I'd like to use Linux but...

I like the disclaimer (x-post):

CrunchBang Linux is not recommended for anyone needing a stable system or anyone who is not comfortable running into occasional, even frequent breakage. CrunchBang Linux could possibly make your computer go CRUNCH! BANG!

or anyone who dislikes black.

seriously, i tried it recently and the theme is white and black for everything. changing the openbox theme / background was easy enough but even things like the firefox url box were white on black.

(dark backgrounds on glossy screens = lots of reflections. maybe ok if you program in the a basement...)

Yup can't say I'm a huge fan of the CrunchBang colour scheme (or lack of it).

I ran Linux Mint Xfce on an old net book last year and that worked a treat. Not sure what the current release is like however - the relentless release schedule is a bit overwhelming.

what about one of the red hat enterprise derived distros like centos or scientific linux? they seem relatively stable / well supported

http://www.junauza.com/2008/11/7-deadly-linux-commands.html

mv /home/yourhomedirectory/* /dev/null

have heard good things about centos from our server guys at work

i just want something that i can incrementally upgrade forever, no reinstalling every couple of years, too much of a wrench. am on ubuntu 10.04 so have another year to find something. not keen on unity. tried kubuntu but didn't like it... don't like the idiot menu in mint (how reconfigurable is that?) but cinnamon / mate sounds useful.

Arch Linux!

Now I remember why I didn't dual boot on that laptop, it has that wireless problem with the Broadcom card. :-/

Anyways, I couldn't install puppy, but Lubuntu seems to be okay (booting from CD). Tried Tiny Core too, but I hate those Apple-y pop up icons.

I am using virtual Ubuntu on oracle virtual box at work. I feel special. now I can use clementine

there is some CHinese Mach kernal linux distro - now THAT would be solitude to use that

i am trying out Mint 12. new modemmanager breaks E220 support (same is true of lots of debian-based distros), and, of course, with no modem you can't investigate a fix without constant rebooting.

mate (their gnome2 hack) looks ok, but is missing a couple of my most-used gnome bits. and i still don't like the menu.

is there a "one distro to find them all and in the darkness bind them"?

lots of modern linuxen depend on debian so i'd say it would be The One Distro

Debian as a project though has had some struggles though as a partial result of Ubuntu's success; for a while they were really hurting for developers.

I always recommend Arch Linux for advanced users who want their computers to work exactly how they want and have bleeding edge software and don't mind having to do lots of stuff by hand and also sometimes X will break!

what about Red Hat

Red Hat is for IT departments terrified of using anything they can't buy a very expensive support contract for.

(but fedora or centos are v similar, and free)

what about MAC OS and its celebrated Steve Jobbs hack of unix?

OS X is the most popular commercial Unix out there!

ACTUALLY ios is

eh same thing

Shitload of machines running Linux derivatives these days, too. Samsung televisions, half a dozen wireless router brands, video players, loads of things.

Is the PS3 operating system a unix derivative?

i think they'd be compelled to release the source if it was...

not all unix is foss though

oh sorry.. i read leenux instead of unix... it would seem like a lot of trouble to roll your own os from scratch though.

Nah, it's proprietary

I recently hacked my way through a 2nd Hackintosh install (now running OSX 10.6.8!) cos I need FCP for work. It was a huge pain, i think all the distros come packaged with kexts (drivers) and you have to pick THE RIGHT ONE and if you pick something else or say just decide to install a bunch of video kexts in the hope that one works, your machine will lock up and crash and you pretty much have to start the re-install from scratch.

I figured since it's Unix-based like Linux that you have to go through the same thing, tho the one time I installed Ubuntu I didn't have any problems. Except I just could not get my network card to recognize, and that's a deal-breaker.

As much as I hate to say it, I'm a Windows/DOS guy born and raised, and there are a number of Win-only programs that I just can't do without. Mainly Fruity Loops.

DOS is heaven

I recently updated to Onieric Ocelot. actually my daughter did it when I was nto looking by mashing keys madly - linux IS easy to use!

