A few newb questions about Linux.

A P2 will be laggy with sites full of flash.. It takes too many cpu cycles.

I have a pretty kicking machine and still avoid them because of major issues with the crappy junk adobe call flashplayer.

 

i never really saw why people liked to use the live cd except for trying it out....even on a p4 i found it a bit hard to deal with............
http://linuxmint.com/wiki/index.php/Troubleshooting_your_Live_CD

-tripplite

 

Well I use the live cd's to test hardware and drivers.. If it works with a live cd and not with something installed then a lsmod on the live cd can be very revealing, especially if it is the same distro.

 

Yeah I have just decided that my computer is just too outdated to run flash sites so this summer I am going to save up some money and buy a computer off of pricewatch for 300ish dollars with a P4 at 3.0Ghz and 1GB RAM and be done with it. It is a lot less expensive to buy a PC without an OS and I'm sure Linux will run like a dream compared to this P2 with 256MB RAM.

 

oh that baby will run quite smooth!

BE WARNED DO NOT GET A PRESCOTT CORE P4!
northwood or cedar mills(may not be available).....the Prescott core over heats and a fan made for 3.4ghz CPU might not even be able to handle it to well....

 

Well I plan on getting a new PC from pricewatch. It is a Intel Pentium 4 well here is the link to the Customizeable PC online:

http://www.ascendtech.us/customkititems.asp?kc=DTP4630LGA77530

Do you think it is ok to buy something from there. If it isn't I have plenty of time to look elsewhere seeing how my PC saving fund is 2 dollars and some change right now

 

well for starters the website i am assuming (didn't look into to much) isn't a "middle man" website like best buy or kmart. So thats good, however you may want to look at upgrading a few things.

However talking about linux, i understand that I have to download that program to get my wireless internet working, but Internet or not, it still performs the same function as if it were to me on Vista. The real problem i am having is trying to find the one linux that supports my specifications of my laptop( or lappy). I have tried a few more distros and still no sound support,
tried kbuntut, ubuntu, Damn small linux, and one more that i listed above but forgot the name currently.

So i think my question is, is there a website that will ask for my system's crap and spit out and linux that looks capable for me.

Sorry for the english in a hurry.

 

pwhite - what are the specs on your lappy? The one I have tested on is an AMD64 X2 CPU with 1 GB Ram onboard. got it just before xmas so is one of Dell's latest Inspirons. Puppy *nix, Dreamlinux and PClinuxOS2007 all work on it (sound worked out of the box). The best one I have of those 3 is PCLinuxOS, runs really well on a laptop, and uses ndiswrapper with the native windows driver for the wireless (picked it up during the install).


@chain - try looking at AMD CPU's for cheap pc's (or even second hand). I have used AMD from the first time i built a pc and have never had an issue with them (either windows or *nix). Also, AMD seems to be supported better with *nix for some reason (don't ask me why though, i have no idea), as All the 64bit distros seem to be classed as AMD64 when you go looking for them.

 

The fact they are called AMD64 is just a bit of legacy, AMD was the first to really bring 64 bit processors into average consumer use, so their 64 bit extension codename stuck, and Intel just made theirs (EM64T) compatible. A few distros use the more generic x86_64 description, so it isn't really a case of AMD being "better" than Intel, just "first to market".

"Better support" is probably more a case of better supported motherboard chipsets, probably because they are slightly older and cheaper to better compete for the AMD builder's generally tighter budget. I think it just reinforces the fact that if you're building a system for Linux, it helps to know what each and every part is, and shop around for well supported gear, both brands of CPU are fine provided you get a well supported motherboard.

 

ha ha in a pinch like i am....well you wont have to buy windows OS thats for sure!

thats a good deal you got, considering a 3.0ghz P4 goes on ebay for 80% LOL

really dirt cheap site, the qualities ok:/
http://www.geeks.com/

-tripplite

 

wooo.. I got a cmi8738 soundcard working on debian.. even working with flash.. Looks like the problems with my main machine are more to do with the odd soundcard fitted.

 

alright here are my specs:
Model: Dell Inspiron 1721 (fairly new, got it in september 07)
Processor: AMD Turion 64 X2 Mobile technology TL-56 1.80 GHz
RAM: 1918 MB
System type: 32-bit Operating system

For the most part the linuxiis i have tried have all seem to work well
minus the sound and internet. It just seems that ditching away from windows and all of its .exe files will be harder to do then just saying you will. i know there are programs free and alike the ones for windows its just that some of the stuff you want to do won't support linux/ harder to find programs for the certain project your working on for linux and also its that my schools computers all use windows. I mean the only logical way i could possibly run linux is having to partition my c drive so that i have both linux and microsoft. but even then it will be pointless to have linux seeing how my parents won't know how to use it (they go on my laptop for internet sometimes) and that i will be using most files on windows. But then again looking at the upsode i will slowly learn how to use linux and slowly begin to accept it and understand it to a point where i will feel free to completly switch.

