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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

[Captain Hat]

Slackware 13.

I like the BSD init scripts, the logical file system, and how very stable it is. Probably the only distro I haven't had randomly conk out on certain applications because of vendor specific packages shitting around.

[ein]

Bleh, this isn't working.
I have a feeling it's because I'm burning these disks with my old Mac.
Anyway, trying to use Ubuntu to make an Arch disk:

(initramfs) mount: mounting /dev/loop0 on //filesystem.squashfs failed: Input/output error
Can not mount /dev/loop0 (/cdrom/casper/filesystem.squashfs) on //filesystem.squashfd
udevd[106]: worker [297] unexpectedly returned with status 0x0100

udevd[106]: worker [297] failed while handling '/devices/virtual/block/loop0'

Is this the kind of problem that could be solved with a modern computer, or am I seriously screwing things up?

[SolarShado]

Bleh, this isn't working.
I have a feeling it's because I'm burning these disks with my old Mac.
Anyway, trying to use Ubuntu to make an Arch disk:

(initramfs) mount: mounting /dev/loop0 on //filesystem.squashfs failed: Input/output error
Can not mount /dev/loop0 (/cdrom/casper/filesystem.squashfs) on //filesystem.squashfd
udevd[106]: worker [297] unexpectedly returned with status 0x0100

udevd[106]: worker [297] failed while handling '/devices/virtual/block/loop0'

Is this the kind of problem that could be solved with a modern computer, or am I seriously screwing things up?

just to be sure, that error pops up when you try to boot from the arch CD? i'm not sure, but it looks like it's having trouble detecting the CD drive...
try the disk in another computer, at least then you'll know if you've got a good disk

[Auto Slaughter]

I think I was on the verge of moving over to Linux... And then I found C#, and developed an active interest in Windows programming.

The Mono Project is the open source implementation of .NET and C#.  In fact, if you're running Ubuntu, you've already got it installed as the included note-taking application Tomboy is based on mono.

[ein]

I can't test the disks because the only other computers I have right now are a friend's netbook and my old mac.
I'm going to burn one at school tomorrow using a modern box, see if that helps any.

Anyway, once I get my computer working, I'm going to wipe my old mac and install Linux on it.
Not sure what I'll use, considering it's a PowerPC G4, but I'll find something.

[ILikePie]

Bleh, this isn't working.
I have a feeling it's because I'm burning these disks with my old Mac.
Anyway, trying to use Ubuntu to make an Arch disk:

(initramfs) mount: mounting /dev/loop0 on //filesystem.squashfs failed: Input/output error
Can not mount /dev/loop0 (/cdrom/casper/filesystem.squashfs) on //filesystem.squashfd
udevd[106]: worker [297] unexpectedly returned with status 0x0100

udevd[106]: worker [297] failed while handling '/devices/virtual/block/loop0'

Is this the kind of problem that could be solved with a modern computer, or am I seriously screwing things up?

just to be sure, that error pops up when you try to boot from the arch CD? i'm not sure, but it looks like it's having trouble detecting the CD drive...
try the disk in another computer, at least then you'll know if you've got a good disk

It's having trouble mounting a virtual filesystem on his computer. I think, isn't that what an initramfs does?

[lordnincompoop]

I could never be bothered to use Linux. If I wanted to dual boot something, I'd go with trying OS X first, using the myriad of Hackintosh guides.

[smigenboger]

I'm currently stuck with Linux. When I get a new computer, I'll put Windows 7 on it.

[GlyphGryph]

I use and enjoy using Mint Linux. It looks nice, it does what I need to without giving me problems (except for one a few problems that I'm pretty sure are at their core faults of the hardware, not the OS). Since Windows refused to work at all on this computer, its a step up.

The absence of games I generall consider a good thing - though even then my hardware is far more of a limitation than Linux.

I've used Windows for a long time, but I never really liked it. MacOS I abhorred. I found the design frustrating, illogical, and hard to work with. Linux has its problems, but I think I like it the best of the options available (not having used Windows 7 yet.)

[Ephemeriis]

I really like Linux.  I love the whole OSS approach to software.  We've got a few servers at work that run Linux.  We're in the process of switching over to Asterisk for our phones.  I've got a B&N nook, which runs Android, which is more-or-less Linux under the hood.  Big fan of Linux in general.

But you aren't going to get rid of Windows any time soon.  It's too deeply entrenched.  Far too much software requires Windows.  And far too many people just assume Windows is the only thing out there.

Which isn't necessarily a bad thing...  I don't have anything against Windows...  It generally works OK...  And it's what I use on most of my computers...

But it isn't always the right tool for the job.  Which isn't to say that Linux is always the right tool for the job...  But there are a lot of folks out there who don't even realize there are other tools available.  And I've wound up dealing with some very messy implementations that went bad almost entirely because somebody insisted on using Windows where it simply did not make sense.

[Mephisto]

I'd like to try it once, but I currently lack a spare partition on my PC and I'm afraid to overwrite vital data if I make a new one...

As long as you've got free space you should be able to shrink a partition. Windows 7 can do it natively from its partition manager (maybe vista too, but I don't think so). Otherwise, boot a live CD (most Linux installers are now) and run gparted. Excellent general purpose partition management utility.

WUBI. Install Ubuntu, Debian, and a few other Debian variants from within Windows. Want to nuke your Linux install? Delete the file from Windows. Zero chance of overwriting anything.

I suppose I should answer the topic at hand. I use (Arch) Linux for everything now, with the exception of my FreeBSD test server. Everything is just easier with a good tiling window manager and a few tabbed terminal windows.

Lightweight Linux distros are great. I've got a full LAMP, along with Mono and a bunch of other junk, running on an old Inspiron 1300 that's comparable to a netbook. The system is still plenty snappy. I can play through Wine anything this particular box could play when it was running Windows, even with said LAMP up and running.

[lordnincompoop]

You see, I don't even know how this stuff works. If I make a 500 GB partition for Linux for example, does that mean my Linux system can only access that 500GB? Is it the same for OS X then, if I install it in a partition?

[SolarShado]

You see, I don't even know how this stuff works. If I make a 500 GB partition for Linux for example, does that mean my Linux system can only access that 500GB? Is it the same for OS X then, if I install it in a partition?

Short answer: yes, and no.

Your Linux partition will be roughly equivalent to your C drive: the OS, your programs and the vast majority of your files will be there. However, you'll be able to access your Windows partition from Linux (not positive about MacOS, it should work too).

The important thing to note, however, is that Windows most likely will not be able to access data on your Linux partition. I've heard of programs that will allow Windows to read Linux partitions, but I've never tried them.

Of course, the simple solution is to keep everything you'd want shared on the Windows partition.

And you shouldn't need 500GB for Linux btw. 20-30 should be plenty.

>snip<

1. good call about WUBI, i've never used it and so tend to forget about it >_>
2. Arch is indeed awesome
3. Why are you running LAMP on a laptop? Just to experiment with?

[Virex]

Can't you just make a small partition for linux and a larger partition that both operating systems can read for the shared data?

[SolarShado]

Can't you just make a small partition for linux and a larger partition that both operating systems can read for the shared data?

Sure, but Windows likes putting everything on C:, and it's generally easier to let it. Plus you'd have to be careful about the sizes of each partition. And for a filesystem you'd either need to use FAT (old, relatively poor performance, but a good common-denominator) or NTFS (which is what Windows is probably using anyway).

I did do that for some time though. I was dual-booting WinNT and an old version of Red Hat that didn't have a read-write NTFS driver.