Sitting typing this on my new PCLinuxOS installation which is now co-existing happily with Windows XP on my home desktop machine.
Having had various dabblings with Linux before, and always having given up frustrated and wondering why the heck anyone bothers, this is like a breath of fresh air. The partitioning setup was a bit of a faff for the uninitiated, and I ultimately chickened out and did most of it in Windows where I'm more comfortable, but the install itself, was an absolute breeze. The install package sets up the GRUB bootloader to give you the option of which OS to boot from at startup. Even this is a rather swish GUI which does exactly as you would expect.
On booting into Linux, all I had to do was set a root password, set up a user account and password, and enter the WPA key for my wireless network. Without doing anything else, I have web browsing, full resolution graphics, sound, wireless connectivity, ethernet etc etc. A fully functional PC. Even getting my HP Deskjet printer connected, working, and producing a test page was completed with about four mouse clicks.
If you want an OS that's easy to install and set up (on a virgin drive, single boot, I reckon I'd have had it done in about 15 mins), that gives you browser and a basic, functional PC with virtually zero effort, I can heartily recommend it.
In an earlier thread on here, someone mentioned that they'd dismissed Linux because they wanted a new OS, not a project. That is exactly how I felt until I tried this.
Give it a go, you'll be surprised.
Cheers
DP
Last edited by: DP on Sat 9 Oct 10 at 23:43
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Looks like a good distro, I've used Ubuntu on and off for about 3 years and finally "converted" (i.e. I only run XP in Virtualbox when I have to) about 18 months ago, these sort of Distro's are really user-friendly and (for instance) my kids use Ubuntu and WinXP interchangeably.
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It's the only live CD which won't install for me!
Hangs half way through, asking for a localhost name & password.
Currently awaiting reply to this ? on their fora.
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"my kids use Ubuntu and WinXP interchangeably"
Good for them - I hope they mention it at school, for which Linux could be tailor-made. It helps teach *about* computing, including command lines, comes in lots of different flavours, whose relative merits can be discussed, and is both free and uses free applications! Yet IT departments insist on spending a fortune on Windows, MS Office, etc, on the pretext that it is what children will meet at work, ignoring the fact that whatever they meet at work in ten years time will be utterly different from what they've got now.
Sorry - rant over. FWIW, I used PC Linux for several years, but have now defected to Lubuntu, a Ubuntu variant (!) that seems particularly snappy on old hardware.
Go to distrowatch.com for a veritable feast...
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And I forgot to mention Edubuntu, which is designed for schools. This is worth a look, too, if you're interested in getting your local authority to stop throwing money at Microsoft...
opensourceschools.org.uk/
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>> Yet IT departments insist on spending a fortune on Windows, MS Office, etc, on the
>> pretext that it is what children will meet at work, ignoring the fact that whatever
>> they meet at work in ten years time will be utterly different from what they've
>> got now.
Yeah but it wont be Linux command lines will it,
You cant teach now, what will be there in ten years, because it does not yet exist fully*
So why not teach what is there now.
They wont find a distro of sickdogpooux at work.
*Cloud based
Last edited by: Zero on Mon 18 Oct 10 at 14:52
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>> Sitting typing this on my new PCLinuxOS installation which is now co-existing happily with Windows
>> XP on my home desktop machine.
>> In an earlier thread on here, someone mentioned that they'd dismissed Linux because they wanted
>> a new OS, not a project. That is exactly how I felt until I tried
>> this.
>> Give it a go, you'll be surprised.
>>
>> Cheers
>> DP
>>
That'll be me :-)
I think I have enough old bits and pieces laying about to build yet another home PC, so I might give it a go, especially as I've run out of legit XP copies. I've stuck with the Ubuntu 9 based OS on my netbook, although I'm never 100% sure what I'm doing with it.
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OK, I've been playing for a few days now, and here are some quick impressions:
What's Good?
- Very attractive and intuitive desktop (Gnome) which is easy to personalise and tweak.
- Fast. Boot time from the OS selection in GRUB is about 30 seconds. Opening apps is near instantaneous.