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/08/stephen-fry-i-use-ubuntu

My sister's got this laptop w xp service pack 3, works fine except for freezing sometimes online, worst on firefox, but also some noticeable slowing down on chrome, safari. She doesn't want to invest in more memory and windows 7, not yet so hey why not try linux. I checked zorin, burned it to disc as site instructed, but her laptop couldn't open it, neither could mine, which does have win 7. anyway, I'vr twice tried ubuntu with the Wubi installed (can also choose variants, like xpost lubuntu I think) it's here
http://download.cnet.com/Wubi/3000-2094_4-10701841.html?tag=mncol;3#editorsreview Rebooted as it instructed, chose Ubuntu as OS,got black screen, blinking cursor, did contl alt del, chose debugging mode, tried again, got black screen, w message
GNU GRUB version 2.00-7ubuntu11
BASH-Line editing is supported for the first word, TAB lists possible command completion anywhere else TAB lists possible device or file completion so I tried commmands open, start, s few others, said didn't recognize then, tried c:// and \\ with a couple more, same results. How do I open this fucker? thanks for your consideration.

I don't know the answer to your question.

That said, different manufacturers can have issues with Linux, and I've read of people have problems with Wubi. Do you have the disc to reinstall Windows XP if things go wrong?

If so, I would say get Xubuntu or Lubuntu 12.04 or earlier from the official Ubuntu site, burn to a live CD, and test on the machine. You should be able to dual boot the XP or the 'buntu from the installer on the disc. I made it work with a friends ancient desktop a few years ago.

how long did you let it sit at the blinking cursor? give it at least a couple of minutes, it doesn't load as fast from the CD as from a hard drive.

sounds like debugging mode was actually working fine. that is usually used when you have already installed linux on your box and you need to boot a minimal OS from the CD to fix something you screwed up. it's probably limited to the command line, which i'm guessing isn't what you are looking for.

there are a bunch of "intro to the unix command line" tutorials out there, I don't really know which one is best but the first couple of google results look decent.

thanks guys, i may try it with a disc again, may have to download a free program linked from ubuntu to burn and open it etc. as for the present wubi download directly to hard drive, i looked up the gnu grub 2 command line info on ubuntu's help, but username and password aren't recognized. so maybe i'll start over with the disc and lubuntu--which is also a choice you get using the wubi installer, so maybe i'll try that combination first. meanwhile, the freezing online seems to have stopped, at least while using chrome and free microsoft security essentials (she had avira free, which constantly scanned and had big and little pop-up balloons, reports and ads, arrgh) still i feel an urge to respond to the linux challenge.

i hate to say it but in a lot of cases winxp will perform better than even the low-frills linux distros.

I've struggled with xubuntu on my 6 yr old laptop for the last 6 months, and it's definitely more sluggish than xp. I'm gonna have to go back.

> GNU GRUB version 2.00-7ubuntu11
> BASH-Line editing is supported for the first word, TAB lists possible command completion anywhere else
> TAB lists possible device or file completion

the Grub command line is not the linux command line - it's just a tiny bootstrap program that'll let you examine and mount boot images, and change boot parameters. you shouldn't ever need to use it, especially not on a live cd.

that said, my older laptop wouldn't boot livecds without extra boot parameters, specifically acpi=off. also removing things like 'splash' from the command line might give you better visibility of what's happening.

and, yes, patience is needed with livecds.

trying out Mint linux - slick interface!

@dow, - maybe late but could try to boot from llinux on usb stick

My weekend project:

http://lfsbook.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/view/stable/

Thanks Latham, the laptop owner just wanted some way to add speed and avoid freeze, so I gave up on getting linux the way I was asking about, and deleted some stuff never used; that seemed to suffice, so far. But I wouldn't mind having linux as backup on my own Windows laptop (405 GB free). Maybe I'll try the usual disc method, but how would I get it on a USB stick?

http://www.ubuntu.com/download/help/create-a-usb-stick-on-windows

Thanks!

I installed ubuntu side by side with windows XP - you have the option of which to boot into when you startup. or if you have a big usb stick just run it off there if you like.

BTW Mint linux is really impressive so far!

i dual-installed Mint 13 a few months ago and plan to migrate over to it between now and when support for ubuntu Lucid LTS runs out (april). i can't get on with Unity and with Mint 13 the Mate alternative supports all the stuff fussy old me likes / requires.

not keen on mint's enormous menu though, seems to involve a lot of movement to get to where you want to be.

Unity is annoying. I dont get the appeal

I switched my 5 y.o. laptop from windows xp to Mint 14 (with xfce) on an SSD last week and i really like it so far. I was going to get a new computer to replace it, but this is running well enough that I'm probably not going to bother.