If Vista has 'WOW' factor then Linux has ' OH MY GOD' Factor

[Rovernaut]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=dQkSObRtw0o

[hiline]

looks like fun ;)

[shorty943]

Yassum. Arsa bin playin wid dat stuff too. Purty aint it?

Sun Microsystems came up with a Java 3d desktop, a couple of years ago that was wild, panning panoranic views on the desktop, application windows that faded, and could be swung out of the way, or even hung in the distance on a tree branch or mountain top, it needed a big rig to cope. This is the new version from what I saw in the video.

Shorty.

[Mick-Kelly]

I would love to use LINUX but i have enough problems just trying to use MS without completely buggering my computer. :(

[shorty943]

I know the feeling Mick.
Every time my XP wants to update itself, some damn thing won't work for a week.:(
Luckily I have another machine running Linux.

Shorty.

[DiscoDave]

I really liked the 'flip your desktop over to a different side of the cube' bit but elastic windows? I thought the idea was to get away from pointless resource-eating gimmicks?

[Rovernaut]

I would love to use LINUX but i have enough problems just trying to use MS without completely buggering my computer. :(
That's because windows is so easy for the joe to buggerup, you can log in as administrater and run your desktop allowing all the buggering your heart desires.
If you want to give Linux a go and arn't to savvy.
Try Ubuntu or Kubuntu distributions.
http://www.ubuntu.com/
Free download, can burn it to a CD and run it as a Live CD without installing anything on your PC.
If you have broadband, then it would most probably work without any configuration.
It is very user friendly, no need to compile or do much command writing as it is GUI. just click your windows similar to MS.

[Mick-Kelly]

:confused: :confused: :confused: :confused:
what is GUI, will Linux runn all the programs we have on our machine now. ie. outlook express etc. ?? Would i have to change over e-mail addresse?

[JDNSW]

:confused: :confused: :confused: :confused:
what is GUI, will Linux runn all the programs we have on our machine now. ie. outlook express etc. ?? Would i have to change over e-mail addresse?

GUI = Graphical User Interface

Linux will not run any of the programs you have on your machine, but will come with more or less equivalent programs without additional cost. Including the choice of several email programs a lot better than OE.

Email address will remain the same.

John

[shorty943]

I really liked the 'flip your desktop over to a different side of the cube' bit but elastic windows? I thought the idea was to get away from pointless resource-eating gimmicks?

DD, you aint gonna be impressed with Vista then mate. I only need 1 small upgrade, a small matter of a few hundred dollars for a later than Nvidea 5500 graphics card. Not 1 single application I have uses all the power in that card, yet Vista will drag it to a crawl just trying to load the desktop. At least the beta test did. Windows ME for XP is all Vista really is.

Shorty.

[Rovernaut]

:confused: :confused: :confused: :confused:
what is GUI, will Linux runn all the programs we have on our machine now. ie. outlook express etc. ?? Would i have to change over e-mail addresse?
Linux will not run Windows programs. Unless you do them through a virtual machine within linux or use an emulator.

As for outlook express- linux has alternatives, I use Thunderbird.
For internet explorer- I use Firefox
With Microsoft, unless you pay for Office you you don't get any spreadsheets, word processing etc.
Linux have free alternatives.
For MS Word - Linux Openoffice word processor
Ms Excell -Linux open office spreadsheet
Ms Powerpoint - Linux Presentation
If you use MS office then you would have no problem with the above the lay out is almost identical , except some names are different
There are some decent media players
Burning programs and image editing programs.
And even a periodic table of elements in case you ever need one:p

[Mick-Kelly]

But what about compatability with info. Say i bring a word document home or pictures on the USB stick will i be able to open the files and edit etc. and visa versa from linux stuff to ms stuff?

[Rovernaut]

Linux will not run Windows programs. Unless you do them through a virtual machine within linux or use an emulator.

