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Anybody use a Linux machine as their main desktop machine?
- Thread starter bmacsys
- Start date
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Since moving, my only home machine has been a 430 MHz Geode with 256 MB RAM than runs a variant of Fedora. The machine that I have at work runs both Vista and Ubuntu 8.10. On some days, Vista doesn't even see the light of day.
Which is interesting, because I force all of my students to use XP. }
Which is interesting, because I force all of my students to use XP. }
My main laptop uses x64 Mint as of a few days ago.
Coming from using Dapper Drake Ubuntu 8-o man have they come a long way.
Speedy, doesn't rape your hard drive. And it does what you want.
Coming from using Dapper Drake Ubuntu 8-o man have they come a long way.
Speedy, doesn't rape your hard drive. And it does what you want.
I've already mentioned what I run in the first page, but it's due for an update. Ubuntu 8.10 was working fabulously on my work laptop (Dell Latitude D630), except for the fact that it wouldn't connect to the enterprise WPA2 config that I've set up for wireless at one of the schools I work for. Even using Wicd in place of Network Manager or running wpa_supplicant directly form the CLI wouldn't get it connected. What was even more annoying was that Network Manager wouldn't activate the "Connect" button once you did configure everything through there (major bug for a desktop oriented distribution that had it working in the past). I didn't want to revert to 8.04 (which is their long-term support edition), and since I was itching to try something else I decided to take the plunge with another distribution.
I chose between two distributions: Arch Linux and Debian "Etch" (this was three weeks before "Lenny" was released). Since I'm familiar with Slackware and I had tried Arch before and liked it, I thought I'd give it a run first. Unfortunately, at the time I attempted this, I just didn't have the time to tinker around configuration files on my laptop. Thus, I abandoned Arch for the time being. I then decided to install Debian "Etch" which I already have running on servers and some desktops at work and I've been pleased with it overall, but I soon started running into problems because of the philosophy behind Debian's "stable" tree. A lot of things were quite outdated and support on my laptop was lacking greatly compared to Ubuntu. Because of this, I decided to give Lenny a try (which was still at RC at this point).
What a breath of fresh air, especially for a Debian distribution! There were a few niggles here and there, but nothing major that I couldn't fix. Soon enough, the official Lenny release came and went on Valentine's Day, and I'm still running it on my laptop. It's running pretty well that I'm finding it difficult to try anything else on it. I'm still considering taking a weekend to install Arch on it since it's using a newer kernel, but for now, Lenny has me set.
I chose between two distributions: Arch Linux and Debian "Etch" (this was three weeks before "Lenny" was released). Since I'm familiar with Slackware and I had tried Arch before and liked it, I thought I'd give it a run first. Unfortunately, at the time I attempted this, I just didn't have the time to tinker around configuration files on my laptop. Thus, I abandoned Arch for the time being. I then decided to install Debian "Etch" which I already have running on servers and some desktops at work and I've been pleased with it overall, but I soon started running into problems because of the philosophy behind Debian's "stable" tree. A lot of things were quite outdated and support on my laptop was lacking greatly compared to Ubuntu. Because of this, I decided to give Lenny a try (which was still at RC at this point).
What a breath of fresh air, especially for a Debian distribution! There were a few niggles here and there, but nothing major that I couldn't fix. Soon enough, the official Lenny release came and went on Valentine's Day, and I'm still running it on my laptop. It's running pretty well that I'm finding it difficult to try anything else on it. I'm still considering taking a weekend to install Arch on it since it's using a newer kernel, but for now, Lenny has me set.
I've been using Linux as the main OS on my PCs for years. I own an older Acer laptop and a 1.6Ghz Atom netbook, and use Ubuntu 10.10 on both, but I also have Icaros (Aros) on each of them which I use as a secondary OS for research, testing and development. I think as a user OS, Ubuntu has everything you need really, except maybe commercial games. But anyone who has come over to my place and had to use the computer has had no trouble using Ubuntu, finding the program they need and using it to do what they want (usually opening a browser or IM client).
I'd love to try setting up OSX on my netbook if that's possible, I've seen it running on other Intel Atom/GMA combination Hackintoshes before.
I'd love to try setting up OSX on my netbook if that's possible, I've seen it running on other Intel Atom/GMA combination Hackintoshes before.
Ubuntu rocks (including other Linux distros). When Apple has abandoned your old machines, Linux is there. It's amazing to me that I can install a fully functional OS on machines that Apple doesn't care about anymore, with modern tools and browsers. Even better, depending on the disto (like Mint) an old machine can feel even faster than when running the last compatible version of OS X. I never thought I would turn into a Linux-tard, but it has happened.
That doesn't mean I don't love OS X or the classic systems. I still have the "old" compatible versions of any Mac OS installed, but I also have Linux to keep the machine fully usable with modern applications...
That doesn't mean I don't love OS X or the classic systems. I still have the "old" compatible versions of any Mac OS installed, but I also have Linux to keep the machine fully usable with modern applications...
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