I am thinking of dumping Microsoft!!

Anyone tried Ubuntu?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_(Linux_distribution)

Does it work to surf the internet and play Windows games and view downloaded videos?

You should be able to. I have a friend who went with linux and he said that he can still get online and stuff, so yeah, you should be able to.

You'd be able to surf the internet fine, yes, but you wouldn't be able to just install Windows games and play them. You'd have to get some sort of emulator to allow them to run. I've never used Linux myself, but I know one or two people who have, so I could try to find out a bit more information if you're serious about switching.

I am using Ubuntu.

I have been using linux for over 5 years. I tried Redhat at first tooo many bug and to tricky to load on my hardware, was a while ago.. Then I found Suse, this was really nice, installed easily and very pretty graphics, so much stuff in it, just about everything you need and all for free. I currently am using this as my main linux box.

Ubuntu is installed on my work laptop. Well sort off. I actually have WinXPpro install in the laptop, then have VMWare’s virtual PC emulators install in WinXPpro and on that virtual PC I have Ubuntu installed.

This is very cool to say the least. I can have many PCs simulated inside windows and each PC can have another operating system, like windows98,XP,95 and MSDOS, or different types linux systems all running at the same time.…like I have a dozen pc inside my one laptop… very cool …. Very nurdie…. (need loads of RAM)

Anwho, getting off track

Ubuntu is easy to use, it seem simplistic, it works very well, very stable, bug free and hassle free.

Just download it from their site, burn CD and run. You don’t have to install it to try it. You can run it from the CD.

Edited March 7, 200719 yr by Mick

I installed it, dual botted with Windows XP. However, it was just too much effort to get used to Linux, and I ended up just booting into XP each time to make life easier, and because no games worked in Linux. I have deleted Linux now.

I have my system setup with a dual boot configuration. WinXP and Mandriva linux. I have tried Ubuntu. Linux is easy to use if you just want to use the internet or play the preinstalled games. Different distributions have different features. Most have a standard set of games , utilities, graphic programs and office suites that install with the distro. There is a project called Wine that is building a Windows emulation environment that runs in Linux. It is becoming more popular as they are working the bugs out and some distros are actually including it in their install. A word of warning....if you want to do anything like upgrade device drivers or install programs from scratch, change login features or anything else you take for granted in Windows...be prepared for total confusion and frustration as you realize you need to be a Unix/Linux geek to do any of these operations

I have used Linux for 8 years and wouldn't be without it. I use Ubuntu and am very happy with it. However, very few games have been ported to Linux. Transgaming is a program you can buy that will allow a lot of games to run on Linux. Personally, I don't think it's worth the hassle. I keep my hard drives in removable cassettes. I do all my computer work on Linux e.g watching dvds, banking, photography, scanning, printing photos. I keep a separate hard drive in another cassette with XP loaded just for games.

Unfortunatly my modem doesnt av drivers for Linux, so thats why i use Windows XP

Ubuntu is quite cool in interface though

I am thinking of dumping Microsoft!!

- I dumped Windows long long ago ...

Anyone tried Ubuntu?

- I've been using it for quite sometime from now, and guess wat ... I'm playing with Tomb Raider series on it.

- check this out "Playing Tomb Raider on Wine" (Wine is a Windows simulation environment for Linux).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_(Linux_distribution)

Does it work to surf the internet?

- definitely, with minimal configuration.

- I'm using a "ADSL modem+router" configuration, no additional configuration is required.

Does it supported play Windows games?

- Use "Wine" to play Windows game, run windows application on a Linux (Ubuntu is a Debian Linux variant) platform.

Does it supported view downloaded videos?

- Ubuntu 7.10 come with a movie player called "Totem Player", which can open almost all popular video format.

- If your player do not have the required CODEC, it will automatically download the required ones.

Additional stuff on Ubuntu:

- 3D desktop which required much much lower requirement than Windows Vista.

- Multiple locale support, you can switch your OS entirely to any language of your choice.

- faster P2P download, Linux have a more matured networking environment,

when network were configured properly, which greatly enhance your internet surfing experience.

- more secure; less vulnerable to trojans, spyware, virus ... (than Windows platform)

- find out more your self to tell the story ...

Happy Ubuntuing

by Avatar Ng

I just got a new acer laptop with Vista Home Premium and it looks nice but it's really horrible.

I went and bought windows xp home upgrade and put that on instead but i say to myself i need

to find something other than windows down the road... I downloaded Linspire 6 and Freespire 2

but they did recognize my soundcard or external drive and the resolution was way lower than

what my laptop was capable. I also tried the Ubuntu but the screen was so large i couldn't

click any button or move the window to click. So it might be great for some but I think Linux

is still a few versions away from being a replacement unless you buy a PC with it already on it.

Shame about Vista they shot themselves in the foot on this one.

Ubuntu is a pretty well thought out distro. I forget the name of their hardware configurator<--new word) but it gives you a chance to set your screen resolution during install. The thing with linux is you have to take your time while installing and it is a much more interactive process than Windows. As I said earlier...I use Mandriva, which has a pretty easy install process and ,using the 3D desktop, it acts like Vista with the wobbly and bendable windows and all the other fun bells and whistles. Check here if you want to investigate all the different distros and download them.

You can practically do all the internet stuff from linux (email, web, chat, video conferencing, phone, etc.) They even include office applications ranging from database to spreadsheet, and all the software development tools for virtually any existing programming languages.

I installed Ubuntu once and it was nice, but since I'm an old time RedHat/Fedora user, I didn't find it quite fitting for my needs (I also run file server for windows, web server, etc.) so I went back to Fedora.

The only problem is that commercial games are not that many. I ran Quake 2, etc. from id software using my windows games and linux software without problems.

But I need to run Tomb Raider 1,2,3 and although I successfully ran Tomb Raider 1 using dosbox without much problem, I am not sure I can do that with Tomb Raider 2, 3 under linux.

There are windows emulators like wine or cedega, but I haven't tested them extensively. I ran Red Alert 2 and most C&C series without problems, but they were somewhat slow and not all applications run fine.

I also tried qemu running windows in a virtual machine inside linux, and most windows non-game applications run fine, but due to speed, games seem to be quite slow.

I know some game publishers provide linux versions, but I would also like to see classic games like StarCraft running under linux. Remember, I paid cash to buy Tomb Raider Trilogy for Windows, even though I don't have Windows anymore, in the hopes that I could run it under linux using some emulator. So publishers should know there are markets for linux games. So far, I'm thinking of returning it. I already own Tomb Raider 1 which is how I tested under linux, but I haven't torn the wrap on the Trilogy yet.