No, we end your vicious cycle now. We're not going to let you manipulate us into posting things that will hurt your feelings. You're outfoxed now.

haha. I will not get my feelings hurt by posts on a message board. Of that I can assure you. I appreciate that though, even though I probably don't deserve it.

And that still doesn't explain the lack of response to my evidence. I'll just assume it's lack of interest then.

peter_89, please keep your comments such as to not sound like you speak for everyone, because you don't.

Maritime, just cram it.

Now, on to the orignal post:

As for not being able to play everything in Linux, that is a work in progress. The developers have to reverse engineer most close-source things to get them to work, which is alot of work.

You can get win32 codex from the Mplayer website (I don't have it handy, but google it and you'll find it somewhere).

That spoken, I would suggest a dual-boot (if you feel you can do such a task) of Windows/Linux. Maybe try SuSe, and get the codex. It has a good set of documentation, and can do quite a bit if you'll spend the time to configure it properly. The multimedia support for it is OK. Not the best in the world, but then again, I refrence my first real paragraph on not everything working.

Personally, I'm happy with Linux. I only keep Windows around for a few programs (Kazaa, Yahoo/AIM/MSN for video/voice chating, and Winamp for some files that won't play under amarok/xmms/juk/ect, plus gaming).

Another thing you could do is download the third-party patch to Windows (or find a CD burning program) and make a cd of Knoppix. If you use the ISO burner patch for XP, I suggest a burn speed of 1x, maybe 3x. it will take a little while but the chance of a bad burn is almost nill at 1x, but still possible.

As for Ubuntu not working, it was probably a bad burn. It does happen.

One important note: Don't download Linux files under Windows (ISOs do work under it, though, and so wil a few others, but alot of the time Windows will try to convert the file into a known format, thereby destroying it) unless you have to. Windows has a habit of corrupting things.

If this seems like to much work to you, then stop whining and stick to 'doze. Linux requires knowledge and work to use cleanly and effectivly, but at least I for one think the security, stability, and general utility of it excedes Windows many times over. A good compiler in Windows cost money, unless you get Cygwin, which is really just a Unix emulator, but in Linux, gcc comes free, and is usually in there stock, or easily accessible.

With any new OS you take up, there is a learning curve to it. Ubuntu is a good choice for a newbie, and I personally think SuSe is as well because of install support and the documentation. It will autoconfigure some things, but you have the option of what all to do with it, and it will nativly partition into a reasonable partitioning scheme for someone new to linux.

P.S. I've called you a newbie since you seem to have less knowledge of Linux then I do, and I've been using it for many 6 months, and can at least give a semi-decent post on what is wrong with my system.

Windows does that? I've never seen windows trying to convert one kinda file to other when downloading.

Yes, if you use Internet Explorer. You should be fine with Firefox.

As a test, I downloaded the Debian business card iso (because it is the smallest thing I could think of for a test) using IE on a Windows XP machine. As near as I can tell, the file (debian-31r2-i386-businesscard.iso) downloaded just fine.

I have had it happen a time or two when Windows tried to figure out what it was looking at. I use Firefox (actually, I forgot where IE is, lol) for all my browsing needs, and I keep from downloading Linux software into Windows anyways because of that. I may have done something to cause it to convert it, but I don't remember that exactly. I still don't suggest it if it can be avoided.

FC4 is my fave linux distro for a desktop. For live-cds, I use Knoppix 3.9/+. And for really old systems, I use DSL.

FC4 takes forever to boot, but has just about everything I need, and looks ok (i like KDE more)

Knoppix is pretty quick, lots of software I need, but also lots of crap that I don't.

And DSL has a completley different GUI feel compared to Windows, but it is xcellent for the size and speed. It also has a (apt-get if not mistaken) downloading thingy. That is a big +.

I don't care for DSL personally. I'd rather remaster Knoppix w/ a 2.4 kernel (unless you really do need something that takes only 50MB) and remove KDE/Gnome and just use IceWM/Flux/Open/Blackbox, but thats just me.

Knoppix does have the fault of alot of useless software. Too many games (seriously, it doesn't even have patience, yet it has like, 30 games on there), plus putting OO 2.0 BETA seems like a waste of space to me, but again, that is just me.

I've got Slax, DSL, and Knoppix on CDs here for working with (mostly using them to fix installs of other OSs), and I personally think that Knoppix is a good base, but with all the extras in it, it seems overly bloated.

But, thats just my opinion

I've never used IE expect for when there's no choice.

Nobody should have to use Internet Explorer.
How much software do you expect to run the same version of for the next seven years?
None. Common sense would tell me that somebody running the same version for that long really needs an upgrade! But somehow, we're all still running an operating system (Windows XP) that was being written in 1999, and a web browser that was being written in 2000. Why? Because Microsoft figured out that as long as you own the entire market, it doesn't matter how much you charge people for your product, and heck, you don't even have to innovate.

Hey, they still make patches for IE. They've stopped shipping updates for awhile. (probably workin' in vista, IE 7, WMP 11 (12?), SP3 for xp home and pro, etc)

I only go on ebay, google, wikipedia, my school's stuff, LQ. Nothin' bad there. If you go to the .biz sites, and pr0n, etc, then your going to get some nasty stuff.

Off-topic: peter_89,
Please do not disinform.

Internet Explorer, seven years ago, was of version 4.0. The current version is 6.0.

- IE's important to many companies' infrastructures - much more than you think.
Firefox, in contrast, plays a role of hm, exactly none, null, in my business life.

As sad as that is. On the other hand, this spares (not only) me *lots* of work.

[offtopic]By the time Vista is released, which is when we will all get to use Internet Explorer 7, it will have been six years since its release. By the time Internet Explorer is in majority use, it will have been a conservative seven years and a more realistic eight or nine years. And either way, how does Internet Explorer's importance in business infrastructures effect it's quality or age?[/offtopic]

I'd say something, but I do not want to get in a flame war.