Making the Switch

[Beldaran]

I am posting from my new Linux installation! :)

I have two desktop computers. One is a Dell Dimension E510 that has Windows XP on it that I use mostly because it has my nice graphics card for playing games. My other desktop is a computer I built 8 years ago and have upgraded throughout the years. It currently has a 2.6ghz single core processor with 1 GB of RAM. Not bad, but not nearly as nice as my gaming computer. It also has an older model video card.

Anyway, since I had been using the gaming PC for most of my work, I hadn't turned on my home-built computer in some time. Recently I decided I wanted to really switch to Linux and use it for absolutely everything I could. I know that I'll need to be a proficient Linux/Unix user in my future career, so I looked at as a productive project, as well as just fun.

Well, I installed Debian Linux on it and I'm using the GNOME desktop. It's so awesome! I have a cool looking visual theme installed, and I used the command line for everything I can so that I'll get better at it.

So yeah, I'm officially part of the Linux community and, with the exception of games, I've pretty much absolved myself of the need for Windows.

Any other Linux users here? What distribution do you use? What do you think of Debian? (my distro).

[rock_nog]

I've always had problems with Linux. Prolly my fault for buying cheap, crappy computers, but I always end up having some piece of hardware that Linux can't support - either my video card, or my sound card, or my wifi card... It's always something. I've always wanted to switch to Linux, but... Well, I've just never had any luck with it.

[Flash Man]

I really like using Linux. The only problem is Microsoft provides all of my solutions. I like using Microsoft Visual Studio, because it makes programming very easy with their help and intellisense. I also like using Windows because it is much more simple and straight forward with applications. Plus almost all of the mainstream software is developed for Windows. Finally my HTC8525 Windows Mobile only works with Windows.

If I could replace all of my software with Linux versions then I would be happy to switch over. I would have to use FinchSync with my phone to connect with Linux. I tried it out and it was very complicated to use; I also was not able to use my USB cable to perform sync. I tried using GNUCash for an alternative to Quicken, but it as well was much more complicated to use than Quicken. However on the flip side, OpenOffice is a great alternative to Microsoft Office.

[vegeta1215]

I started using Linux in February 2002. So, it's been over 6 years since I made the switch, and you wouldn't believe how much has changed for the Linux desktop within that time. Right now I'm using Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring Edition, and it is a day and night difference from Mandrake Linux 8.2 (which is what I started with).

I've never used Debian, but I hear good things about it. It's rock solid in terms of stability I hear, but in order to keep it that way, it doesn't have the latest versions of software. But, Debian has become the foundation for many other distros (such as Ubuntu) which build upon it and keep all the software bleeding edge. Debian's package manager is said to be unrivaled, but a lot of distros have something similar now. Mandriva uses urpmi for example, Fedora uses something called yum, SuSE uses yast, etc...

That's great that you're getting familiar with the command line. I do a lot in the command line, and manage my files there, but I like using GUIs for system configuration, and Mandriva's tools are really great :)

[Lilith]

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