Linux

[Micter]

anyone running Linux? I'm considering ditching Microsoft all together.

Advice?

Pros/cons?

[GuitarBilly]

I tried it years and years ago. The main issue was finding stuff that was compatible to it. Maybe things changed now, I am talking late 90's/early 00's here.

The OS itself is really awesome and easy to get the hang of it. But I found that was missing on little things I take for granted with windows, like needing a certain software or plug-in and being able to find it right away.

But again, that was a LONG time ago.

[Micter]

I'm running both now. It took me about 1/2 hr. to get Linux running. all my hardware works fine and I can only see one reason to keep windows. I have a Zune mp3 player. lol

[ovid9]

Ubuntu is awesome.

THAT SAID:

I switched from Ubuntu to Win 7 as my main OS when I could afford to drop $100 on an OS. Linux is great, but what do you want your computer to do?

Do you want to surf the web, and do just limited stuff? Sure, that's easy. Do you want to do more complex stuff.....well, you can, but it can be trickier. Getting some hardware to work can be fun (video cards especially). Good luck doing music recording with it, it can, but again, finding compatible hardware can be a pain.

Almost everything CAN be done in linux that window can do, its just more time consuming.

Do you like tweaking and messing with stuff to get it to work? Or do you like it to just work?

If its the former, then by all mean, switch fully to linux. If you just want it to work, maybe dual boot for a bit to see if its for you.

I would highly suggest you try Ubuntu though. Its a pretty fun OS.

Edit: You posted again.

What you are you running?

Ditch the Zune, be happy.

[Micter]

Ubuntu is awesome.

THAT SAID:

I switched from Ubuntu to Win 7 as my main OS when I could afford to drop $100 on an OS. Linux is great, but what do you want your computer to do?

Do you want to surf the web, and do just limited stuff? Sure, that's easy. Do you want to do more complex stuff.....well, you can, but it can be trickier. Getting some hardware to work can be fun (video cards especially). Good luck doing music recording with it, it can, but again, finding compatible hardware can be a pain.

Almost everything CAN be done in linux that window can do, its just more time consuming.

Do you like tweaking and messing with stuff to get it to work? Or do you like it to just work?

If its the former, then by all mean, switch fully to linux. If you just want it to work, maybe dual boot for a bit to see if its for you.

I would highly suggest you try Ubuntu though. Its a pretty fun OS.

Edit: You posted again.

What you are you running?

Ditch the Zune, be happy.

I'm thinking the dual OS setup is gonna work better for me initially. So far I like Ubuntu but I think there are some things that won't work for me. we'll see. Thanks for the response!

[Harvest]

Been running Ubuntu since 6/06, and support (mostly) Redhat systems for a living. If you've got a Linux question, lemme know

[Micter]

Been running Ubuntu since 6/06, and support (mostly) Redhat systems for a living. If you've got a Linux question, lemme know

Awesome! Thanks.

[BrendanO]

I've been running Linux Mint on the living room laptop for the past year. My roommate and I only use it for internet purposes, but we've never run into any problems. Everything streams, everything loads, everything plays. The only "problem" we've had with it is that it's impossible to route the audio through the headphone jack (for external speakers; laptop speakers being what they are). We're not sure if it's a software or hardware problem, and frankly don't care, as we've taken to just using an external sound card my roomie had on hand.

We might have a different experience if we were gaming or trying for any kind of productivity on it, but I know that I don't miss Windows or anything. That said, my personal desktop is still a Windows machine

[racerevlon]

Linux rules, and Open Office opens my Word docs off my NFS server faster than Windows over an SMB share. I say go for it. Great learning experience and gets you out of the Microsoft world and into real computing.

[indienoise]

Unless you're somebody like Harvest, I'd say the way to go would be either dual-boot (which it looks like you're doing), or running something like xubuntu on a computer that's old but you're not quite ready to toss yet.

[nightflameauto]

Linux can be fun, but tricky for newcomers at first. It's a lot easier now than it was when I first got started with it. That was back when you had to configure the boot floppy to connect to your modem, which was a dialup modem, to download packages to install, and some packages were source only and you had to get the compiler and development environment up and running before you could do much anything else. Good times.

Too many distributions went the way of desktop friendliness so I switched to FreeBSD for my servers at work, but Linux can still be a lot of fun to mess with and tweak. Different distributions target different demographics too, so look around a bit to find one that fits the way you want to work. Do you wanna set up and go, or do you wanna get a kernel, and compiler and run everything else from scratch? There's distros out there for either, and everything in between. All it takes is some google-fu to find them.

[indienoise]

Linux can be fun, but tricky for newcomers at first. It's a lot easier now than it was when I first got started with it. That was back when you had to configure the boot floppy to connect to your modem, which was a dialup modem, to download packages to install, and some packages were source only and you had to get the compiler and development environment up and running before you could do much anything else. Good times.

Too many distributions went the way of desktop friendliness so I switched to FreeBSD for my servers at work, but Linux can still be a lot of fun to mess with and tweak. Different distributions target different demographics too, so look around a bit to find one that fits the way you want to work. Do you wanna set up and go, or do you wanna get a kernel, and compiler and run everything else from scratch? There's distros out there for either, and everything in between. All it takes is some google-fu to find them.

I remember in the mid-90's when my dad was trying to get a computer running on Linux. Red hat, I think. I don't know if he ever succeeded with that one.

[nightflameauto]

I remember in the mid-90's when my dad was trying to get a computer running on Linux. Red hat, I think. I don't know if he ever succeeded with that one.

I wonder how many people ended up smashing monitors over Linux frustrations back then? I know I came close a couple times. Never followed through, but close.

