam to validate themselves.

The 64 bit firefox implementation of flash is a bit iffy, it's just the 32 bit version in a wrapper as adobe doesn't make a 64 bit version yet. It crashes constantly. (32 bit firefox with 32 bit flash is fine)

The programs that are installed and most programs people install from the repositories all work great right out of the box, but the second you want to do something slightly more complicated you are dealing with the terminal. Recently I wanted to use a block list with my bittorent client to be slightly less in the open when downloading ... um perfectly legal linux linux .iso's. Transmission doesn't have a easy pluggin like azureus or ktorrent so I had to use moblock. The only interface I know for moblock is in the command line. I had to read the manual for it and figure out how to white list ports and ip's so I could actually use the internet connection for web surfing.

That is pretty much how everything goes, and I actually enjoy it. For some reason I keep hearing people say how much easier linux is than xp now because of the graphical installers and the advances of kde and gnome. I didn't have to write the fstab file or compile everything from source. I still won't tell my friends to use it instead of xp though, because when a drive won't mount correctly they will either learn about the mount command, fstab, file permissions, and god knows what else or they will just call me.


I feel like a Jehovah's witness now. If only I had books to leave with people.

 

I'm not. That's why I'm not a fan of Vista's Flip 3d



and leopard's Time Machine UI, gimme a break!

 

NOW that's more like it!

[homer voice]mmm, CLI![/homer voice]

 

Well, until we can control computers with our thoughts ( ) these OSes will have more and more special effects to wow the noobs...

I got pretty excited when Time Machine opened

 

I laughed out loud when it opened and then held my head in shame

 

Ubuntu or PCLinuxOS. Both have pretty good support. ALL Linux distros are still harder to set up than XP. If you want any cool graphics stuff you have to spend some time setting them up.

I tried Ubuntu and have Ubuntu based Lime on my old computer upstairs.

Frankly, I don't really see the point unless you are trying to save dollars getting a cheap second computer running. XP is stable, runs probably 10000 times more programs, and has lots of easy to use features. Most of the good opensource software has been compiled for windows. Reasonable security is a free AV program and a free firewall away. Legit copies of OEM XP are about $100 on newegg. Totally worth it if you ask me.

 

I'm just bored with XP and looking for a change. The money thing isn't an issue. I think XP is an excellent OS actually.

 

That is one reason I tried Ubuntu and PCLinuxOS. Curiosity. Then I cobbled together an old Pentium 4 PC for our learning center in the game room upstairs and threw Lime on it for the heck of it and cause it was free. It is really just used as an alternative surfing location.

 

Two totally different applications, no? I fail to see a comparison. I think Flip 3D is more aligned with Apple's coverflow.

 

Why? I never seem to understand your silly antics regarding Apple. Your arguments are weak, at best. You should really find another hobby.

 

I never said anything about them being similar applications cause they aren't. They're both just a little unnecessary. I'm not saying backup is unnecessary cause it definitely is but the stars and the galaxy is just too much for my taste. Flip 3d is more about looks than functions cause you don't get a full view of the window until it's out front and it takes more steps to switch between applications with Flip 3d than it does with alt + tab. I actually prefer OS X Expose over Flip 3d thankfully MS has added a similar feature to their intellimouse software called instant viewer it looks like this



I use this WAY more than I use flip 3d cause it's more functional!

 

running ubuntu now. so far, it's great. MUCH better than that piece of crap PC-BSD.

 

True

As you see from my list of OS's that I like to have a hand in all of them as I need to know most of them for work, I like to have one running at home so I can play in my off time to learn how to work with them better.

 

Ubuntu installed on my spare T40 with ZERO drivers needed. Even the integrated wireless card worked.

Now that's fucking classy.

 

try osx86, i been running it for years hehe www.insanelymac.com

 

which version gutsy gibbon or hardy heron?

 

gutsy gibbon. any advantages to hardy heron? is it easy to switch?

 

hardy heron is the newest version it's still in beta though. I'm sure there's advantages but IDK what they are and IDK about upgrading either. I've tried to install Linux a few times over the years and I've always had some sort of weird problem that's prevented it from installing and booting for the first time. I can't even get to the install screen on my version of Ubuntu. I've had better luck getting osx86 up and running on my pc.

 

I'll hold off until it's out of beta. I was looking through the gutsy packages for Beryl and didn't find it. Only exists under Feisty's packages. Think it'll work?

 

Tried it on my Dell D620 and never got past the video issues... Matter of fact, I need to reclaim that disk space...

 

What video card do you have? You can't run any of the cool graphics stuff like cubic workspaces without the proprietary drivers.

Everything else worked, though. Ubuntu is pretty solid. I had trouble getting nVidia drivers to work with PCLinuxOS.

 

I never installed Beryl on my T40 so I didn't go nutty with the graphics.

 

Some cards will actually do the composite desktop stuff with the open source drivers. My acer 8104 actually works better with the "ati" driver than the open source "fglrx" variant. Some intel chipsets work well with the open source stuff too.

It's different for every computer. It works great with my desktop hardware, I don't need to set up anything special to get my hardware to work right (other than click a couple boxes in the restricted drivers tool). My laptop isn't quite so easy, especially if I choose to use the proprietary drivers, that is another hour in tinkering in itself.