LinuxQuestions.org - Diary Of A Newbie

Well its been a couple days now and ive finally got used to how things work in PCLinuxOS.

This is my review of my trip to windows-less land.

First of all I found that installing off the LiveCD is a good feature and that I think people should try out the latest updated live cd for the distro they wish to use. Believe me, i spent time around the live CD before I installed to HD and I think it helped me.

So... installation was a breeze, although I did get confused with the linux partitioning systems. So I let the live cd sort that out. Next the os was installed..... i was then asked to choose a drive for the bootloader, and then was asked for a root password... and i completed all and restarted the PC (making sure not to leave the live CD in the drive)

So upon first boot, my old windows habit came back as I panicked for a link to update my os (since using windows its become a hard habit to break :eek: ) It took 2 hours to update when I found what i can only call PClinuxOS's version of the control panel. It went well, all updates installed and I restarted the pc.

Upon boot i noticed the media player i had used to try out my dvd's (which had refused to load before update) now played my DVD's and with scary performance too. Thats the first thing I liked (hehe)

But as with all computer related components, things werent perfect, as with lack of sound I was getting frustrated (turned out it was set to digital sound not analog)

Thats it so far.... Ive tried my games in linux and while jedi academy runs far better under linux than it does in windows, guild wars however is a different matter.

From what I can see, linux has come a long way in user friendly-ness from when I last tried to use it. However, the average linux distro in my view still has a lot of work to be done if it even consider's trying to take on microsoft for control of the home Pc consumer. Thats not to say it never will, from what I have seen so far, apart from DVD authoring software and support for windows games out of the box, oh and not having to install software via command prompt (another windows word) i find linux to be a superior product. However for now windows will remain on my pc, because of issue's with linux that i have found no solution to.

And if i get flamed for my views on linux can I say this. The average user doesnt want to know how to install rpms or configure proxies, they want simplicity and while linux has come in strides to try to meet this, its not there yet