MS to Ubuntu to PCLOS to Mepis: how it happened -- a journey
 

Most computer users find their first experience with windows and do not go beyond anything but that. For three years I have played around with various distros in a live CD format or installing as a second O/S.

Just recently I put together my own set: a Biostar TF7025-M2 Mobo with an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4000 CPU plus 4 GB RAM and other old components that I could piece together (I live and work in Honduras and it is not as easy as it seems to build your own computer).

My first build and I pieced things together as carefully as a mother hen. But when it came to installing a O/S -- I thought that PCLOS would start right up. After dropping me to a shell with "Error: Unable to mount the livecd. Dropping your to a limited shell" and searching for solutions (and adding "linux all-generic-ide-irqpoll" to the start up under safe boot too)... PCLOS worked -- but barely and soon left me looking for alternatives.

Luckily, I had downloaded several iso file from kubuntu, ubuntu, mepis 6.5, puppy, dsl... and many others. Some booted up; most did not.

I wanted to install PCLOS as that was my preferred flavor. With a 64 bit machine and little knowledge of what that actually meant, I continued trying Ubunto 7.10 for 386 -- worked but wanted more out of my cpu. PCLOS finally installed but at a fraction of its previous self.

I even tried PC BSD and several other distros. Ubuntu and PCLOS did not find my sound card. The Kbuntu 7.10 for 64 bit machines did not boot (and I burned it myself on the slowest setting).

The only distro that I have had consistent luck with is Mepis 7.0 for a 64bit machine. Sure, skype still does not work, but I have been able to figure most everything else out.

I'm still a newbie with a 64 bit machine, glad to be away from Windows, and surprised that Mepis worked for me when the big boys (like ubuntu and pclos) did not.

I'm still waiting for Mepis to fail, as I just burnt OpenSuse latest. I guess I should figure out how to partition my HD and play around with each of these distos before I need to.

In any event, I love linux and the freedom it allows -- especially if I can rebuild other older computers with an old o/s like puppy and give them away to those who can use them.

Just thought I would share.

Journey
 

Glad to see you making a go of it. I have been running my business courtesy Mandriva for the past 3 years and all's fine using all FOSS apps. I too build and donate older PCs (SAM or Vector).

Keep it up.