For Those Frustrated with Vista (Free MEMORY trick!)
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WRT Linux, a lot of programs, games, etc don't run on Linux (I am probably mistaken) and no one really knows there options, personally I'd make the switch from XP to Linux if I knew all my files would make the transfer, Battlefield 2 would still run, and I'd be able to use MSword or equivalent.
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Joonrooj said:
Why wouldn't they? Of course, you're going to want to back up anything you want to keep but I've never lost anything off a hard drive making the switch, it just means you need to do a bit of prep work.
Cedega lets you play Windows games on Linux. Check the games list.
Open Office for all your office needs, for free! It'll even let you save as a Word .doc if you so desire.
If you want the best of both worlds, albeit that's said with some tounge in cheek, do a dual boot install, that way you can choose your flavour depending what you want to do...
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When I bought my new PC system, Vista was due out. It came with an upgrade to Vista, I choose not to get it as I remember all the problem with other MS versions. Like TN21C I was happy with 3.1. Now I have XP Pro.
I'm considering Linux, because I have heard so many good things about it. I was a "self" learner on MS, and I guess I need to know more before I do the leap. I'm not very good at fixing anything if it should go awry. I can do some things, but basically I need an OS that can crossover to my system at work (MS) with the ability to create powerpoints, documents, excel...ect. I do a lot of work at home, download to a jump drive and load it in there.
Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.
emmie
I'm considering Linux, because I have heard so many good things about it. I was a "self" learner on MS, and I guess I need to know more before I do the leap. I'm not very good at fixing anything if it should go awry. I can do some things, but basically I need an OS that can crossover to my system at work (MS) with the ability to create powerpoints, documents, excel...ect. I do a lot of work at home, download to a jump drive and load it in there.
Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.
emmie
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Experiment with one of the Live CD distros (Ubuntu is popular right now) to get a feel from the interface you'll be using.
As an interim step, install Open Office on your XP machine and get familiar with tools other than Office 2xxx - becasue once you make the Linux leap, odds are you'll be running Open Office. Open Office has decent filters to import and export files into MS Office formats.
As an interim step, install Open Office on your XP machine and get familiar with tools other than Office 2xxx - becasue once you make the Linux leap, odds are you'll be running Open Office. Open Office has decent filters to import and export files into MS Office formats.
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dapaterson said:
That's an excellent suggestion. Interestingly, I had done so this morning, prior to reading your post (Feather Linux, in my case). It boots off the CD, and I've been dicking around with it. It's certainly a painless way to experiment with a new OS without screwing up your current system.
After I've taken the time to play with it for a while, I'll PROBABLY switch over - my only concern being Windows apps that I currently depend on, such as Quicken, Turbocad, Cutlist Plus, Cabinetmaker Plus (a CNC application) and a couple of others - I have mucho dineros invested in some of these programs - and I don't want to have to buy Linux versions, if such versions are even available.
I understand that there are utilities available for you to run Windows apps in a "Windows Box" under Linux - Win4Lin being one such utility. I've been to the Win4Lin site and they promise performance at "close to native" speed - are these types of utilities the answer for folks like me that have literally thousands of dollars invested in CAD / CAM and other industry specific software?
Roy
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A safer bet for you might be to purchase a copy of VMWare Workstation. This will let you run a full version of windows inside a virtual machine and give you full native support for all your programs. You will of course want a healthy helping of RAM, but that's something you always want.
You mentioned the Live CD being a great way to try out a different operating system, well this is an even better method in my opinion. You can install it to a virtual disk and then just open it and play with it while still running your normal operating system. No need for a reboot and you can just pause it and close it if you want to get back to whatever you were doing.
http://www.vmware.com
You mentioned the Live CD being a great way to try out a different operating system, well this is an even better method in my opinion. You can install it to a virtual disk and then just open it and play with it while still running your normal operating system. No need for a reboot and you can just pause it and close it if you want to get back to whatever you were doing.
http://www.vmware.com
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miramidown said:
Thank you for that!
I'm going to download the trial version and give it a whirl.
I love Milnet.ca - even when it has me beating my head against the wall, I know that there are helpful and knowledgeable folks out there with the answers to all my questions.
Roy
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WRT Live CDs I've seen pretty much any linux distro in Live CD format. If you don't like what you see with one, try another. It's great to see the different ideas/frontends that the Linux community offers. A lot of the distros are available for FREE, and there is a great variety of software out there to do pretty much whatever you want.
VM Ware is a great way to experience the different Operating Systems (not just Linux) out there. The trial is free and the setup is painless. As stated above , you better have lots of RAM!