[Micter]

I remember almost breaking some monitors over windows 98 and AMD processors. Plug and pray!

So far I've pretty much got a handle on Ubuntu as it's very basic. There were no issues with hardware but I did have to work on Rhythmbox a bit to get it to play. Running a dual boot seems to be the way to go for me (right now anyway). I have other machines that are designated for different functions. I have a windows desk top designated for recording, a laptop that is an interface for my laser cutter that needs windows. On this machine running Ubuntu I don't really do much other than web, e-mail, and some photo editing. I do some audio editing once in a great while but that's not out of the question with Ubuntu.

So far so good!

[nightflameauto]

Linux + photo editing = GIMP

[100 watt]

I'm running both now. It took me about 1/2 hr. to get Linux running. all my hardware works fine and I can only see one reason to keep windows. I have a Zune mp3 player. lol

My wife & I both have Zunes. It sucks BC you cant hardly get anything for them anymore. Are they still making them?

[Micter]

Linux + photo editing = GIMP

Ya, I got that real quick.

[Micter]

I'm running both now. It took me about 1/2 hr. to get Linux running. all my hardware works fine and I can only see one reason to keep windows. I have a Zune mp3 player. lol

My wife & I both have Zunes. It sucks BC you cant hardly get anything for them anymore. Are they still making them?

I never really download from the Zune site anyway so that's not an issue. I'm not sure if they still make them or not. I have an 80 gig Zune and an Ipod classic. I think the Zune actually sounds better (more bottom end) but they both have software issues that try to keep you tethered to their respective brands. I don't like that in either case!

[100 watt]

Yeah. I never download from their site either.

Ive went thru a few cables. I dont think they interchange with ipod stuff.

Yeah, the Zune sounds better to my ears. Its nicer for vids too.

[Micter]

Yeah. I never download from their site either.

Ive went thru a few cables. I dont think they interchange with ipod stuff.

Yeah, the Zune sounds better to my ears. Its nicer for vids too.

Ya Ive gone through a couple cables as well. I had one get stuck in the port. That was fun!

[100 watt]

yeah. Mines getting to where the battery doesnt stay charged very long. I bought it in january of '09. I got the 120 gb.

[Harvest]

What generation is your ipod? Have you tried out the Rockbox firmware?

http://www.rockbox.org/

I have it on my little Sansa, works awesome.

Linux can be fun, but tricky for newcomers at first. It's a lot easier now than it was when I first got started with it. That was back when you had to configure the boot floppy to connect to your modem, which was a dialup modem, to download packages to install, and some packages were source only and you had to get the compiler and development environment up and running before you could do much anything else. Good times.

Too many distributions went the way of desktop friendliness so I switched to FreeBSD for my servers at work, but Linux can still be a lot of fun to mess with and tweak. Different distributions target different demographics too, so look around a bit to find one that fits the way you want to work. Do you wanna set up and go, or do you wanna get a kernel, and compiler and run everything else from scratch? There's distros out there for either, and everything in between. All it takes is some google-fu to find them.

I had a roommate in uni that was running an early version of Slackware like that, that was my first exposure to Linux. In those days, if something didn't work, you were pretty much expected to figure it out on your own and write your own driver/software/workaround as appropriate. (and then optionally provide it to the Linux community for them to berate your crappy code :P).

I didn't get in that early. I started dual booting XP with Fedora Core 2 starting around 2004 sometime and gradually started using it more & more. I finally switched over completely after a windows re-install wiped out my boot loader for the 9 thousandth time - The main thing I was leaving on Windows was Steam and all my games.

BTW, Steam has a Linux Native client now and they're porting over quite a few games, with way more on the horizon. Their CEO has publicly stated they are strongly against Microsoft's "Windows Store" in Win 8, and the whole UEFI boot thing so they decided to finally get on board with Linux and start producing some native games.

Anyways, a couple more apps you might find:

Photo Editing/Raw Conversion:
RawTherapee
Darktable (I like RT better, the UI is kinda wonky on Darktable)
GIMP
Photoshop works through WINE http://www.winehq.org

Audio Editing:
Audacity
Ardour

One annoying thing I need to look into: When you have an app open that uses ALSA drivers (low latency sound driver), it steals the audio output so you can't just minimize the window and say, watch a youtube video.

Guitar:
Tuxguitar (reads guitar pro 1-5 files, powertab files, etc.)

[Micter]

[quote="Harvest"]What generation is your ipod? Have you tried out the Rockbox firmware?

http://www.rockbox.org/

I have it on my little Sansa, works awesome. /quote]

I have an 80 gig classic I guess it's the 1st generation?. Rockbox seems to not work on it's own. I guess emcore needs to be installed first. I just might have to try this out!

[long standing member]

Linux absolutely rules.
Mint is probably the most user friendly distro out right now.
the only thing I ever had a problem with is games. If you're a gamer, there just aren't many games available for linux. Yes, some you can run on WINE under linux, but the only type of people I would ever chase away from Linux are the gamers.
On the other hand (i'm not a gamer so I don't remember the details) but steam something or other that lets you play on the net has now come out with a linux program.

[ovid9]

Linux absolutely rules.
Mint is probably the most user friendly distro out right now.
the only thing I ever had a problem with is games. If you're a gamer, there just aren't many games available for linux. Yes, some you can run on WINE under linux, but the only type of people I would ever chase away from Linux are the gamers.
On the other hand (i'm not a gamer so I don't remember the details) but steam something or other that lets you play on the net has now come out with a linux program.

Yeah, and if you're more a classic gamer (classic as in 90s and earlier) Dosbox runs fine in linux so you have access to tons of awesome games that way.