Seriously thoughtful Should I switch to Ubuntu, or stay with Windows XP?

[kacir]

Originally Posted by Bookathon

so what ubuntu can do which windows can not do,

3D desktop with wobly windows and beautiful spinning desktop cube.

The reason why *I personally* started to use Linux and later FreeBSD was that I was exposed to UNIX systems in a distant past and I loved the elegance of UNIX, the beauty of many small comandline programs that you can combine to achieve the desired result. I loved the idea that you CAN tweak anything to suit your needs. ANYTHING.
*Your* Mileage Might Vary.

Another feature I like very much is that you do not have to search for software, download codecs, shareware and crippled demos from very questionable sites, install separately hundreds of small programs that you need to have in Windows to make it a complete system. After installing a good distribution you have a complete, useable system. There is no need to install separeately an IRC program, messanger, multiple archivers (like zip), codecs, pdf viewers, office suites for light use, programming languages, decent editors, ...
If something is missing you can install it from a verified source by a few clicks or (as I prefer to do) commandline by typing apt-get install krusader or pkg_add -rv krusader.

Originally Posted by Bookathon

be specific please, do not go into virus and spam thing, give me true and proven advantages which the guy like me will jump on it.

Let me be clear and say I am not against any OS and willing to try it on my cutom made desktop which I am planning to build next week.

The disk space is dirt cheap today.
You can leave some 50GB of unpartioned space at the end of the disk when you install windows and you can give several different distributions a try. You like it, OK you can dualboot. You do not like the distro? Try another one. *DO* try another one. Look at http://distrowatch.com/ to see what can you choose from. Each distribution is different and different people will like it. Look for the perfect one until you find it. Just do not give up after 10 minutes of trying out the distribution.
You have nothing to loose. You can format that partition as another windows disk any time you wish.

[GeoffC]

Originally Posted by kacir

............
You can leave some 50GB of unpartioned space at the end of the disk when you install windows and you can give several different distributions a try. You like it, OK you can dualboot. You do not like the distro? Try another one. *DO* try another one. Look at http://distrowatch.com/ to see what can you choose from. Each distribution is different and different people will like it. Look for the perfect one until you find it. Just do not give up after 10 minutes of trying out the distribution.
You have nothing to loose. You can format that partition as another windows disk any time you wish............

Not impossible and seemingly should be OK to do I know, but how safe is it, really, to partition a disk that already contains XP ?

[Peverel]

Originally Posted by GeoffC

Not impossible and seemingly should be OK to do I know, but how safe is it, really, to partition a disk that already contains XP ?

I would suggest you use a tool like Partition Commander to do that repartitioning or you could easily have problems. I only suggest this one as its what I use in the office to do our PCs (XP) and Servers(Windows 2003 server)

[Dave Berk]

A free option that does not require install is gparted (Livecd):

[frabjous]

Originally Posted by GeoffC

I was going to ask you what you'd decided. This has been an extremely interesting and informative discussion forum. May I ask you how you went about setting up your dual boot and also, presumably, partitioning your hard drive - given your existing OS.

The Ubuntu install disk handled the partitioning and setting up the dual boot for me when I installed. It was quite easy. Of course, I still recommend anyone trying this be sure to back up important data beforehand in case anything goes wrong. You'll also want to defrag your drive beforehand.

[GeoffC]

Originally Posted by frabjous

The Ubuntu install disk handled the partitioning and setting up the dual boot for me when I installed. It was quite easy. Of course, I still recommend anyone trying this be sure to back up important data beforehand in case anything goes wrong. You'll also want to defrag your drive beforehand.

I have a second hard drive which I am using ... makes life an awful lot easier.

[GeoffC]

and that was so simple I almost didn't notice .....

...now - how to make all the necessary transfers of bookmarks etc, and find myself an nice globe - oh fun ........

[frabjous]

Easiest way to get "the desktop cube" (which you can distort into a globe as I have), i.e., Compiz Fusion installed is just to type this into a terminal:

sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager

There are other ways to do it too though.

I didn't bother transferring my own bookmarks. I only had about 5. But to transfer my wife's, who was using IE on Windows, I ended up just exporting them to HTML in IE on Windows, and imported from the HTML in Firefox on Ubuntu. No problem.

