Thread: What's Your Current OS

I use Windows XP on my laptop, though it's a dual-boot system with Suse 10.0 Linux. I just can't get my screen rseolution to work under Suse, no matter what I try. Plus, this particular laptop's modem isn't supported by Linux, and since I'm stuck with dial-up internet, that pretty much cinches it.

I did put Suse 10.0 on my mother's desktop for her to use, since she was having serious virus/spyware problems with XP. It's also a dual-boot system, but we only use XP on it very rarely, and never to get online.

My old laptop ran Kanotix, 'cause it was ancient and Kanotix is fast. I miss it sometimes.

I use a Mac for most of my work, but I do use Windows XP and Fedora Core 7 to test and deploy applications that I build.

Originally Posted by bitness

Fedora Core 7

Sorry to be technical (i.e. picky), but Fedora Core 7 doesn't exist. Red Hat dropped "Core" after FC6, so it's just Fedora 7.

Originally Posted by dsr

Sorry to be technical (i.e. picky), but Fedora Core 7 doesn't exist. Red Hat dropped "Core" after FC6, so it's just Fedora 7.

Yes true. Very picky though...

Vista has a circle instead of the start button

@Man of Steel:
I'm assuming you've tried editing your xorg.conf?

Tsen, yup, didn't help. I got nowhere, even tried some special app supposed to fix a problem with that particular graphics card, but to no avail.


But it's pretty much a non-problem now, since I've got a new laptop now, running Vista. I'll probably eventually dual-boot it with Suse or Kubuntu, as I'm not really terribly fond of Vista after the newness has worn off, but for now, it's cool. I'd like to try Gentoo, but I just don't think I have the tech know-how of Linux to attempt that just yet. Or ever will, in all likelihood. I hear it's a lot of work to set up, with the way it installs and such. Though it has been a while since I looked into it, it may have improved in ease of use by now.

Well, I like Linux quite a bit, but if it's on a laptop, to be honest I'd just stay away. MOST (but not all) modern Linux distros have power management issues that kill battery life. I'd just install XP for a laptop. Meh, that's just me.

Anyway, just got my new computer parts (mostly) today, so I'm putting together a new computer:
Antec Sonata III Case (w/ 500 Watt 80+ PSU)
Gigabyte P5-DS3R MoBo
Intel Q6600 Processor (OC'd to 3.2 GHz)
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Heatsink
2 GB OCZ Platinum PC2 6400 (OC'd to 1066 MHz)
BFG nVidia 8800 GTS 640 MB GFX (Will also be OC'd, but hasn't come in the mail, so I can't say how far I'll be able to push it for sure)
Barracuda 7200 RPM 320 GB HDD
Sony 18x DVD +/- RW
Sony 226BW 22" LCD

Not a really high-end build, but more than nice enough.
It'll run XP and Ubuntu initially, but I might install Vista later. Vista has DX10, but XP still has better gaming performance. I'd really like MS to port DX10 to XP, but that's not going to happen, since they're going to pump it for all the Vista market share they can get.

I learned something very sad about Ubuntu: The default installation CD doesn't include gcc, make, and all the standard dev stuff. What the hell is that??? I've got no problem apt-getting that stuff, but my friend ran into the following problem:

1) Her netork adapter wasn't being detected
2) She couldn't build it from source, since she doesn't have the dev packages to do so

Kind of chicken and egg there. The best she could do was to download the necessary packages separately, burn them to CD or something, install them manually, and go from there. That's kind of a serious flaw, and I've NEVER before encountered a linux distro that didn't come with those tools by default.

Try the Ubuntu DVD, it comes with some extra packages on the DVD. The CD contains all the basics, but lacks some of the packages. It is kind of stupid not to include make on the Live CD, though. Did you check to see if the package was on the CD, but not installed by default? I know ndiswrapper is included, but not installed by default. Not exactly user friendly, but, well, it IS still Linux, even if it's more user friendly than most distros.

Originally Posted by Replicon

I learned something very sad about Ubuntu: The default installation CD doesn't include gcc, make, and all the standard dev stuff. What the hell is that??? ... I've NEVER before encountered a linux distro that didn't come with those tools by default.

Ah, you didn't buy SuSE 9.1 Home then. Two disks, a live CD and an install, and no dev tools. Now that was a bad decision (oh, theres the latest edition of the OS I've been using for free, and it's cheap too, why not reward SuSE). Idiots.

Mind you, theres no guarantee you'd get the dev stuff you need for any particular problem on a single CD. E.g. the average user more likely to benefit from however many megs of binary packages than a complete kernel source package which is either going to be superceded soon or is already a version behind Linus's kernel.

Oh, this wasn't for me. I'm with good ol' Debian right now . I was just listening to a friend complain about it. While you can argue that the average user doesn't need that stuff, you can also counter-argue that the average user uses windows, and that the user who's tech savvy enough not to be scared of linux won't die from having those things there .

Well, I don't have another copy of XP handy, and from what I"ve heard, Suse and Ubuntu/Kubuntu are the most laptop-friendly distros. I've ran Kanotix on an older laptop with no problems, but I realize that it'll be quite different with a newer system. I figure it can't hurt to give it a shot, though, and if I have compatability issues or whatever, I'll just stick with Vista.

Windows XP Professional Corporate with SP2 built in. No activation required and all Windows Updates work fine, including any authentication things.