Linux. Worth the money?

[Hivetyrant]

Yeah, I think the powerpack is sounding the best at the momment. I dont want to have to go and find all the drivers I need, the first problem I ever had with Linux (which not even Lennon could figure out) was my video card not working, aparently that is all easy witht he powerpack as it comes with an ATI pack and stuff like that.
I will look into it more but I think Mandrake is the way to go, and when it is finished, I like the look of Fedora core 3...

[LennonCook]

"Which not even I could figure out"? You make it sound like I'm some kind of absolute authority on everything Linux, and that I was such even when I'd not even used Linux as a primary OS yet...
Jarrad, you flatter me. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Anyway, drivers not existing are, to my understanding, problems with poorly compiled, or old, kernels - and alot of distros use 2.4.x kernels. The first version of Ubuntu (which I have around here somewhere) comes with kernel 2.6.9 by default (newest stable in the 2.6 branch is 2.6.11), and according to PC Authority, it's hardware detection o install found everything on all of their test systems - including an AMD64 box. I have heard of only one person having problems with Ubuntu's hardware detection, and that is to do with a particular wireless network card causing an infinite loop (and the installer apparently wouldn't let him Ctrl - C).

I, personally, have had nothing but problems with Redhat based distros: Mandrake has (had? - might be fixed in the newer, huger, versions) no decent package management, Fedora core I've not ever even managed to install... Which is why I recommend Ubuntu if you want a GUI centric distro. If you had a decent internet connection, and a day or four (depending on the speed of the computer, the internet connection, and which software you want) at your disposal, I would recommend installing Gentoo from stage 1... everything compiled for your system, to your liking. Just follow the documentation, and don't be fooled by the fact that some mirrors have a '2005.0' release folder, 2004.3 is the newest out (I think).

[Dace De'Briago]

Ubuntu and Xandros are my favourites, essentially Windows clones.

Easy to install, free to download. Mmm.

[LennonCook]

Originally posted by Dace De'Briago: essentially Windows clones.

That is my most depised concept - Linux pretending to be Windows (or, infact, any program pretending to be another). Which is why I recommend Ubuntu only as a decent GUI-centric distro - having used it for about 2 months, I will never recommend it to anyone as a good distro in general (even though at the beggining of the two months, I did since PC Authority did - I've now developed my own opinion of it).
If you want something to be a pixel-perfect clone of Windows, you don't want Linux - you want Windows.

EDIT: Reconsidered, and reworded slightly...

[ 03-28-2005, 05:58 AM: Message edited by: LennonCook ]