Who currently uses Linux?

[Stephen Coates]

The things which you just mentioned harrison, are one of the reasons I'm not even that bothered about trying Vista.

I have a Calendar on my wall, and on my PowerBook (I quite like Claris Organiser). I have a calculator on my desk. I have the notpad application which is easily launched from typing notepad and the calculator from typing calc.

And I'm guessing this sidebar wouldn;t even be visible when you are using a programme full screen?

[Harrison]

The sidebar is part of the desktop, so you are correct. Open an application full screen and it is hidden.

I suppose a business user might find it useful, especially on a laptop when they are on the move, but then limited screen size starts to come into play (unless you spent a couple of £K on one with a big screen resolution such as the Rock with its 1920x1600).

But the sidebar is really just Microsoft's answer to Apple's widgets, and those are just as annoying. And neither are anything new really. Who remembers all the little gadget utilities you could use on the Amiga!!! I used to have a few sitting on my Workbench desktop many years ago. So it just goes to show that the big two OS's are still playing catchup.

I also don't think Vista is the ideal OS for a laptop. It's resource hungry so you need a system with at least 2GB of ram to get the most from it, and it is designed for large screen resolutions, so as mentioned, unless you shell out for one with a widescreen high resolution, you will be fighting for screen space.

The prefect OS for a laptop? Linux! It's lightweight and even the latest releases of the popular ones such as Fedora or Ubuntu will run nicely with 512MB of ram. It also doesn't require a huge HD to use. Ubuntu needs about 3GB to install, which might sound a lot, but remember that this does include a lot of applications preinstalled, including the complete Open Office suite.

[Tiago]

HELP !!!!

how can a set up my linksys WRT54GC wireless in Ubuntu... ??? in XP it workd perfectly... but in linux.... doesnt seem to have a program to look up for possible networks...

[Stephen Coates]

I have finally ordered an extra HD and some Debian install CDs for the latest version (4-Etch).

Disks came today but still waiting for the HD so I can install it on my PC.

[Harrison]

What make/size of HD did you order?

HD prices are good at the moment, but haven't really dropped much since last summer which is a bit of a surprise. 500GB HDs are still around the £50-60 price range, which is what i paid for my Seagate 500GB drives last year.

What made you pick Debian over one of the Linux distros such as Fedora or Ubuntu?

And how come you ordered a set of discs instead of just downloading the ISOs? Are the discs proper pressed ones or just CD-R/DVD-R? That is something I've always wanted to know.

[Harrison]

BTW, have you all seen Ubuntu running with a couple of the cool additions, XGL and Kiba-Dock, installed? Kind of shows up Vista by quite some margin.

Take a look at it here to see a comparison of Vista verses Ubuntu, and here showing some more of Ubuntu.

[Stephen Coates]

I got a 20GB Maxtor HD second hand for about £8. Any bigger than that and there'd be too much space than I'd know what to do with. Linux install shouldn't take any more than a few GB.

The CDs which I ordered were just CDRs. I don't know if pressed ones are avaliable from anywhere. I would normally download the ISOs, but I really couldn't be bothered. At least any small amounts of profit that are made from this will go to people who help develop debian. It's not like I'm buying Windows Vista.

I chose Debian because I have used it before a little bit (PowerPC version) and it seemed quite nice. Didn't really use it enough to compare it to anything though. Is there a perticular reason I should have chosed Fedora or Ubuntu? I know everyone seems to get obsessed with Ubuntu but it is based on Debian and Debian is easier to spell.