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TASB
Sir Postalot
Joined: 12 Oct 2002
Posts: 1104
Location: The Outback
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 Posted: 06/17/04 - 06:02 Post subject: Alternate OS
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I'm sick of windows on my desktop PC and want to change. Those of you who use a *nix based OS, whether it be a linux distro, BSD could you please give me an idea of the experiences you have had and what you would recomend. I want something that once I have it set up I don't need to constantly fiddle and tweak with.
I have a decent amount of experience using FreeBSD as a server. How does it handle as a workstation with gnome or KDE?
I have played with Gentoo a little bit. I know it takes a bit of time to set it up but once you have it going how much time is needs to be spent keeping it functional and current.
Which other distros have you used as a workstaion and what are your opinions on them?
I'm not looking for biased fanboy responces I just want to know what you have used and why you liked or didn't like it.
Also have you used wine for running windows games. If so how well do games perform?
System is;
2400 athlon
512 DDR ram
geforce TI4200
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Silentstormwing
Total Newbie
Joined: 03 Apr 2003
Posts: 42
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Posted: 06/17/04 - 06:43 Post subject:
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Give Gnoppix a try if you're curious.
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kemble
RealPoor Sensei
Joined: 14 Oct 2002
Posts: 1909
Location: MI
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Posted: 06/17/04 - 08:22 Post subject:
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| Silentstormwing wrote: | | Give Gnoppix a try if you're curious. |
This isnt a bad idea. Lots of distros now have a 'Live' CD where everything runs of the CDROM and you don't have to format/repartition your HDs. There are obvious limitations as well, but it gives you a taste.
If you don't like fiddling, I don't think you are going to like any *NIX OS. Getting a distro up and running on a workstation is easy, but getting it 'perfect' is not easy at all. Plan to spend hours searching for fixes as to why your MP3s have an echo effect you can't get rid of, or why your HP laserjet prints a % every 50 lines, etc. You get more efficient each time you do an install, but after 7 years of *NIX experience, I still have 'issues'.
As far as finding a distro that is easier to keep up to date than another.... Most popular, well supported distros have mailing lists that alert you when a security hole is found in your distro, and they provide a link to patch it. For updates that are non-security related, major distros have some sort of package management tool that will let you update software without building from source. I hardly ever do this, so package management isn't a big factor in my distro choice, but lots of people like the gentoo and debian package management features.
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TASB
Sir Postalot
Joined: 12 Oct 2002
Posts: 1104
Location: The Outback
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Posted: 06/17/04 - 10:42 Post subject:
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I figured that would proberly be misinterpreted about fiddling aspect. I don't mind doing but I don't want to have to spend ages doing it every time I want to do something new or add something to the box. IE I want something that once is set up I can spend more time using then fiddling with.
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gotissues68
RealPoor Sensei
Joined: 21 Aug 2003
Posts: 1866
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Posted: 06/17/04 - 10:52 Post subject:
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I would consider going with Fedora Core or Mandrake, I don't prefer either one, I like Slackware (but all fanboy aside). Those 2 distro's + Knoppix will get you up and running quickly with the least amount of hassle. Mandrake puts out something called the "Mandrake Gaming Edition" which includes WineX which works pretty well for most Windows based games, its a fork of Wine. You might want to check out www.icculus.org as well for *nix based gaming. You could go with BSD as well, both Linux and BSD now have NVidia driver support, so you can do hardware accelerated 3D which is nice. You could run Solaris too, no gaming, but you'd really learn Unix  I ran it on a laptop for awhile, only problem I ever had with it, was getting the X Windows patch with NVidia support, but once I got it working, it was good to go.
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kemble
RealPoor Sensei
Joined: 14 Oct 2002
Posts: 1909
Location: MI
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Posted: 06/17/04 - 12:11 Post subject:
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Oh yeah, forgot to add.... Slackware is all I use. its teh win!
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Tolanin
RealPoor Guru
Joined: 16 Oct 2002
Posts: 3551
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Posted: 06/17/04 - 12:35 Post subject:
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windows is the best pc os, fbsd is decent, only retards run linux on a pc as main os.
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TASB
Sir Postalot
Joined: 12 Oct 2002
Posts: 1104
Location: The Outback
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Posted: 06/17/04 - 12:40 Post subject:
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Reasons Tolanin? What are your pros and cons?
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gotissues68
RealPoor Sensei
Joined: 21 Aug 2003
Posts: 1866
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Posted: 06/17/04 - 15:00 Post subject:
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| kemble wrote: | | Oh yeah, forgot to add.... Slackware is all I use. its teh win! |
/w00t
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kemble
RealPoor Sensei
Joined: 14 Oct 2002
Posts: 1909
Location: MI
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Posted: 06/17/04 - 15:04 Post subject:
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| Tolanin wrote: | | windows is the best pc os, fbsd is decent, only retards run linux on a pc as main os. |
I'd love to hear the reasoning behind this statement. And you can forget about the justification of Windows being the best pc OS. As much as it pains me, I'd have to agree based on the availability of software alone compared to *NIX.....
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