Chile Forum

A friend of mine has an ADM64 Dual Core Machine that is running a variation of Ubuntu called Kubuntu which is based on KDE or rather uses KDE as the default windowing environment unlike many which use GNOME. I like KDE myself.

Linux can be a problem for even experienced users, but it has been a viable alternative to windows for a long time. It is very true on the server side and is a good bet on the desktop as well.

It is the limited access that the driver developers have to new hardware and specs which cause problems with running Linux on newer machines. It not so much that if hardware will work on Linux, but many times it is when it will work. Some hardware manufactures are better than others in this regard.

Putting Linux on an old machine will breathe life back into that machine. Can't say that for putting Vista on that old box. I have a laptop with Vista which greatly hampers it. It is an inexpensive Toshiba and it is already underpowered.

admin wrote:Computers or hardware in general that has been out on the market for year or two tend to have the best compatibility.

Given my limited experience with Linux, I agree with you on that point. It is my belief that I had difficulty installing Linux because my laptop is brand new - dual core chip, the wireless LAN connection is through an Expresscard, etc. Maybe a year or two from now there will be a Linux distribution that will install seamlessly on my machine. Looking back, I should have bought a laptop with Linux already installed.

For newer machines I think the most convenient is to run Linux into a virtual machine, or at least in a dual boot. The difference on speed is neglectable if you have 2 or 4 GB RAM.

A "normal" user miss a lot of windows-only applications and spend lot of time looking and installing the Linux equivalent. Is much easier for people who grew in Unix-like enviroments since college. I think -and I know that this is controversial- that for desktop applications Windows is more mature and better than Linux: there are more aplications available and most of Linux apps have a Windows version, the opposite is not true.

For network and servers Linux is a DELIGHT, simple and clean opposite to Microsoft mess who is very hard to understand and is plagued of obscure zones, I guess most of them are obscure for the MS engineers due the long story of patches imposed by the backward compatibility, the key of Windows supremacy.

All kinds of Linux work nice in console mode, but -sad to say- the graphic user interrface (the "X") still behaves as a low budget Windows. That is because it was developed to bring to Linux to the Windows users, so they have much of Windows problems like hangups and such and more often in some versions (specially the gOS based in Enlightenment). I have installed many Linux flavors, some from scratch and I admire the huge and fine work made from the Open Source community, I also know the many flaws of Windows, most of them due their popularity, which encourage the crackers and such untermenshen to develop viruses, spyware and trojans . The exaggerated hunger of resources in Vista was also a mistake of design, but XP is a pretty good system, easy, operative and with full of applications available.

I dont think that Linux is inherently more secure than Windows, this may be true in the past but, since NT technology is very hard to stand this statement with true technical reasons, at this moment both Linux and Windows may be as secure or insecure as we configure, at least for desktop users, both may be configured as very strong machines, there are special editions such Linux OpenBSD for extreme security, but for normal users this is pretty irrelevant. Which is true is that Windows is under much heavier attack due the popularity.

I think that both Linux and Windows are very good products every one with their pluses and minuses, there are not a "perfect" OS and is nearly impossible to determine which is better, everyone must decide based into their specific needs, for me the best is to use both systemas and enjoy the best of both worlds

Charles, I finally got into the live CD with root, root, and at the prompt ....................wait for it, video, duh. But apparently my video card is not recognized automatically so I have to input it from the list displayed but it's still not working after that.

My video card is Mobile Intel 915GM/GMS 910 GML expressChipset, in a HP Pavillion dv4129us blah blah blah.

I'm moving down to Vina this month maybe some time in the future I can make it to Temuco and you can work your magic on my laptop computer. If I don't smash it against a wall beforehand.

Windows is EVIL.

CJ3, don't smash it against the wall, give it to me

But seriously what are all the specs on your laptop (HP Pavillion dv4129us blah blah blah...)? Sometimes it takes research to find out what will work or won't. It can be tricky.

I agree with Charles about the wide use of Linux.

Even though I like Linux a lot, I still like Solaris, OpenSolaris that is. http://get.opensolaris.org/ I don't know if they will ship to Chile.

I gave a number of my Sparc boxes to a friend before moving, but still can run it on intlel/amd based motherboards.

admin wrote:So, it would seem rather strange for someone to say it will screw up your computer, when most of the biggest tech companies in the World run their mission critical systems on linux and not windows software.

I guess what I was trying to say was, the IT guy, like a lot of people who have a vested interest in Windows, is a Microsoft shill.

admin wrote:Thank bill gates and the Vista disaster for helping linux and Mac.

Couldn't agree with you more.