Microsoft haters

[thedungeondelver]

Yeah, yeah, I've been hearing that for a decade now. "Any day now - ready for joe user! Ready for the desktop!"

Actually, if you want a desktop-ready OS with Unix power and flexibility, Mac OS X is the way to go, IMO. :ducks for cover:

Why would I pay $700 for an underpowered PC running a Linux distro I have to pay for as well?

[order99]

Or you could grab an old Mac on Ebay and load OS9, my favorite OS by far...
Yeah I know, i'm a Luddite. :p

Back to the original question-my Linux box runs Fedora Core 1. I'm lazy and don't like command-line either, so I:

Loaded Fedora(simple install)
Visited FreshRPMS
Downloaded Apt for RPM and the Synaptic GUI frontend

Now you have a ready-made repository and a simple mouseclick takes care of things.

For absolute beginners i'd probably go with:

Mepis(easy Install, Apt and repositories pre-loaded, Debian core)
Xandros(everything front-loaded for you...but the Free version slows your burner to about 4X).
Fedora Core ( easy install but you'll want to tweak it-follow my instructions above and then grab all the fun stuff later Media players etc.)
Lots more by reputation though I haven't used them-lots more I like but the company merged or sank (Lycoris,frex)

If you want to play games you'll want a good emulator or dual-boot on the same PC (slightly more advanced, ive never done it myself-i'm a Pen&Paper gamer).

Here's some sites you'll want to know:
Distrowatch(news, reviews and links to EVERYTHING Linux)
LinuxQuestions.org(newbie-friendly...the tweaked my Windows box for me while I was still thinking about the switch!
Edmunds Enterprises of America(my favorite place to grab 3 or 4 distros when I want to play with new toys and want to spend about $10 or so).

Hope that starts you off in the right direction. I'm not a Windows hater BTW-I just don't like it for ME.

[Jason Coplen]

I use Ubuntu these days, and it works like a charm.

The only problem is that some of the programs seem crash happy.

[Algolei]

MicroSoft sucks!

(This has been posted by someone running IE6 in Windows 98.)

[mistere29]

I use Ubuntu these days, and it works like a charm.

The only problem is that some of the programs seem crash happy.

Might as well stick with microsoft then

Actually it is just a cost thing, I want to see how much free software i can put on a computer. Windows XP has been preforming fine for me.

[mistere29]

If you want to play games you'll want a good emulator or dual-boot on the same PC (slightly more advanced, ive never done it myself-i'm a Pen&Paper gamer).

So can anyone recommend a good emulator?

With the dual boot option, could i have a partion that both windows and linux can reed. Is there a file format they both recognize?

[mistere29]

Is the adaptive spam filter an extension? I'm not seeing it on mine, and I'd like to know if it's catching any of my mail.

Oh, and my GF would agree with you. She thinks having to actually type something like:

dpkg -i mozilla-firefox-2.0.deb

is satanic behavior.

Aren't there GUI distributions out there?

[dcs]

I can't stand Macs. Tasks that are simple on a PC (assigning an static IP address, for example, or connecting to a network printer) are unnecessarily difficult on a Mac.

One caveat about Thunderbird is that its hotkeys are completely different from Outlook and OE. For example, don't try to use CTRL-S to send a message; you need to use ALT-ENTER.

[JCBoney]

If you want to play games you'll want a good emulator or dual-boot on the same PC (slightly more advanced, ive never done it myself-i'm a Pen&Paper gamer).

So can anyone recommend a good emulator?

With the dual boot option, could i have a partion that both windows and linux can reed. Is there a file format they both recognize?

WINE is adequate. I say adaquate.

With dual booting, you want to install Windows first, making sure that you leave enough HD space for the linux distro. Then you load the linux distro, and when installing it will use either GRUB or LILO to set up a dual boot. When you're finished, whenever you turn the box on, it will ask which system you want. This won't work if you install linux first and then windows.

[thedungeondelver]

If you want to play games you'll want a good emulator or dual-boot on the same PC (slightly more advanced, ive never done it myself-i'm a Pen&Paper gamer).

So can anyone recommend a good emulator?

With the dual boot option, could i have a partion that both windows and linux can reed. Is there a file format they both recognize?

WINE is adequate. I say adaquate.

With dual booting, you want to install Windows first, making sure that you leave enough HD space for the linux distro. Then you load the linux distro, and when installing it will use either GRUB or LILO to set up a dual boot. When you're finished, whenever you turn the box on, it will ask which system you want. This won't work if you install linux first and then windows.

What about Windows through VMWare or Bochs?

[JCBoney]

I have zero experience with either of those emulators.

[Philotomy Jurament]

I can't stand Macs. Tasks that are simple on a PC (assigning an static IP address, for example, or connecting to a network printer) are unnecessarily difficult on a Mac.

Well, to each his own. I can't say that either of those seems terribly complicated, though. For example, assigning an IP address (static or otherwise) is done in System Preferences|Network. There's a TCP/IP tab with an edit box for the IP address and a drop-down combo where you can select Manual (i.e. static), DHCP with manual address (very useful), DHCP, or BOOTP. Or you can do it the Unix way from the shell, if you know how.

As for network printers, I run the Printer Setup Utility and mine just show up in the list. I didn't have to do anything. Might be different for older hardware, though.

Prior to OS X, Linux was my preferred operating system. I never cared for OS 9 (or earlier); it was attractive, but under-the-hood it wasn't terribly impressive. However, the advent of OS X changed my tune on Macs. I get all my Unixy goodness, native versions of MS Office, a nice GUI I don't have to futz with, and now that Macs are intel based, I can use Parallels Desktop to run the odd Windows app that I might need without even rebooting/leaving my Mac desktop.

Anyway, I don't mean to start a OS war. Some people like Windows. Some people like blood sausage and head cheese. It's a crazy world; that's okay with me.

[mistere29]

With dual booting, you want to install Windows first, making sure that you leave enough HD space for the linux distro. Then you load the linux distro, and when installing it will use either GRUB or LILO to set up a dual boot. When you're finished, whenever you turn the box on, it will ask which system you want. This won't work if you install linux first and then windows.

Can linux read any of the drive formats XP can? With the dual boot, i'll want to keep most of my stuff on a partition that both OS's can read.

[JCBoney]

With dual booting, you want to install Windows first, making sure that you leave enough HD space for the linux distro. Then you load the linux distro, and when installing it will use either GRUB or LILO to set up a dual boot. When you're finished, whenever you turn the box on, it will ask which system you want. This won't work if you install linux first and then windows.

Can linux read any of the drive formats XP can? With the dual boot, i'll want to keep most of my stuff on a partition that both OS's can read.

If you mean "can the linux OS read what's on a windows partition?" then yes.

In the linux partition, you can mount the windows partition then have a look over there... copy it over to the linux partition, for example.

ETA: but if you're looking for windows to read what's on a linux partition, you're out of luck.

[olaberg]

If you mean "can the linux OS read what's on a windows partition?" then yes.

But don't expect Linux to be able to WRITE to your XP partition. Most probably, XP is installed on a file system that can be read by but not written by Linux.