As for outlook express- linux has alternatives, I use Thunderbird.
For internet explorer- I use Firefox
With Microsoft, unless you pay for Office you you don't get any spreadsheets, word processing etc.
Linux have free alternatives.
For MS Word - Linux Openoffice word processor
Ms Excell -Linux open office spreadsheet
Ms Powerpoint - Linux Presentation
If you use MS office then you would have no problem with the above the lay out is almost identical , except some names are different
There are some decent media players
Burning programs and image editing programs.
And even a periodic table of elements in case you ever need one:p
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2007/02/1.jpg
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2007/02/2.jpg
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2007/02/3.jpg
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https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2007/02/6.jpg


https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2007/02/7.jpg

[JDNSW]

But what about compatability with info. Say i bring a word document home or pictures on the USB stick will i be able to open the files and edit etc. and visa versa from linux stuff to ms stuff?

For practical purposes, yes.

As far as media formats go, Linux will open (and write) VFAT or NTFS files and CD/CVD/USB stick formats, although there are some issues with writing NTFS, as the format details are secret.

Image formats are standardised to some extent (although there are hundreds of them), and typically Linux software will open and write a wider range of formats than typical Windows software. I have never found a picture I can't open with any of the Linux image programs, and there are definitely no problems with the common ones such as .jpg, .bmp, .png.

Open Office and other Linux Office programs (such as Koffice) will read and write MS Office documents, although there can be incomplete compatibility with some documents. One reason for this is the question of fonts - but you can always import the fonts - you can use the same ones, removing a lot of the problems. But problems remain due to the unpublished details of MS formats. Linux office programs, unlike MS Office, support Open Document formats.

In my case I keep "My Documents" on a Windows partition of my hard drive so I can use them from either Windows or Linux - but I actually use Open Office on Windows as well as on Linux.

[loanrangie]

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2007/02/1.jpg
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2007/02/2.jpg
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2007/02/3.jpg
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2007/02/4.jpg
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2007/02/5.jpg

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2007/02/6.jpg


https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2007/02/7.jpg

What os is that ? I'm keen to give it a go.

[JDNSW]

What os is that ? I'm keen to give it a go.

Rovernaut would have to answer that - but it could be almost any of the latest versions of Linux - what you are seeing is the KDE user interface, which is available in most of them, although some of the special effects are very new and may not yet be there in some distributions for a few months.

John

[shorty943]

What os is that ? I'm keen to give it a go.

Google - "Distrowatch" and be astounded at the range of versions. Some pure science, some dedicated to music and multimedia, some for servers, gaming, business desktops, you think of it Linux can do it.

If you have a couple of old puters around, you can even network them, only 1 machine needs a hard drive and OS, the rest can netboot from it as slave nodes to perform big digit calculations. This is the "Beowulf Clustering version. Very powerful.

Linux runs on any X86 puter from 386 up to the latest dual core 64 bit hardware. PPC of the old mac, even the S390 IBM Big iron runs on Linux.
It is the OS for the PS2 and the new PS3, it can even be installed to the Xbox.
Google - "Linux" and get many millions of search results.
Be aware of course that it is not Windows, so there is a learnig curve. More in the security side, never run as admin or root as it is called, always set up normal user accounts for everyday use. And it will not hold your hand Windows wise, the uber-geeks expect us to actually learn. Not so hard, I managed it.
You can even download a "live CD". a full OS with many many applications, all compressed transparently onto a bootable CD. No need to install a live CD, everything runs directly from the CD. Try it. Most computer mags have a distro or two in ISO form, from time to time. Use Nero or similar to "burn ISO to disk" and away you go.

Shorty

[loanrangie]

Google - "Distrowatch" and be astounded at the range of versions. Some pure science, some dedicated to music and multimedia, some for servers, gaming, business desktops, you think of it Linux can do it.

If you have a couple of old puters around, you can even network them, only 1 machine needs a hard drive and OS, the rest can netboot from it as slave nodes to perform big digit calculations. This is the "Beowulf Clustering version. Very powerful.

Linux runs on any X86 puter from 386 up to the latest dual core 64 bit hardware. PPC of the old mac, even the S390 IBM Big iron runs on Linux.
It is the OS for the PS2 and the new PS3, it can even be installed to the Xbox.
Google - "Linux" and get many millions of search results.
Be aware of course that it is not Windows, so there is a learnig curve. More in the security side, never run as admin or root as it is called, always set up normal user accounts for everyday use. And it will not hold your hand Windows wise, the uber-geeks expect us to actually learn. Not so hard, I managed it.
You can even download a "live CD". a full OS with many many applications, all compressed transparently onto a bootable CD. No need to install a live CD, everything runs directly from the CD. Try it. Most computer mags have a distro or two in ISO form, from time to time. Use Nero or similar to "burn ISO to disk" and away you go.