There is so much out there to experience that does not carry the Microsoft name.
Cheers
Smitty
VM Ware is a great way to experience the different Operating Systems (not just Linux) out there. The trial is free and the setup is painless. As stated above , you better have lots of RAM!
There is so much out there to experience that does not carry the Microsoft name.
Cheers
Smitty
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I got rid of the Microsoft hell two years ago and switched to Linux. Best move I've ever made. I use Mandrake and it blows MS all to hell, easy to use (there is a bit more of a learning curve) but it's well worth the extra effort. My desktop is completely modular, meaning I can change it to how I want it to look and function (Love open source!). And the best part is some places it's free to download, other places such as Mandrake, it can acquired for a small licence fee.
Don't be fooled by the people who tell you there are no applications for Linux, there are hundreds of software programs from word processors, to MP3' players, financial, utilities, Anti-virus, the list is long, long, long.
No more crashing ( in the middle of doing something important and losing all your work)
No Virus's (There are some but very few)
Fort Knox security (I can change my own security settings within the OS itself)
System runs just as well from 512Mb or 4GB mem. (unlike the Vista and XP memory pigs, slooooooooooooooow)
Completely modular ( meaning with a few key strokes I can change how my OS functions and looks, don't do this if you don't know the code)
System always runs blazingly fast. (Linux kernel opposed to the windows junk)
I used to be Bill Gates biggest fan, until I seen the other side. I'm a convert and will never go back.
As to your question about Vista, well it's chocked full of bugs and other useless junk, all this does is choke up your PC and stops it dead in its tracks. You could spend a few thousand $$$ on a powerfull PC, load Vista and it becomes a very expensive doorstop. Don't believe me, well seeing is believing, try it.
Don't be fooled by the people who tell you there are no applications for Linux, there are hundreds of software programs from word processors, to MP3' players, financial, utilities, Anti-virus, the list is long, long, long.
No more crashing ( in the middle of doing something important and losing all your work)
No Virus's (There are some but very few)
Fort Knox security (I can change my own security settings within the OS itself)
System runs just as well from 512Mb or 4GB mem. (unlike the Vista and XP memory pigs, slooooooooooooooow)
Completely modular ( meaning with a few key strokes I can change how my OS functions and looks, don't do this if you don't know the code)
System always runs blazingly fast. (Linux kernel opposed to the windows junk)
I used to be Bill Gates biggest fan, until I seen the other side. I'm a convert and will never go back.
As to your question about Vista, well it's chocked full of bugs and other useless junk, all this does is choke up your PC and stops it dead in its tracks. You could spend a few thousand $$$ on a powerfull PC, load Vista and it becomes a very expensive doorstop. Don't believe me, well seeing is believing, try it.
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Truth be told, I can see where MS was wanting to go with Vista. While there are a large number of irritating (they call them "features") quirks to the OS, almost every single one of them can be turned off or if nothing else, tweaked to a point where they are no longer such a pain in the butt. All a user needs to do is to do a search for any of a number of Vista tweak sites, and you will see a number of excellent "fine-tuning" techniques that will result in Vista running "nearly" as fast as XP. I say nearly, because as a matter of history, each successive release of Windows from 95 through to Vista has had progressively higher system requirements. When you really think about it, it makes sense to do it this way too. As newer, faster systems become the state-of-the-art, it is only logical that programs and Operating Systems would evolve to make the most use of it. One of the biggest changes to Windows was the upgrade to the NT Kernel with XP and Win2K. I know a number of users that still swear by Win2K and prefer it far above XP
Colin Parkinson
Army.ca Myth
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Vista, ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!
I have it on my new machine, getting all the hardware to work has been a pain, seems there not many drivers out there yet. Many of the older games or programs will not work with it. The security blocks are devious to figure out, you think you have shared something, but you really haven't. If you can wait a year, wait. I only got it because Vista is the only one that can run my processor.
I have it on my new machine, getting all the hardware to work has been a pain, seems there not many drivers out there yet. Many of the older games or programs will not work with it. The security blocks are devious to figure out, you think you have shared something, but you really haven't. If you can wait a year, wait. I only got it because Vista is the only one that can run my processor.
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Colin P said:
Thanks for the visual image. I can see that happening to me when I upgrade to Vista next year...
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You can have my Mac when you pry the mouse from my cold, dead fingers...
I use Winduhs every day at work... I used to be in charge of the Base computer techs and system admins. I've built a Windblows computer, switched out hard drives, replaced processors and RAM... I have quite a bit of experience with computers in general.
