I have a system with a cheapass motherboard and integrated video (GeForce6150 or some crap) with 1GB system RAM, and compiz works flawlessly on Ubuntu. I was shocked.
most linux distros don't have the overhead drag on system resources like windows does.
well, that's good to know, bb. Hopefully ubuntu will work nicely on her machine.
I'll d/l and burn the install CDs this weekend, and a live CD if ubuntu has one. I'm taking off Monday and Tuesday for vacation, so I'll have some time to screw around
(what a vacation... right?)
Get Ubuntu. I've used and liked RedHat, Fedora Core, and KDE for a long time now, but from what I've heard, Ubuntu is not as needy.
Yes. Get Ubuntu. It's very easy to install and use. The GUI / 3D desktop has really improved vs 2 years ago. I'm still using a Geforce 4 and Compiz works perfectly for me.
One thing I really like about Linux distros is that you can have hot keys for practically anything. When I use windows, I feel that it's very slow in terms of "interaction" because I always have to use the mouse to do things. With linux, I can just use my keyboard to bring up a terminal, minimize a window, move a window around..etc.
the install cd/dvd is also the live cd/dvd.
By default, the root account password is locked in Ubuntu. see: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RootSudo
I actually preferred Gnome for its minimalist approach and i still use it, but i feel they went too far in this regard.
Some random thoughts.
Use ubuntu.
KDE3 is stable and looked better than gnome
KDE4 is way too unstable and has poor performance, plus gnome looks much better now a days.
Mandriva 2009 is unstable out of the box and forces pulse audio down your throat.
Ubuntu doesn't like proprietary software. This means you need to dump the free video drivers (they suck), the free flash player (it sucks) and get Microsoft's truetype fonts installed (most web pages don't specify fonts for linux and will look weird using the default).
Theres some other annoying things regarding distros forcing free software down your throat when they are clearly buggy and not finished just for the sake of being free, but thats for another discussion. Adobe Flash Player vs. free flash player is a great example.
From my experience with ubuntu you can choose between two desktop manager: GNome or KDE.ubuntu is sounding good to me, for the wife that is. Is it "pretty"? First impressions mean a lot...
The KDE version is much more powerfull whereas the GNome one is much simpler.
When you download ubuntu and burn it on a CD it can boot it as a "live" Linux meaning you don't need to install anything on the hard drive to get a running system. Just burn the two versions, give it a try and let your wife decide which version she prefer.
My 2 cts.
uh, what? more powerful? i don't get it... it's a freakin' s with a ty gui and same goes for gnome. xfce is where it's at!
just like explorer is a ty s on winOS so is kde on linux.
I'm gonna d/l ubuntu tonight. If I d/l "ubuntu", can I later use KDE, gnome, or xfce or whatever? If I want to try xfce, should I d/l "xubuntu" or does it matter?
From what I remember with other distros, they came with a default GUI s , but you could install other ones if you want. Is ubuntu the same way?
So the question is, if I d/l ubuntu, can I install and run xfce instead of gnome, and vice versa if I d/l "xubuntu" can I install gnome?
How about Ubuntu with the netbook remix interface? It'll be very simple for her to use as everything is on the screen. Or you can use gOS?
yes you can always install the other GUI s .
+1 to the Ubuntu recommendation.
I'm willing to say that Ubuntu would FLY on a computer with a 1.5 ghz processor and 512 mb of RAM. It is just so much more efficient at handling processes and allocation of memory than Windows has ever thought about being.
I d/l the ubuntu iso last night. checked the md5 sum this morning, it was perfect. burned the CD (with InfraCD something or other). couldn't figure how to check the md5 of the burned CD though. guess I'll just boot my wife's machine with it this evening and hopefully it will give me the option of wiping out the entire windows HD and install ubuntu over it.
If I like it, I will probably make my windows XP desktop a dual-boot machine with ubuntu.
Thanks
my wife is asking me if she can use her ipod within linux... synch and all that...
I googled a little, but much of the info is kind of old.
edit: ok, looks like there are a couple of linux programs that work with ipods... so nevermind.
Last edited by Bender; 05-09-2009 at 06:37 PM.
ipods work with linux.
I ran the CD live on my wife's machine. everything worked fine, except for the wireless internet. But that was just the case of me having to name the connection, and provide the SSID and 128-bit key. After that... internet works great.
I went ahead and told it to install itself, using the entire H-D, wiping out windows.
I think my wife will like it. Thanks to all who suggested ubuntu. In fact, I think I'll go ahead and put it on my XP machine, as dual-boot.
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