# Tell me about Lynux



## southerngurl (May 11, 2003)

Who has it? Pros? Cons? 

I just got a new PC and it has Vista. Nuff said.


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## Gary in ohio (May 11, 2002)

To answer your question need to know how you use your computer, what apps and how comfortable are you with using a computer and makeing changes to configs. updating software.

For most people who do little more than launch a web browser and email, there is very little functional differance. Screen layout will be a bit different depending the linux distribution you choose but click and launch is pretty much the same.

While linux is a lot better you need to look at all the hardware you have, OLD printers may be an issue and not work with linux. VERY new printer may have the same issue, OFF beat brands may have issues. If you need proprietary i/o cards linux may be an issue for you. WIFI is generally support on most boxes but there are few low end chip sets that linux does not work well with. (Broadcom) wifi specifically.

You need to look at the apps you run now and would like to run. Most opensource/free apps are available on linux but commercial applications may not be. There is often an similar tool but not the same as the windows app. If you do VERY heavy data managment with spreadsheets you need to be careful, While openoffice is a great tool, it has its limits when it comes to some advanced spreadsheets and there is no great Visio replacement yet for linux. 

Picking one of the mainsteam distributions is a big plus. Ubuntu, opensuse, Fedora. Debian, mandrake/Mandriva, pclinuxos, slakeware or one of there several throusand distros.

All have slightly different look and feel, pclinuxos as the most windows look.


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## southerngurl (May 11, 2003)

I mostly use my computer online. I have a couple of programs I have to be able to run. One is Sitespinner, a web developer software, and the other is Audacity, as I use my computer to record sermons for our church. Other than that I have a few games I like to play, though in reality almost never do because I don't have time. Civilization 3 and 4 , Age of Empires, etc. I use my computer to store photos and text documents. Nothing terribly exciting. I use computers a lot and have for years, but I'm no programmer or anything! Some of the stuff I've read is a little over my head, but if Linux is able to do what I need it to, I'm willing to take my time and read a little and work at it some. I'm tired of Microsoft. This Vista is ridiculously annoying, and it won't work with Audacity reliably. It freezes. This computer has so much ability, but I know Vista's behemoth size holds it back. I was going to put XP on this computer, but wanted to sell the Vista to make up the price. But greedy Microsoft doesn't let you do that apparently. It can only be used on this computer because it came on it. It cannot be transfered. And dell would have charged me 99 dollars more to get XP. Now how much sense does that make?


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## HermitJohn (May 10, 2002)

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ Yes there is a linux version.

http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=3453

Sitespinner will apparently run ok under WINE (think of it as an emulator though its really a translator since both windows and linux are both running on same hardware).

You can do your own google as to the games. Frankly though if you have a long laundry list of windows only software that you just have to have, then just buy windows.

Or you can dual boot. I have a windows partition that is never taken online just to run couple windows programs. They both can run under WINE but run much better natively under windows. I thankfully found a free program that lets windows read and write to a native linux partition, thus I dont need large windows partition.


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## Windy in Kansas (Jun 16, 2002)

southerngurl said:


> I just got a new PC and it has Vista. Nuff said.


Not really. I have Vista and it has always worked quite well for me. Others here have posted the same. Seems to be a minority that have issues with it.


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

southerngurl said:


> And dell would have charged me 99 dollars more to get XP. Now how much sense does that make?


They probably charge the extra fee because the XP machine will require different hardware. They need to stay with hardware that comes with XP drivers. Some newer hardware only works with Vista.

I'm guessing that switching to XP won't be as easy as just installing the operating system.


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## Gary in ohio (May 11, 2002)

Nevada said:


> They probably charge the extra fee because the XP machine will require different hardware. They need to stay with hardware that comes with XP drivers. Some newer hardware only works with Vista.
> 
> I'm guessing that switching to XP won't be as easy as just installing the operating system.


Hardware should not need to be different. There is LITTLE vista only hardware out there. granted they like to play it up as some big difference. You might not get all the ODDBALL Modes your video driver will support but slapping XP on a "VISTA" box is done all the time. Few corporate clients have moved to VISTA and are buying new desktops and laptops and downgrading vista to XP.

Unless your getting a high end gaming system with cutting edge video cards XP will work and even on the high end cards they will work, just not taking advantage of the new technologies in the card.


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## Kari (Mar 24, 2008)

Nevada said:


> They probably charge the extra fee because the XP machine will require different hardware.


We see and go through this daily even though we are a MS Gold Partner.

The fee is actually charged because Microsoft charges the XP downgrade fee to the reseller who passes it on to the consumer/client.


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## Mechanic Intern (Jun 10, 2007)

southerngurl said:


> Who has it? Pros? Cons?
> 
> I just got a new PC and it has Vista. Nuff said.


Oh, there's so much to say! LINUX is a lot faster than windows (though I admit that you have to know how to set it up to be blazing fast when you install it, and even that's pretty simple; I can guide you through it if you want) There are only a few sangs, and those are related to the fact that LINUX is the ultimate elitist OS. For your purposes, I recommend Ubuntu 9.04. I will write a thread about switching to LINUX, and I hope that the mods see the merit in making it a sticky so that all who want to know can learn. But first, I must eat breakfast (or lunch, since it's now past noon).


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