Who currently uses Linux?

[Tiago]

Well i try the virtual machine before (VMplayer) but the speed is not the same....

When i installed Mandrake some time ago, he creates a new partition for Linux and did something like "pull the win partitions to other side of HD" and rearange them all, but it was very fast to do it. And both mandrake and XP did work fine! I am sure ubuntu will do the same. .... later if i see that ubuntu do everything i need, i remove windows... i only have XP because there is allways 1 application i cant find in linux.... but if i get all in linux (dont need to much these days) i will keep linux only...

[Harrison]

There is also the ability to run a lot of Windows software using WINE and other Linux applications, which also helps remove the need for Windows.

But, I couldn't stop using Windows as it has so much software I need, such as Photoshop and video editing apps, but also as important are the emulators such as MAME and WinUAE, which are not as developed under Linux.

[Demon Cleaner]

Otherwise get a copy of Partition Magic which does the partitioning job quite good, without losing content or having to reformat the whole.

[Harrison]

I don't trust partition magic myself. Not since I used a copy a few years ago and it completely messed the HD up. It also seemed extremely slow and sat for a long time appearing to do nothing.

The Linux partition tools are much better as they run without first needing to boot into the OS on the HD, so the whole of the HD is free for it to control and move data around. And as Tiago said, the Linux partition tools are normally very fast.

In fact, compared to Windows everything in Linux is fast! I installed Ubuntu onto a spare PC earlier this evening and from switching the system on I had it all installed and setup, with internet access, all hardware working, and no conflicts in under 20 minutes! Tell me that's possible to do with Windows!

And Microsoft really do need to be shown the latest versions of Linux and how an OS really should behave. I tried to enable the enhanced visual effects in the Ubuntu desktop, but as it was only using the default nVidia drivers from the install CD it didn't have the ability to enable the features... so what did it do? It automatically asked me if it was OK to download the proper driver, I clicked OK, it downloaded it without further issues, installed it and the features were activated. Why can't Windows be that straight forward?

[Stephen Coates]

I have used Debian/Sarge for PPC, and it was OK, but being an OldWorld Mac it was a bit difficult to get going. In fact, I didn't get it working properly at all, partly due to graphics problems, but out of all the distrobutions I tried, Debian is the ones which worked best.

I have a spare partition on my PC's HD so I will see about installing the newer version of Debian, which I forget the name of.

For live CDs, I quite like DSL.

[Harrison]

You definitely should try the newest version of Ubuntu on your PC Steve. The download is a single CD ISO and that contains both the live CD and the full HD installer. And to install to the HD it boots into the live version with an installer icon on the disktop, so the install process is actually running from within itself. Quite a cool idea and it works much faster at installing than any other Linux distro I've tried so far. I can see why everyone like it so much.

It is quite a light setup with just the core set of popular applications and utilities, but everything is there for the standard desktop setup, including open office and GIMP. An average home user probably wouldn't need to add any other programs.

[AlexJ]

Yeah, the newest version of Ubuntu (7.10) is very nice. No problems with driver support on my 3 year old PC. Synaptic is almost Playstation Store-like in being able to download and install software packages.

[Quagmire]

I Use Ubuntu release 7 for PPC on an Ibook G4 1.2GHz and It's very smooth compared to OSX, easy to use and full of features, I likey very much