Shorty

I have about 5 spare pc's courtesy of work so i can either setup in another partition on my hdd (200gig) or on another pc, what would be the most user friendly version to start of with ?

[JDNSW]

I have about 5 spare pc's courtesy of work so i can either setup in another partition on my hdd (200gig) or on another pc, what would be the most user friendly version to start of with ?

I would suggest one of Ubuntu (currently the most popular and designed for non-experts, it has the variants Kubuntu and Edubuntu), Mandriva, Fedora or Suse, but others probably have different ideas. As Shorty says, there are hundreds. If you don't have broadband, get a magazine with a DVD or CD attached - I find the most useful is Linux Format, and the latest issue I have got has both Ubuntu and Fedora on a DVD.

John

[loanrangie]

I would suggest one of Ubuntu (currently the most popular and designed for non-experts, it has the variants Kubuntu and Edubuntu), Mandriva, Fedora or Suse, but others probably have different ideas. As Shorty says, there are hundreds. If you don't have broadband, get a magazine with a DVD or CD attached - I find the most useful is Linux Format, and the latest issue I have got has both Ubuntu and Fedora on a DVD.

John

Thanks John, i might drop into the newsagent and pick up a copy of a geek magazine and see what freebies they have on a disc.

[shorty943]

Ubuntu Linux is supposed to be a good "newbie" system, a couple of variations depending on the desktop used, Kubuntu-KDE, Ubuntu-Gnome desktop.

(Linux uses many different window manager systems, some heavy system users, some almost no memory footprint at all. Known as light footprint window managers. IceWM, Enlightenment, KDE, Gnome, all Linux window managers, that display your desktop and apps. MS uses 1, called explorer.exe.)

Linspire is good, but the one click app service costs.

Fedora Core is the community version of RedHat Enterprise system.

Mandriva Linux is the one I favour, in the 2006 distro, I haven't upgraded to 2007 yet. Easy configuration, plays nice with windows SMB over a network.

DeMuDi is for arty types, music and multi media specific.

Debian is the full on "hackers" distro, that is, the "ubergeeks" toy, not the criminal type hacker, but the genuine geek.

Always check the HCL, (hardware compatability list.) Linux may not drive the latest hardware, especially the winmodem, winprinter type things. It doesn't play nice with some Canon stuff, but, it loves HP stuff.

Google "distrowatch" mate, best bet I reckon, is to download a "live CD" version and test. There is no need to install a live CD. The OS boots and runs directly from the CD, never needs installing, and you can test as many "flavours" as you like, with out any actual system disruption. A 700 Meg CD carries up to 2.1 Gb of transparently compressed apps, that are uncompressed on the fly. Try that way first is my advice. You can't hurt your existing installation of Windows that way.

Shorty.

[Rovernaut]

What os is that ? I'm keen to give it a go.
It is Kubuntu. It has the KDE desktop
Or you can use the Ubuntu, which uses the Gnome desktop.
You can download a live CD on the net then set your PC to boot from the CDROM insert the live CD and boot up.
You PC will then run the Kubuntu or Ubuntu without installing anything on your pC.
Have a play with it and see if it suits you.
There are thousands of apps you can custom install if you decide to install it. They are all installed and downloaded via the repositories within the program. you just choose what you would like.
I use lnux as my main O/S and have it diual boot with XP for some of my kids games. Very easy to setup.
If you have installed Xp from a CD you will realize how long it takes to install.
You can install Kubuntu or Ubuntu and all the office software in about 30 -40 minutes.
And initial boot time in very fast compared to XP.

Another feature I like about it is that a lot of dubious sites can't install their spyware and porn dialers:D:D:D:D if you were that way inclined:wasntme: LOLOLOLOL

The live Cd is also handy even if you never install it.
If your MS windows ever crashes and you can get in, then wack the live CD in and access your windows files/folder with it and if un repairable at least you may be able to rescue some important stuff. ie photos, docs etc.