You might be interested in this "to do list" of things to install, etc.:
http://theindexer.wordpress.com/2009...nty-jackalope/
Should be taken with a grain of salt though, since some of that stuff comes preinstalled anyway, and a lot of it I skipped if I wasn't interested in it personally, including the first thing. Just going into "Software Sources" under System > Admin and checking all the boxes was enough for me. (Other sources can be added on the fly if need be.)

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

Hmm, so would an Ion platform would play nice with Compiz-Fusion or does it still need a bit of CPU power?

*bump*

(sorry didn't see a reply)

[Ankh]

Originally Posted by frabjous

So far the only software I use regularly I haven't found something equivalent or near equivalent (or even better) with Linux is Adobe Acrobat Pro, but I don't really use that too often, and I'll be keeping a dual boot until harddrive space becomes a problem.

Welcome to the penguin world .

If Acrobat Pro is the only Windows application that you need, virtual machine is way better choice than dual boot.

[frabjous]

Originally Posted by Ankh

Welcome to the penguin world .

If Acrobat Pro is the only Windows application that you need, virtual machine is way better choice than dual boot.

You're probably right. I also want to try it under Wine.

Thanks for the welcome, BTW.

Hmm, so would an Ion platform would play nice with Compiz-Fusion or does it still need a bit of CPU power?

I'd be shocked if they didn't play nice, but you could ask over at the Compiz forums if you wanted input from the experts:
http://forum.compiz-fusion.org/

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by frabjous

You're probably right. I also want to try it under Wine.

Thanks for the welcome, BTW.



I'd be shocked if they didn't play nice, but you could ask over at the Compiz forums if you wanted input from the experts:
http://forum.compiz-fusion.org/

I ran Compiz on a crappy Intel GMA laptop graphics chipset and it was fine. I don't know what, if any, the ion uses, but I'd be surprise if Compiz didn't run. I think someone said it even ran on those really old and crappy S3 Virge Graphics Cards, or whatever they're called.

[Ankh]

Originally Posted by frabjous

I also want to try it under Wine.

Wine, for supported applications, is a faster way to run MS Windows code. And cheaper, no MS license is required.

The serious downside of the virtual machine is that it is recognized by MS software as a completely new machine and it "burns" one MS Windows activation. In return, you will get total compatibility (except for games) and a freedom to use any piece of Windows software, albeit slightly slower than if it is natively installed.

Very comfortable environment, specially during the transition to Linux. One click, network is cut to MS Win, and malware is gone for good.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

I ran Compiz on a crappy Intel GMA laptop graphics chipset and it was fine. I don't know what, if any, the ion uses, but I'd be surprise if Compiz didn't run. I think someone said it even ran on those really old and crappy S3 Virge Graphics Cards, or whatever they're called.

That's true, but how much of it is because the graphics card is handling the load, and how much is because the CPU is taking up the slack? The NVIDIA ION, at least the devices currently available, uses a GeForce 9300M integrated graphics paired with an Atom CPU. If everything is done with the video card, then that's great since the 9300M is a pretty decent one. However, if some CPU power is needed, I'm not sure if even the dual-core Atom 330 1.60GHz will be able to handle the load.

Originally Posted by frabjous

I'd be shocked if they didn't play nice, but you could ask over at the Compiz forums if you wanted input from the experts:
http://forum.compiz-fusion.org/

Ok. Thanks. Might check that out to ask some questions. The Wiki didn't really pan out.

[kacir]

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

Hmm, so would an Ion platform would play nice with Compiz-Fusion or does it still need a bit of CPU power?

Compiz was developed by a Suse engineer David Reveman (26 years old at the time!). Back them it was called XGL. Later on it was joined with a RedHat developed AIGLX.
see http://people.freedesktop.org/~david...demo1.xvid.avi for the very first demo of this technology. It says Novel, but this is because at that time Suse was purchased by Novel

The very first version was extremely difficult to install by mere mortals because it meant customizing sources and recompiling of LOTS of components - from kernel, through X window system to composing window managers.
THE very first distribution that demonstrated the unbelievable effects was called Kororaa Linux.

I run successfully Kororaa Live CD on a Pentium III computer 550MHZ, 380MB RAM and Nvidia MX440 graphics card with 32 MB of RAM.
Nvidia MX440 is the lowest and oldest graphics card that can run this.

Even the humblest Ion configuration is much faster than the above mentioned configuration.
And wait until you get the newest mini board with Atom processor and Nvidia chipset.

Compiz runs great even on relatively old Intel graphics chip-sets that are installed on budget motherboards.