Considering moving back to Linux

[Warrior]

That seems to be the mindset taken by most I've talked to, yes.
They've been claiming that this year is the year of the Desktop Linux, or the year that Linux will from the ashes of irrelevance.

Well, I guess I've been trying to live a non-competitive lifestyle, and my opinions are sort of based on that. I don't see it as a competition, anymore than I see programming languages in competition. People should use whatever's best for the job at hand.

Well I see them both as competition to each other, and it's not a bad thing that they are. They learn from each other, and in the end the consumer is the one who ends up winning.

In my opinion, it has already achieved hugely amounts of success. It's widely considered one of the most stable operating systems and is used on servers worldwide.

If you mean in terms of usability, then that's a little different. I don't especially care, though. Linux is for geeks, and nobody else. End of story.

Yes, I mean in the scope of the desktop. I think it's very possible for it to achieve some form of success on the Desktop, it's a pretty flexible operating system which could easily find a niche in power users alike, but it needs to be much more of a presence. Although, the OEM deals with Dell and others have really surprised me as to their success.

[iago]

Well I see them both as competition to each other, and it's not a bad thing that they are. They learn from each other, and in the end the consumer is the one who ends up winning.

Well, I think it is, they could do a hell of a lot better if they'd share. One major problem with competition is incompatibility -- the inability to read each other's document formats and use each other's protocols (in a lot of cases) is painful. And it's in the best interest to keep it that way.


On a sidenote, this is topic 11111. That's sweet.

[d&q]

Right now I'm seriously considering moving back to Linux as my main OS, but I have a few requirements that I need some help on, and all of these I need:
1. to get on the internet (I've never tried wireless on Linux before)
2. to run VS2k5 for my CS classes
3. to print stuff (I've never been able to print stuff to my printer from Linux)
4. to be able to access NTFS formatted drives, and I don't have enough space to backup and reformat the stuff on them!
5. to stream media to my 360
6. to convert video formats AND be able to rip and encode video


So, my basic question is: considering the above, what distro and programs should I/do I need to use?

Are you saying that this linux can run on a computer without windows underneath it, at all ? As in, without a boot disk, without any drivers, and without any services ?

That sounds preposterous to me.

[pxc]

Right now I'm seriously considering moving back to Linux as my main OS, but I have a few requirements that I need some help on, and all of these I need:
1. to get on the internet (I've never tried wireless on Linux before)
2. to run VS2k5 for my CS classes
3. to print stuff (I've never been able to print stuff to my printer from Linux)
4. to be able to access NTFS formatted drives, and I don't have enough space to backup and reformat the stuff on them!
5. to stream media to my 360
6. to convert video formats AND be able to rip and encode video


So, my basic question is: considering the above, what distro and programs should I/do I need to use?

You can google these individually (I don't really have time to post links and all. Check wikipedia.

1.) Whatever the kernel comes with (check your wireless chipset!). If that fails, ndiswrapper.
2.) Virtualbox, a free full-blown VM + Windows.
3.) CUPS + Foomatic/GDI drivers. Web interface lives on localhost:631
4.) the ntfs-3g driver is what you're looking for. Comes with most modern non-do-it-yourself distros like Ubuntu, Mandriva, openSUSE and company.
5.) What do you use on Windows for streaming things to your 360?
6.) ffmpeg and its various GUI frontends should do nicely.

I can understand your distaste for Ubuntu, or at least for Gnome, but honestly, if you can't get printing working I don't know if a distro like Slackware is the distro for you. You might want to try an Ubuntu variant, like Xubuntu or Kubuntu.

[Sidoh]

We're usually not too picky on this, but bumping dead threads like this one is usually not done because the original questions have either been answered or the person has moved on.  I suspect one of those two is the case here.

To put it more brashly, don't bump old threads unless you're sure you have something to add.  I'm pretty sure all of the questions you answered were addressed earlier.  I normally wouldn't say anything, but it seems you've been bumping threads pretty regularly and it's not the type of thing we like to get in the habit of.

[Ender]

1-800-FU-SIDOH

[pxc]

We're usually not too picky on this, but bumping dead threads like this one is usually not done because the original questions have either been answered or the person has moved on.  I suspect one of those two is the case here.

To put it more brashly, don't bump old threads unless you're sure you have something to add.  I'm pretty sure all of the questions you answered were addressed earlier.  I normally wouldn't say anything, but it seems you've been bumping threads pretty regularly and it's not the type of thing we like to get in the habit of.

Yessir.

[iago]

To be fair, this is a low-traffic forum and this thread was probably 6th or 7th from the top, so it doesn't seem very old.

On the other hand, I think there's a big red warning at the top if a thread is older than 30 days, so that should be easy to notice.

[Krazed]

Eh -- On topic: I moved back to linux today. Sidoh (sorta) suggested Ubuntu, so I'm using it. I'd have to say, the install was awesomely easy. I was planning on partitioning things so I could still use windows every once in a while, but I figured if the install was that easy hopefully everything else will be too. So shrug, back to a linux-only computer.