I got a new computer recently when my old one died suddenly and unexpectedly. I liked the hardware stats and the price so I snapped it up without a second thought.
Then I got home and realized I had bought a Vista. TERRIBLE TERRIBLE operating system. I spent over two hours trying to apply a self-downloading update patch for some software I wanted to run. The video drivers don’t work right, and I had to install some new audio drivers against Vista’s protests just to get the sound right.
Out of the box, I’ve never seen a more poorly operating computer. With 2 gigs of RAM, 256 megs of video memory, and dual-core processors, only Microsoft could turn that much hardware power into useless junk.
I almost nuked the harddrive and installed my old XP, but then again, I think XP had something to do with my last computer’s early demise. Anyone know a good Linux build they can recommend to a Linux newbie?
Try Ubuntu.
There's a lot of good ones. I've been happy with the successive improvements to Fedora Core. My kid likes the KDE version of Ubuntu. I'm sure you'll hear some other favorites, too.
“Anyone know a good Linux build they can recommend to a Linux newbie?”
therein lies the rub (IMHO). if people that can’t get Windows to work, and are not already using *nix for business want to move to Linux, I think they are in for a hard road.
I do *nix support for a living, and I won’t load linux (again) at home. toooo much hassle. not intuitive, too many versions to get consistent support, drivers are hard to find, lack of software, family members are completely lost, and when it does work, I feel it lacks a lot of the fit, finish and features of Windows.
Of course I was probably about the last person I know of to get off of W2K and now that I am on XP, I will only come off of that kicking and screaming. I gave up on being bleeding-edge in the computer industry 15 years ago.
Want to borrow my old Windows 98 installation disk?
I bought a new laptop a few weeks ago to supplement my main PC (in case it crashes like the previous one — I do most of my finances online any more).
I bought the laptop because it has XP not VISTA (and 17” widescreen with DVD writer, and excellent price for home use). I wanted to get it before VISTA became the only available OS. I can get the VISTA upgrade for $50.00, but I think I’ll pass.
I’ve loaded LINUX Suse 10.2 and MEPIS on about 8 or 9 different Pc’s within the last few months. No hassles involved. All hardware in PC detected and wireless Internet set up automatically. I’m running X peeee and MEPIS dual boot on this pooter now....again the install took about 20 minutes (including HDD partitioning)...and MEPIS detected my Internet connection just fine. No tweaking necessary.
you might have to hunt around for printer drivers if you’ve purchased a printer within the last year...
That was / is the only drawback I came across...
I use RedHat on my various systems, but I've checked out Ubuntu and Kubuntu, among others. I recently downloaded the Kubuntu ISO, and tested it in VMware for my wife. It seems to work pretty good, and is really easy to install. One really cool feature is that you can boot it up on the CD/DVD and see if it detects all of your hardware before you even install anything.
Ubuntu, Fedora, or SuSE
I’m running W2K SP4 and have been fairly happy with it.
Both offer "live" CD options. You can download the ISO image, burn a single CD, and (if your BIOS is set up to boot from CD) boot the CD(s) without committing to Linux. It'll give you a chance to poke around a little.
If you have 2GB of memory and a dual core, Linux will sing. Note, running from just the live CDs will be a little slower because you're pulling everything off a relatively slow CDROM drive, and it is compressed to boot.
Other good distros are Suse and Red Hat. Although the Linux community is somewhat ah "cheesed off" at Novel/Suse for making a deal with the devil (MS)...