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Category: Computer Help
Need Linux Help

Hi. My windows crapped out again! Some file it needed to boot got wiped out (not by me) and the recovery CD's were a complete waste of time. At the end of scanning 8 CDs and saying, "Please Wait..."(while it performed the final procedures) it kept saying that an hour or so later and so I popped out the disks and said screw it. This computer wasn't even 4 months old! It's a compaq Presario 3100+. Bought in February. Wait. One those no pay for six months arrangements. I haven't even paid a cent for it yet!

Anyhow Linux works. I wouldn't exactly say okay, but probably as best I can expect getting it from a private party for cheap. Can anyone recommend a version that has darn near all the functionality I miss out on not having Windows? Printing? Emulating Windows so I could run my graphics program? Win for Lin or Lindows? I am currently running Red Hat 8.

thanks, SJP

I've always recommended starting with Mandrake (now called Mandriva (http://www1.mandrivalinux.com/en-us/)). I think it's one of the easiest distrobutions to use. Personally, I use debian (http://debian.org), but that's for people who don't want a lot of hand holding. :)

As for windows emulation(implentation), I have no experience there, but you should take a look at wine (http://winehq.org/) also.

Ubuntu (http://www.ubuntulinux.org/) is gainly a lot of popularity. It is based on Debian, but it is a lots more user friendly.

SuSE is also very good, and comes with a hell of a lot of additional programs if you need to find 'Windows replacements'.

Fedora Core 4 (http://fedora.redhat.com/) is out now. Fedora is similar to Red Hat, which is what WestHost uses.

I like Ubuntu. Both Debian and Ubuntu are very good because of their apt-get system for installing updates and programs. Good luck. :)

Thanks for all the help. I'm gonna try Ubuntu. It's free. They ship the CD's at no cost. In my travels I came accross a Microsoft Linux website (http://www.mslinux.org/). Can you believe it? Not sure I do. It was sarcastic and most of the links don't go anywhere you'd expect. Kind of think the project was abandon, because the launch date was November 2003 and despite my disgust with their OS (especially browsers timing out my DSL connection which is really annoying) they usually are pretty good at keeping their websites tuned. Plus they advertise elsewhere that IT professionals prefer Windows Server which seems lopsided, because according to http://news.netcraft.com/ they're loosing the battle on the website development front too although there was a slight gain that maybe is suggestive of a trend in Bill's wildest imagination. So if you can't think of any twisted wishes take a look at their twisted humor.










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