Which Linux?

[norrahe]

ubuntu with no probs, quite happily using it

 

[swamp]

Ubuntu on the desktop here at work. It's OK but not perfect. Makes a very good development machine though because you don't have the corporate anti-virus slowing the machine to a grinding halt.

One big problem with Ubuntu is the packaged applications are frozen by version up to a year behind. I once needed Subversion 1.5 but our Ubuntu distro only had 1.4. I could only upgrade by enabling backports and getting an alpha version, and our whole team had to do this. Installing from source was not really an option because Subversion has an insane amount of dependencies (Apache -- why?!)

On Windows you just run the .msi installer and you get the latest and greatest Subversion client. This is how it should be on Linux.

 

[VectraMan]

I still haven't managed to get Linux to install on my PC. But when I did have something running my favourite was always Kubuntu: like Ubuntu, but with an altogether more grown up and less brown GUI.

But if XP crashes and Win 7 crashes, you've got a hardware problem.

If all OK get a spare hard drive and plug this in, install to this drive and if it all goes pear-shaped then you have not killed your Windows partition and can easily switch back to this.

I tried that, and it killed my Windows partition. Well stopped it booting anyway, and it took booting off a Windows CD and running repair to fix it. Thank God Microsoft are on the case, because the Linux people really aren't. It's like the old days of having to adjust your config.sys and emm386 to try to get enough RAM to boot the OS.

 

[Board Game Geek]

Other : please specify.

Windows 7.

Are people still faffing around with Linux ?

 

[TheFaQQer]

I put Ubuntu on my dual monitor laptop and it would not behave in any way other than to show the same image on both screens. I could not even convince it to use the higher resolution of the external monitor.

Ubuntu live CD recognizes that there are two monitors there (out of three) - trying to change the config requires a reboot, though, which of course doesn't work with a live CD

There are some good things on fora out there which shows how to do it - I found one last night with my exact configuration (two cards, three monitors).

Prawn and RC highlight important points though, any Linux distro is still a little way from being a stable Desktop OS. It is fun to fiddle though. I guess the thing to do would be to chuck the live CD in, boot into it and have a good few hours playing with it (assuming it works OK) and see if the machine behaves itself. Maybe even leave it like this overnight and see if it dies too. If all OK get a spare hard drive and plug this in, install to this drive and if it all goes pear-shaped then you have not killed your Windows partition and can easily switch back to this.

Good luck!

Good point - I started Ubuntu from a live CD last night and it's still running this morning (touch wood). 8 hours of uninterrupted use - more than I've had from Windows 7 since I started actually installing programs and recognizing the hardware on it. Will leave it running this weekend, and if it's still running by the end of it, that's a good sign.

Other : please specify.

Windows 7.

Are people still faffing around with Linux ?

Thank you for your valuable input. Call me picky, but I'd like a system which doesn't keep crashing throughout the day, when not doing very much hard work. I didn't buy a quad core system with 8GB of RAM to go through multiple blue screens each day, thanks.

 

[DiscoStu]

Where's the "I'd get Andyw's mum to code me a custom distro" option?

 

[RichardCranium]

Where's the "I'd get Andyw's mum to code me a custom distro" option?

You mean Chutnix?

Let's pop some links in for my own amusement:

Blog
Forum
Google (which already has this thread!)

 

[DiscoStu]

You mean Chutnix?

Let's pop some links in for my own amusement:

Blog
Forum
Google (which already has this thread!)

 

[Cliphead]

Linux Mint which is Ubuntu based but what Ubuntu should have been. Version 8 is due shortly.

Linky

Much better driver support than Ubuntu.

 

[TheFaQQer]

Linux Mint which is Ubuntu based but what Ubuntu should have been. Version 8 is due shortly.

Linky

Much better driver support than Ubuntu.

8 shipped today, but no 64bit support yet. Might have a look, though, if there is a live CD available.