A few newb questions about Linux.

Another cool thing about not using Windows at home is that I can proudly claim "you'd have to pay me to use Windows". I'd like to be able to say "you couldn't pay me to use Windows", but hell, there are that many stooges that use it that it is hard to turn down the money they throw at you to fix it for them. Sad, but it pays some of the bills, and a good opportunity to convert people pissed off at Windows' flaws I guess.

 

http://store.grandtec.com/glviinkeusb.html

Been using one of these for a few years, but I think the glowy bit died the other week, was making some high frequency noises then the part where it connects just started heating up instead of making it glow. Might have to bring out my ol' faithful keyboard, hope it still works, the buttons are just right on that one.

Took a while to get used to the squishy buttons, and the letters wore off most of the keys, but being able to rinse it under hot water occasionally was kinda handy.

 

You know I think most of you guys are underestimating my old as dirt computer. I mean I am running Xp Sp2 on it and it runs fine after I tweaked it. I have seen on youtube several people with old computers running Ubuntu. Maybe your right and those guys are lucky but I have faith in my old computer and I can't wait to see how well she runs Linux. If Linux runs better than Windows than I will be a Linux guy from here on. However I do truly look froward to it because of what linux stands for. A free OS for the people by the people. If only America was like that! The whole world should be like that!!!!

 

I was begining to wonder if anybody was still listening to me. LOL I plan on getting a more up to date PC through pricewatch.com You can get a pretty good PC for like 250-300 bucks. I am going to save up some moola! Oh and I did think of an .exe I use a lot..Guitar Pro!! That is the only thing I would miss but I did find something called Kguitar which will probably solve that problem.

 

Oldest comp running linux.. commodore64 from 1985.

Oldest desktop pc connected to internet. Phoenix bios 486sx (think it was originally a true-blue IBM) 16mhz with 4mb of ram and a 120MB HDD. Even the sound works

You can turn ubuntu to kubuntu after installing.. it's only a desktop manager/window manager after all.. The kubuntu dev stream is lagging behind the full ubuntu push. When you get running ask and we can tell you how to change your desktop very easily. I prefer gnome, but KDE is fine too.. a little heavy on the graphics I find.

I saw guitar pro runs without problems using wine.. your mileage may vary.

lol @ insomniacs. I only woke up at midnight.. what are you doing up?? no work in the morning.

 

Oh and speaking of being an insomniac. I usually don't go to bed until about 12:30 and it is 11:30. But I want to thank you guys for the conversation and the advice. I guess you guys can talk if you want but I'm out. When I have questions I'll ask you guys again. You guys are some cool cats. I am glad I joined afterdawn although I can't remember how I ended up here. LOL Talk to you guys later!

 

Will post my machines in that thread when I get home from work. 2:47pm here, almost knock off time, yay.

 

i agree a p2 is little...well a lot behind!

am telling you dual booting it is a piece of cake!

 

Hey tripplite don't worry I am going to dual boot first! Before I started using XP on this computer I had 2000 Pro and XP on two different HDs. So what I am going to do is keep XP on the C: Drive and install Linux on the other if that is possible. You know I have tried to bet Ubuntu 3 times and it seems like Internet Explorer doesn't want me to have it! It always stops at about 97%! I'm downloading it now with Free Download Manager. If that doesn't work I am just going to get if off Amazon or something.

 

Don't you use firefox??.. The ubuntu site says to not use download managers

 

Should I use firefox? I started to download Xubuntu because it is lightweight but should I do that?

 

Yes you should use Firefox, by far and away 10 times better than that crap from Redmond. Remember, Firefox is a browser, just download your file as you would normally do and forget about download managers.

Xubuntu is just another variant of Ubuntu using the XFCE window manager rather than Gnome or KDE (i tried to install it once but it wouldn't for some reason).

I also used to dual boot with XP, up until3 months ago. I then realised that i never used XP so why have it? If i really feel the need for XP i will nick one of the daughters lappy's, and even then i have installed a *nix distro onto one of them (still trying to get teh wireless sorted though).

 

Now I am using Firefox. I used to use Firefox anyway I don't know why I haven't been using it. You couldn't get Xubuntu to install? Well I hope it does for me. I looked at a lot of the Linux distros require 256MB RAM I have 256MB but I thought if I got a lightweight distro it might work better on my old computer. What can a normal distro do that a lightweight one cannot?

 

What I really want to know is which distro should I use? Should I even bother with Xubuntu or should I just get Ubuntu? Or should I got with Debian or PCLinux? It is like being at a candy store and not knowing what to get!

 

best thing is to try those distros which come as a live CD. This way you can see whether your hardware will work with it or not. You shud be alright with 256Ram, just don't try to do too much at the same time. Beauty with Linux is that you have to set up a SWAP partition, basically gives you more memory for the OS but is based on your HDD.rough rule of thumb is set your SWAP at twice the amount of RAM installed (but you are not limited by that equation). Just try Ubuntu first and see how you get on. Once you have played with it a while then start thinking about trying other distros should the mood take you.

n.b. i think the install disk of Xbuntu was fooked, probably why it never worked right for me. I started on Ubuntu and have now progressed to Debian "Lenny" (full testing distro) on an AMD64 cpu based system. Only real benefit is when doing video encoding TBH.

 

Speaking of Live! Boot i am trying out Kubuntu which I got from a friend just a little while ago. So far it seems it works well. But do actually installing it make it a little better? I would say that it runs fine from booting from a CD so I think I am just going to install Kubuntu!

 

Ok I have Kubuntu installed on my PC and it runs faster than Windows and being faster than Windows it runs SMOOTH! There is just one problem. My Externel HD is detected but I can't acess any of the files. It's format is NTFS do I need a driver for that or what?