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Of course, I love Linux! Why would I use anything else?

9 (10%)

Yeah, Linux's nice. Windows (or Mac OS) still has its uses though.

46 (51.1%)

Linux... Meh... Tried it, what's the big deal?

7 (7.8%)

Linux? Wuzzat?

3 (3.3%)

Bleh. I could use it if I had to I guess...

9 (10%)

Linux? Screw that. I'm sticking with Windows/Mac OS!

16 (17.8%)

Total Members Voted: 90

[lordnincompoop]

I'm resurrecting this to say I'll be dual booting Linux on mah C: drive after clearing some space. Which Linux distro or whatever do you guys recommend for somebody like me? A guide would be nice too.

[SolarShado]

I'm resurrecting this to say I'll be dual booting Linux on mah C: drive after clearing some space. Which Linux distro or whatever do you guys recommend for somebody like me? A guide would be nice too.

If you're new to linux, I believe the standard intro distro in ubuntu. I've not used it personally, but I can say Xubuntu is pleasant. It's a derivative that uses the lightweight XFCE desktop environment.

If you like linux and want to delve deeper, I'd recommend Arch. You'll learn a lot about how linux works by building up from a bare-bones system.

[Dasleah]

Xubuntu is nice, but their IRC channel is full of the most cliched examples of neckbeards you will ever find. I'd recommend Mint, as it's basically Ubuntu + the non-free / proprietary stuff you'd want to install anyway (Flash, codecs, encrypted DVD playback, etcetera), plus it's green, and green is the best colour.

Has anyone tried Crunchbang? Their second alpha for v10 is out and it looks nice.

[ein]

If you do install Arch, I'd recommend having the Beginners' Guide up on a second computer.
Only way I managed to get it working.
Anyway, this is actually my first Linux box.
Yay for completely ignoring people's advice about starting with Ubuntu.

[SolarShado]

If you do install Arch, I'd recommend having the Beginners' Guide up on a second computer.
Only way I managed to get it working.
Anyway, this is actually my first Linux box.
Yay for completely ignoring people's advice about starting with Ubuntu.

Nice

Yeah, the beginners' guide's a must. If you're up to it, you might try installing into a VM first, to familiarize yourself with the process. Depending on your level of geek-fu, that could be more trouble than it's worth however.

[ein]

By the way, is there a good audio composing package?
I've got Tux Guitar, but that's not as convenient for anything other than guitar.

[SolarShado]

By the way, is there a good audio composing package?
I've got Tux Guitar, but that's not as convenient for anything other than guitar.

Never looked into OSS audio editors much, but have you checked out Audacity and/or LMMS? They're both in the Arch repos.

[ein]

I've got Audacity.
It's sound recording and editing, though.
I'll see what LMMS is.

Yeah, that's what I was looking for.

[Lasander]

I just switched to Fedora 13 LXDE Spin.  What sold me was the easy-peasy full disk encryption during the install.  Just check a box put in a passphrase and done.  Installing software is nice too since pretty much every distribution has a software repository so I either search for something in the package manager or if I know what I am looking for I can just install it via command line.  No more prowling the internet looking for a download link that may or may not be trustworthy. Has SELinux and the firewall is easy enough to mess with so I feel pretty secure.

Once I get my data on my desktop  backed up I think I will replace my Windows 7 install as well.  The software I normally use is already supported: DF, Folding@Home, Abiword, Chrome, Starcraft 2(with WINE), and Freenet.

[ILikePie]

I hear Ardour is great, it's got the editing power of Audacity, midi support, and I believe you can connect your guitar to it.

I'd recommend Gentoo over Arch, but that's because I can't get Arch running properly. Gentoo is great.

[runiq]

Naa, Arch all the way. Does all I want, and doesn't do anything I don't.

You can get your kernel to boot in under ten seconds, it's amazing. I've got a kernel that boots in about ten, and that's because it takes a while to decompress lzma. Starting the various daemons and whatnot takes another 10, but it's still much faster than my windows machine.

Your kernel boots in ten seconds? You mean the whole system boots in ten seconds, right? Because that is pretty cool, a kernel booting in ten, not so much.

[ILikePie]

Yeah, that is what I meant. The kernel itself boots in maybe three, I wonder what'd happen if I ran it uncompressed.

[Sir Finkus]

Xubuntu is nice, but their IRC channel is full of the most cliched examples of neckbeards you will ever find. I'd recommend Mint, as it's basically Ubuntu + the non-free / proprietary stuff you'd want to install anyway (Flash, codecs, encrypted DVD playback, etcetera), plus it's green, and green is the best colour.

Has anyone tried Crunchbang? Their second alpha for v10 is out and it looks nice.

I tried it a while ago on my netbook, it worked pretty well, but I didn't use it for very long.

In other news, I tried Ubuntu Netbook remix on my netbook today and wondered what the developers were thinking when they designed it.  Somehow, they made it slower than the desktop edition, and ruined the interface.  If you want to launch an application that doesn't have a big shiny icon on the left, you have to navigate laggy menus or contend with an even laggier search interface.  Now I hear that they are going to be using the same interface with 11.04 by default.  I guess come April I'll be moving on to something different.

[lordnincompoop]

Anyone know of a minimal-yet-immediately-usable distro for a laptop with 0.3GB ram, a terrible CPU and a small hard drive?

[ILikePie]

Like I said I'd go with Gentoo, but it takes a while to set up. Try Slackware or Arch.