 

alas i have been doing the same (unbuntu/xp), now im getting another HDD so i can included debian to my collection.....but xp is almost impossible for me to live without~ although i kinda like xp

-tripplite

 

The internet bit is simple.. you just need to make sure the right module is loaded at boot time (look up the chipset of your network card.. for wireless run the windows driver with ndiswrapper.. simple) sound can be more of a pig.. it depends on your hardware, but usually installing alsa and then just "alsaconf" from the terminal sorts it out... but not always.. I just had a pointless 2 days fith that broken by design rubbish they call suse.. but being owned by M$ what could we expect.

As for other people not knowing how to install software on your system, where is the problem?? You don't want the world and his dog installing any old thing anyways, which is why IMHO ubuntu can suck by allowing users to have that option.. Otherwise it's a gui system with icons to click (if you want to put them there), just the same as the M$ offering, with the added security of each user having their own files/folders/preferences. hell even language if you want..

A non technical pc user commented to me this weekend
"That vista.. it's made for idiots. As soon as you try to do anything it gets in your face and kills your productivity with stupid nonsense and pop up windows. I much prefer using your desktop machine. What is it running?"
And that is even with my annoyance with flashplayer (gonna try the lenny fix later) and a few other little things.. I haven't locked up this machine at all in the 4 months I have had it.. my old one ran for 197 days without a reboot even. AND.. my cpu cycles are used for doing stuff, not keeping the machine safe from all the malware. I don't waste hours every week with antivirus scans.. 5 minutes once every month or so is enough

You have the bonus there of 64 bit hardware.. support is better with linux than with windows.. you would be surprised how much more hardware is supported.
3 years ago I would have agreed with you that linux isn't ready for desktop use.. that has changed. It has the lead for multimedia and drm free work, with the major advantage of everything being free. As with anything which is a work in progres things may not work perfectly, but you can be sure there are many many people working on it who want it to work and will release a fix as soon as they have one, not wait for a once yearly service pack release.

Look further than preconceptions.. your hardware will run most cutting edge 64 bit linux releases, the only viable M$ option is vista, and that will run slower than xp on a machine with 25% of the power while costing you a fortune in software and upgrades yet still not working properly 40% of the time..
If you want linux that is well documented and works use the "stable" release.. if you don't mind a few things causing problems, but generally works fine use "testing" and if you like being on the cutting edge and seeing what is coming next year or further in the future, and don't mind if it breaks quite spectacularly from time to time use the "unstable/experimental" version.

Lets face it.. M$ are the past, just as sco/unix and CBM are the past.. they tried to be monopolies and dictate what users could and could not do.. and it finished them. Apple came close to making the same mistake, so they went and stole a load of open source software and now sell it at some stupid high price.. but they haven't stopped people compiling bsd source code programs, or unix/linux ones for that matter and running them.. They learned, and if they want to survive in a world where 90% of the home pc users can't afford dual core with gigs of ram and hundreds of megs of graphics card so will M$.. but by the time they get the message they will be like apple. 20% of the market. The writing is on the wall.. It is writ plain for all to see in the vista sales figures. 40% price cut after 1 year... that sounds like a major success don't it?

 

not for a while

installing things on windows is just a "double-click!"
people aren't used to the whole terminal thing...let alone the rpm commands and such.....nice thing is that the repositories (erg dat wat we call dem?) (packages) available to Debian always seems to make their way over to ubuntu....but soon i will have debian ......and none of this will matter

-tripplite

 

Installing with a double click IS the problem. It only takes most Windows machines a double click to be crawling with spyware, malware etc with full access to the filesystem. Even a single click with IE can do the trick.

Forcing programs to either be installed by root or only have normal user privileges ensures the underlying system stays rock solid. Yeah, you can still kill your account easily enough, but you can't delete critical files just by accident, or destroy another users account.

Give it 10 years and MS may well be dead, or at least a shadow of what it is today. Machines that big carry a lot of momentum, but that is all it is running on at the moment, a lot of upper management are jumping ship, and nothing really innovative has come out of the company for a long time. Yeah, .NET is nice to code in, but once you scratch the surface it isn't that useful beyond rapid prototyping.

It isn't hard to live without Windows. What exactly is it that is so impossible for you to live without that doesn't have a native Linux equivalent?

 

i agree, look at what i ran into
http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/636539
poor soul...IE was so easy to break.....the malware was enabled by him clicking on some link...

i like change!

 

I don't think it is worth to pay M$ $100 just to be able to double-click install a program. Well it isn't worth it to pay for an OS when you have Linux. Right now I am using Windows because the internet browsers work better on my PC. However, when I obtain the computer I have been wanting that will change. You can learn so much by using Linux and on windows it feels like they want you to stay dumb to how computers work. Linux is the future and in the words of Naruto "Believe it!"