If you have problems installing or using GNU/Linux search for a local Linux User Group.

I've only been a Linux user for a little over a year. I tried several distros over a course of about 6 months. Then about a year ago I got a laptop and tried a couple distros on it. But the school semester was about to start and I'd heard a lot of good about Ubuntu. I tried it out and it worked great. Found all the hardware and everything just worked. Once my degree is finished, I'll start messing around with other distros, but I just don't have the time right now, and I definately don't want to screw up my school machine.

I will probably go back to Slackware or a Slack based distro. I like how Slack mirrors Unix in the way it does things. And I've always heard that if you learn a Slackware, you really learn Linux.

Well i have only tried 6 or so of the 375 linux distros that are out there.

I started with Linspire, then moved to Ubuntu since then have played with SimplyMepis, OpenSuSe, and the rest of the Ubuntu variants currently im using Kubuntu which i like very much.

What exactly is vmware and how can i get it?

VMWare is a virtualization environment. You can create Virtual machines on your computer and run multiple distros and OS's at the same time.. Really slick. you can have Windows, Fedora, Suse, Ubuntu, all running in virtual environments on your Slack box.. or whatever combination you prefer...

http://www.vmware.com/download/


Also check out XEN a somewhat similar product.

http://www.xensource.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vmware
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xen

I think a good percentage of Linux users--so many are Windoze refugees--spend more time with the OS, or trying different versions. There aren't as many who come to Linux from an OS that works.

In my case, I came from Apple, which is where I still get most of my actual work done. I picked out a popular flavors of Linux, found one that mostly works and have mostly stayed with the same. I primarily use my Linux box as a test bed for web sites.

Bucky

I used to do this alot too. I used slackware for a good amount of time but then I found LFS. Now I can customize what I want in the distro and control every aspect so im very happy with my own flavor of linux This is how I found my peace.

I've never heard of TLLTS before today either, but I'm with trickykid;
once I went slack I never looked back. In terms of distros slack has
been the *it* thing for the last 5 years, and I've used SuSE and Mandreck
in the past, plus had lots of exposure to debian and deadrat (and some
to fudora).


Cheers,
Tink

whats LFS and TLLTS? just curious and i too am a windows convert.

wow google could answer those questions in about .235 seconds...

http://www.tllts.org/

http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/

but here you go...

If you manage to boot Ubuntu with your cdrom; I just need the booted kernel;
i can explain you how to install ubuntu with networkign or usbkey or external usb

hehe; me too old pc with cdrom broken + harrdisk defect

you just need to download ubuntu dapper alternate

burn

and let me know if you want ubuntu

this thread reminds me of musicians.
you start searching for instance trying different very expensive saxophone mouthpieces because you are dissatisfied with the results you are currently getting. (one of my current "diseases")
actually dis-ease is the perfect term
you are dis- at ease with what you are currently usng.
some of this has to do with how lots of linux distributions and saxophone mouthpieces really really suck. So you have to find what is quality and what is crap in general.
but alot of it has to do with your hardware setup or saxophone and how it works with the distribution.
third and most important factor has alot to do with what you are trying to acomplist or sound like.
lots of different computing and music styles out there.
enough to make lots of different distributions and lots saxophone mouthpiecs.
so you have to try them all on just like in a shoe store to find the one that actualy fits.
using one that doesn't fit is or can be painfull. just ask my wife about how anoying it is when i play that giant duck call thing.

I started with redhat 5. something and tried turbolinux, suse, stayed with mandrake for a couple of years and found gentoo last year. I cant imagine going back to anyting else

You are actually all right
the best operating system between macintosh; linux; or windows is macintosh

macintosh very stable; very professional; you can even game; hardware are produced with drivers for both windows and mac
my next pc will be a macintosh for sure and I will keep linux as data server

For professionals; nothign better than Microsoft Word

Not 100percent of the planet are informaticiens and most of users need word for simple things and not openoffice which will never be word

i dont talk about other softwares that are produced for both mac and windows

linux as refugies is nice sentence indeed

linux users refugiees try distros version; .... and that s a loose of time.
mac users just enjoy a system that works 100percent and very sure!!

1 members found this post helpful.

I heard that too, tried and it took me less than 48 hours to trash the installation of Slack after this long time using Linux I looked at it with awe, thinking "wow, I really did it..should I take a lottery next?"

Heh..well, I hope I'll get a laptop soon and re-try with Slack. I found a few things that worked very well with it from the beginning, and especially I must say I loved it's setup program (it's not graphical, but it works).

But to the question: yup, I think most of the people using Linux nowadays do or have switched a lot of distributions. Some people will eventually find "the right one" or two, some people get frustrated and move on to Windows or Mac OS, some just keep on switching. I try different distributions once in a while for interest and if somebody asks a question I can't answer straight away..I just like to know thins. But for myself I've found a couple of distributions and in them there are two or three that have potential. For the past few years I've used one "main distribution", along with the others I've "tried out", so I think that to some extent I have stopped "distro-hopping" in the sense that the Linux I work with doesn't change every other week.

In the long run I've figured it's a lot easier to try out some distributions, pick up one you like the most, get to know it and solve the possible "problems", than just jump to another distro every once in a while, hoping it solves all the problems like a snap (no, it won't happen). Sticking with one distribution and learning it doesn't stop you from using/trying the others too, but it eases a lot your work since you don't have to reconfigure from the beginning all the time.

Think I am terminally sick and beyond cure.

I got over 120 Linux in the box. The only hope I have for survival is they all work!

Not found a mainstream Linux that doesn't install yet. Many can be moved from PC to PC and automatically adjust the hardware themselves. My intervention is restricted to altering the video driver mainly to get the display again. This way I install the Linux once and can use it forever. Hence the large number but they all booted by one Grub.

There are still some 26 empty partitions in my 147-partition PC that has 4 hard disks.