Best Operating System

[Shai Gar]

what is the best operating system to run dual with XP?

i am thinking of unix based systems, probably linux, but i dont know what distribution to get.. so could you guys please tell me which ones you think are the best... their strengths, their weaknesses, their n00b compatibility.

when you recommend one, could you keep in mind that i pick shit up pretty quickly and wont always be a n00b, and that i have an urge to press big red buttons that tell me they are self destruct buttons, such as http://www.turnofftheinternet.com


The thread creator reserves the right to have your post deleted or modified if you recommend Macintosh or Windows in your post, and by posting in this thread you agree wholeheartedly to the deletion or modification of said posts if they are made

[garak]

ubuntu

[file cabinet]

menuetos!

[Star]

What's with the grandma font.

[Shai Gar]

Fedora Core 3

[file cabinet]

Fedora Core 3

you're running a server? otherwise ubuntu (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_Linux)/kubuntu (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kubuntu) are more geared toward desktop use.

n00b compatible = from what I've heard, yeah

[Trolsk]

I wouldn't run a "desktop Unix" to complement XP. XP beats Unix-systems in comfortability. On the other hand, you wouldn't learn Unix well when using XP primarily.

[garak]

I wouldn't run a "desktop Unix" to complement XP. XP beats Unix-systems in comfortability.
Maybe to you. Not to me, by a long shot.

[Trolsk]

That could be. All I need is a terminal, a shell and screen :)

[Star]

http://www.cygwin.com/

[Shai Gar]

see, here was me asking for STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES as well as names

[Star]

see, here was me asking for STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES as well as names
You're not worth that much effort.

[In...TP]

Please help a "po" intp whose stuck in 2000 with ME. What should I do? Help me...Help me!

[Ka.avik]

Please help a "po" intp who's stuck in 2000 with ME. What should I do? Help me...Help me!
#dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=5120


anything you do after that has to improve the functionality of your system.

Did you know you can buy a home-license of solaris (http://www.sun.com/) for $35 (last I checked)?
not as user-friendly as most distros of linux, (I prefer slackware (http://slackware.com/)) but it is more marketable in the computer world.

[Dunearhp]

see, here was me asking for STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES as well as names

Have you got a partition or drive set aside?

What do you want to use it for? Programming? General learning experience? Graphic design?

With the prevalence of Gnome and KDE, most distros are fairly similar during day to day desktop use. Which is best depends on what you want to get out of it and the type of maintenance you have patience for.

[In...TP]

When I Google map to satellite, my computer locks up. I have to power down/up to get it running again. Damn piece of Compaq (constipaq) shit acts like it wants to die on me.

[ApeTheDog]

For graphics, Mac.
For useability, Windows XP.
For geeks and servers, Linux.
For always having to mess with your config.sys, DOS 6.0

[2ds]

dos 6.22 was the shit

-2ds

[ApeTheDog]

DOS made you think about what you did, before you did it (because it would happily delete all your files without giving you a way to stop it when it was in progress. There was no 'cancel' button) whilst windows always assumes you're an idiot, and makes you think AFTER you've given a command. (Are you sure you want to... Y/N)

I preferred the DOS way. Plus, I had all kinds of hip batch files set up that I linked to in my PATH list, so I could use them everywhere. It was good.

But thank god that I'll never have to do memory management again. Just getting a simple game ilke eye of the beholder to play was the hardest thing. 'Not enough memory to run eye.exe' just because it all had to fit into 640kb, along with DOS, was terrible.

[Shai Gar]

for general learning, for never fucking up, for modifying, and later on, for programming

[Architectonic]

RS-DOS ;)

[Trolsk]

Unix is a powerful family of operative systems, but there is a high threshold of knowledge required to use them well. Generally, when taking advantage of Unix, you are not using "fancy" point-n-click programs: much of its power lies in the custom to compose several specific programs to do larger things (tailoring to the Unix principle: keep it simple, stupid.) The point is that if you don't get "down and dirty" on a command level, you're missing out.

Unix offers simple and rich programming environments. There are many programmers who prefer it to Windows, for example.

As for fucking up, Unix systems are traditionally screwable at the slip of a finger and an unwatchful mind.

[Dunearhp]

for general learning, for never fucking up, for modifying, and later on, for programming

For general learning I would recommend an RPM based distro, such as Fedora core. Install stuff from tarballs, such as nifty cutting edge stuff from freshmeat.net.

Never fucking up normally depends on you. That said, I have been running Debian unstable for more than four years with no catastrophic failures. Little things break occasionally (rarely), normally during upgrades and normally related to my own esoteric configurations.

Modifying. Anything will do. Not breaking depends on what you've picked up.

Programming. Debian. Virtually every compiler, library and programming tool available is installable with a single command (Visual basic doesn't count). Hard to install if you are completely new.

Just my feelings. Pick one, the differences are often minor, almost all have the same basic tools available.

[moni]

maybe this (http://www.nata2.info/humor/flash/switchlinux3.swf) will help you out.

[Dunearhp]

maybe this (http://www.nata2.info/humor/flash/switchlinux3.swf) will help you out.

Very nice. :)

[Shadow]

If you learn best by total, immediate hyperfocused immersion, I would recommend any linux distribution that does little to "hold your hand." Slackware and Debian are fine distributions for those new to linux who desire to understand linux and it's associated GNU system. Slackware was my first distribution, being completely new to linux at the particular time.

[Geoff]

maybe this (http://www.nata2.info/humor/flash/switchlinux3.swf) will help you out.