- Tiny footprint for a modern OS. I've installed it on a piffling 10GB partition, and having installed loads of apps, including OpenOffice, plus downloaded new wallpapers and generally mucked around, I still have 60% of it free.
- Easy access to vast online repository of free apps using the bundled Synaptic Package Manager tool.
- Codecs for all my various media files, and those on all the websites I've been to were installed by default. No codec errors or "can't play this file" errors. It just works.
- Reads the Windows XP (NTFS) partition, enabling easy access to stored documents and media on the XP installation.
- Hasn't broken my Windows installation, or affected it in any way.
What's Bad?
- Web browsing is slow (using default Firefox browser) compared with Windows. When you enter a URL or click a hyperlink, there's a delay of 5-7 seconds before the page starts to load. In fairness, I haven't even looked at this yet. Probably something silly.
- Sometimes hangs on shut down and has to be powered off manually.
The hardware I have installed this on is all pretty conventional and standard. It's a 2 and a half year old Dell box with an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.2GHz processor and 2GB RAM. The motherboard chipset is Intel (don't know which version off the top of my head). Graphics card is an ATI Radeon HD 2400 Pro, sound is via the onboard SoundMAX integrated sound board. Ethernet is via an integrated Intel 82566 family NIC, and wireless via a Buffalo USB2.0 adaptor. It's all pretty conventional and unchallenging, which is why I suspect it worked OK, although I was expecting a bit of grief with the wireless. All this hardware was up and running on first boot with no intervention needed.
Will update with further thoughts as I have them, and would be interested in any shared thoughts and experiences from the forum.
Cheers
DP
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I've mentioned this before but my 71 year old mother gave up on Windows about 5 years ago due to customer service "issues" and installed Ubuntu and OpenOffice on her at the time 2 year old Desktop. It works very well and she loves all the help she gets from the Linux forums when she does have a problem.
In our household, my wife has an EeePC Netbook running Xandros. It boots up from cold in about 5 seconds, powers down very quickly and is good for net surfing, Skype (with built in webcam) and taking notes whilst travelling which is what we bought it for. This version of Linux is limited in functionality, but we can live with that for the convenience. Would never even consider putting Windoze on it.
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Is this 32 or 64bit DP ?
If it's 64 and the total ease with which you describe it goes on the I'll give it a go.
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Three things!
1. If you have an ATI graphics card you may have a problem running from the live CD unless you boot in "Video Safe" mode.
This happened to me as the boot hung, requiring a user name & password, even before it had reached the stage of my choosing them!
2. Installing it does require somewhat complicated partitioning of your HD.
There is help on the PCLinuxOS forums and it is freely & quickly given.
Pro-tem I'm running Ubuntu as that may be installed within Windows using the WUBI install method. This gives you the option of booting to Windows or Ubuntu, but even better it may be un-installed simply by using the Windows "remove programs" applet - or even better REVO un-installer (free version).
3. If you use VOIP telephony it is VERY difficult to set up as VOIPCheap, for example, which is my preferred provider, does not have a Linux application. Instead you have to download a softphone and manually configure it. Not all of VOIPCheap's excellent calling options are available using a softphone.
I actually like PCLInux better than Ubuntu, but have baulked at the partitioning just for now.
Last edited by: landsker on Fri 15 Oct 10 at 09:09
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>> Is this 32 or 64bit DP ?
>> If it's 64 and the total ease with which you describe it goes on the
>> I'll give it a go.
gmac - PCLinuxOS is a 32 bit OS. There are no plans currently to release a 64 bit versionn unfortunately :-(
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PCLinux ran OK for me on a 64 bit system in Video Safe mode.
Ubuntu runs OK, Linux Mint runs OK, so I find it odd that PCLinux is supposed not to.
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There are a few people talking about developing it landsker but as yet I have not seen anything concrete.
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OK, thanks for that DP.
Might cause issues for me. Got my wires crossed at what is available while looking which was why I asked the question.
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PCLinuxOS - I'm actually impressed!! - idle_chatterer