I will NEVER pay money for a Micro$loth "Operating" system, no matter what the version.
Macintosh is just simply better. In each and every way, without any caveats or limitations. I would highly recommend it to anyone disappointed with Vista, especially now because you can run Winduhs applications on the Mac... and people have concluded that the new Macs run Windows better than Windows computers can.
That's my opinion, but it's an informed one, based on years of experience. Nothing anyone can say will ever sway that, so don't bother.
YMMV, of course.
I use Winduhs every day at work... I used to be in charge of the Base computer techs and system admins. I've built a Windblows computer, switched out hard drives, replaced processors and RAM... I have quite a bit of experience with computers in general.
I will NEVER pay money for a Micro$loth "Operating" system, no matter what the version.
Macintosh is just simply better. In each and every way, without any caveats or limitations. I would highly recommend it to anyone disappointed with Vista, especially now because you can run Winduhs applications on the Mac... and people have concluded that the new Macs run Windows better than Windows computers can.
That's my opinion, but it's an informed one, based on years of experience. Nothing anyone can say will ever sway that, so don't bother.
YMMV, of course.
Colin Parkinson
Army.ca Myth
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Unless of course you want to play games, in which case you get approx. 25% of the selection out there.
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i don't like Vista, to demanding on the system for an OS.
and I have read (can't remember were) the first service pack will be of 1Gyg
for those reason, and others, I hate VISTA
and I have read (can't remember were) the first service pack will be of 1Gyg
for those reason, and others, I hate VISTA
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Ah, the games myth…
First: There are plenty of good games available for the Mac OS. I suspect your “approx. 25%” statement is one of those myriad statistics that are just pulled out of… the air… rather than being the result of scientific analysis and calculation.
For example: Battlefield 2142, Command & Conquer 3, Call of Duty 2, Age of Empires III, Civilization IV, WarCraft III, World of Warcraft, Unreal Tournament, Black and White, Doom III, Sim City 4, the Sims 2, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08… etc etc. Even StarCraft II (not released yet, but announced for Mac as well as that other OS).
Second: Like I said, you can run windows on a Mac. Products such as VM Ware Fusion and Parallels desktop allow you to run windows and Mac applications at the same time, side by side, and cut and paste between them. True, they are emulators, so processor and graphics intensive applications may be slow, but in that case, you simply use Apple’s own BootCamp software to reboot your Mac into Windows (I recommend sticking with XP). At that point, you are no longer emulating but running “real” windows, so all your windows games will run just fine. Of course, you are subject to all those Windows viruses, adware, spyware and all that, so your Windows partition is just as vulnerable as any other windows computer… but your Mac itself is immune to all that.
Third: If games are the biggest reason you have a computer, you should think about getting a Play Station 3 or a Wii… (I wouldn’t bother with an XBox; they’re built by the same folks who brought you MicroSoft Bob, Clippy the Office assistant and Vista… and I can’t pick which of those three is the worst piece of crap…) You’ll pay less for the hardware and have better games.
My opinion, of course… YMMV.
Cheers!
First: There are plenty of good games available for the Mac OS. I suspect your “approx. 25%” statement is one of those myriad statistics that are just pulled out of… the air… rather than being the result of scientific analysis and calculation.
For example: Battlefield 2142, Command & Conquer 3, Call of Duty 2, Age of Empires III, Civilization IV, WarCraft III, World of Warcraft, Unreal Tournament, Black and White, Doom III, Sim City 4, the Sims 2, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08… etc etc. Even StarCraft II (not released yet, but announced for Mac as well as that other OS).
Second: Like I said, you can run windows on a Mac. Products such as VM Ware Fusion and Parallels desktop allow you to run windows and Mac applications at the same time, side by side, and cut and paste between them. True, they are emulators, so processor and graphics intensive applications may be slow, but in that case, you simply use Apple’s own BootCamp software to reboot your Mac into Windows (I recommend sticking with XP). At that point, you are no longer emulating but running “real” windows, so all your windows games will run just fine. Of course, you are subject to all those Windows viruses, adware, spyware and all that, so your Windows partition is just as vulnerable as any other windows computer… but your Mac itself is immune to all that.
Third: If games are the biggest reason you have a computer, you should think about getting a Play Station 3 or a Wii… (I wouldn’t bother with an XBox; they’re built by the same folks who brought you MicroSoft Bob, Clippy the Office assistant and Vista… and I can’t pick which of those three is the worst piece of crap…) You’ll pay less for the hardware and have better games.
My opinion, of course… YMMV.
Cheers!