That's cute. I guess some of the messages in there are why I try linux for a while but always end up with XP. I actually grew up on SunOS so I feel unix is the 'real thing' but I just get tired of trying to get hardware to work that was built for windows, or rebuilding shit that just works on windows. Or tinkering with driver files and all that.

I mean, fine, if you have a need to do that stuff, and like playing then yay. I like unix, it feels good. I know it is more secure and all that. But XP is so much less stress to use for someone who is now a non-enthusiast.

-Geoff

[SheepDog]

For general learning I would recommend an RPM based distro, such as Fedora core. Install stuff from tarballs, such as nifty cutting edge stuff from freshmeat.net.

Never fucking up normally depends on you. That said, I have been running Debian unstable for more than four years with no catastrophic failures. Little things break occasionally (rarely), normally during upgrades and normally related to my own esoteric configurations.

Modifying. Anything will do. Not breaking depends on what you've picked up.

Programming. Debian. Virtually every compiler, library and programming tool available is installable with a single command (Visual basic doesn't count). Hard to install if you are completely new.

Just my feelings. Pick one, the differences are often minor, almost all have the same basic tools available.
I agree. Pick a linux variant, and don't get caught up in the differences.

I used to poke around with the O/S more, rebuilding the kernel from source, etc. Now I don't mind that it's gotten easier. I can spend my time coding, or making the system do something interesting instead.

[knome]

I find that those who said the ubuntu linux distro are probably pointing you towards what you'd like best. I'm posting from it now, and ever since I installed it, have been using my windows box less and less. I powered the windows box off about a week ago and haven't turned it on since. I'm thinking of turning it off altogether as soon as I strip off personal files I'd like to keep.

Ubuntu has the advantages in that it is very user friendly during installation and for normal use. It also has a well integrated package manager that will check to see what any given program you install needs before it installs it, so you don't get stuck in dependancy hell. The distro is based off of the popular debian linux often rated as being one of the best for servers, it is a good pick for your first linux install.

That said, the distro can be frustrating. It has all kinds of little locked down parts that will crawl under your skin until you figure them out. It is designed to hide away things newer users can hurt themselves on. For example, you have to edit one of the configuration files before you can access programs not explicitly approved by the design team on the package management app. In order to do many things you will have to learn how many of the programs on your system work and interact.

To setup dual screens that act like one big screen stretched across two monitors is not as easy as right clicking and setting another monitor to active as you do in windows. Instead you have to learn quite a bit about the architecture of your machine and how the desktop environment of a linux machine is built.

None of it is hard, most is just esoteric, as most things dealing in computer technology are. If you have anything like the machine affinity I have for these things, you'll enjoy messing with everything until you figure out why this does that etc.

On programming, I've noted that since moving to linux I've stopped using an IDE. On XP I used Bloodshed Softwares DevC++ IDE on windows, but on Ubuntu I just use gedit with its automatic syntax highlighting, and then compile from a terminal. Learning to create makefiles is an interesting hobby.

[atypical]

If you like GEdit's auto syntax highlighting, you should try GTK Emacs! There's debs of recent CVS snapshots at http://sadleder.de/debian/. Add in the colour stuff from http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki?ColorTheme/ and you've got yourself the awesomest text editer ever. Sure, the keybindings take a while to get used to, but many other GNU programs use them as well (bash, MC, GDB...).

[VVelox]

I would suggest checking out FreeBSD. I have found it to be a lot nicer to work with than linux, especially in the area of package management. Not messed with a system that uses portage, but I've found it a lot nicer to work with than rpm based systems. That and nice documentation and very easy to configure.

I would also suggest actually learning how the system works instead of letting all those half assed GUIs, that the Gnome and KDE ppl are fond of, handle things. It will make things a lot easier and save you a lot of pain.

And if you do decide to go with linux, I would suggest at all costs staying away from any thing by red hat. I am stuck using that up at work and have absolutely nothing good to say about it.

[VVelox]

For general learning I would recommend an RPM based distro, such as Fedora core. Install stuff from tarballs, such as nifty cutting edge stuff from freshmeat.net.


Regardless of what UNIX derivative is being used, I would suggest staying away from installing stuff from source your self with out a package management system that is meant to actually do that. It makes it a complete pain in the ass a later on when you go to mess with it.

[Ka.avik]

Regardless of what UNIX derivative is being used, I would suggest staying away from installing stuff from source your self with out a package management system that is meant to actually do that. Agreed. But, there is a way around that -- in both debian and RH, you can "install" a stub-package, that is nothing more than a list of dependancies provided, and perhaps a list of files for deletion at a later date.

Slackware (http://www.slackware.com) is much easier, IMHO. Gentoo (http://www.gentoo.org/), if you have the patience to finish the install and do it right, is absolutely great, as it defaults to compiling everthing for your hardware -- thus installing a 'stub' package is quite easy...

[Dunearhp]

Regardless of what UNIX derivative is being used, I would suggest staying away from installing stuff from source your self with out a package management system that is meant to actually do that. It makes it a complete pain in the ass a later on when you go to mess with it.

I recommended it at a learning experience. I've always found that minor breakage can be quite educational.

[KeepLeft]

Emacs kicks arse!

while not wanting to get into a holly war of Emacs vs. VI, Emacs is so customisable. You can tinker with it and get it just how you like. There are heaps of 'plug-ins' you can add on if you are too lazy to program yourself - eg you can add a syntax highlight mode for an obscure programming language, or you can write your own. You must give it a try.

ps. i should clarify that emacs is a text editor, not an OS.