Operating systems that do not suck. Are there any?

[sgreger1]

So I have a 1 year old laptop (Toshiba, running vista) that has become too cluttered. I am about to reformat the whole thing and wipe everything so that I may have a clean slate.

I hear a lot of things about alternate operating systems such as Ubunto, etc and was wondering if anyone was knowledgeable on these? I am getting tired of window's and it's constant lagging, clutteryness and extreme security issues.


Is there any other operating system which any of you would recommend that I could install on a formerly windows PC?

Any knowledge you'd like to share on Ubuntu or other operating systems would be greatly appreciated.

[badlands]

Ubuntu is a Debian based linux distribution. It's geared toward those new to linux as well as pros. It makes a very fine desktop operating system. Ubuntu may also have the best support base out there. I am using version 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope. There is one newer version (9.10) but I try not to be on the bleeding edge.

Installing the base system is very easy and fast. Upon getting the system up and running you will have to do some tweaking and updates. The updates will show up not unlike they do in Windows. An icon appears and tells you that you need updates.

If you decide to try and need a little help come back to the forum and let me know. You will want to add mp3 playback and other restricted extras so you must enable these thing in software sources. Its all pretty easy.

[RedMacGregor]

i love my mac...

[badlands]

Macs are computers for people who don't know about computers They do look pretty though.

[sgreger1]

Outstanding Badlands!

I am planning on doing it this week. Where can I obtain this OS. Can you run games on it, is it compatable with most things?

Does it run faster than windows in your opinion?

And I already have a brand new mac book pro or whatever the hell they're called. My wife loves Mac but i'm still not a fan, plus I have a laptop that was built for microsoft and I want to fix my existing laptop instead of buying a new one.

[sgreger1]

Macs are computers for people who don't know about computers They do look pretty though.

Yah i'm actually a bit of a techy and prefer Windows because it allows you to have more controll over the small things. Mac is kind of plug and play, which is cool, but I prefer the added ability to tweak everything all the time. I hear Ubuntu is better for this than windows which is why I was intirested.

[RRK]

OS X has all the power of any Unix system with the added advantage of not needing to know the intricacies. It's not limited by it's ease of use. You can open up a terminal window and Unix fu your way to nerd nirvana if you want to. Just because they have gotten ease of use right people want to say it's not customizable or powerful which is not true.

[sgreger1]

OS X has all the power of any Unix system with the added advantage of not needing to know the intricacies. It's not limited by it's ease of use. You can open up a terminal window and Unix fu your way to nerd nirvana if you want to. Just because they have gotten ease of use right people want to say it's not customizable or powerful which is not true.

Another thing though is I just odn't like their interface, particularly the maximizing windows thing, i for some reason like to have the window cover the whole screen but I can't figure out how to do that with the mac.

Basicly I already own a mac so i want to do something different with my other computer.


Does anyone know where I cna get obuntu or how much it would cost etc?

[sgreger1]

Wait, i'm on Ubuntu's homepage and it says it's free? How do they offer all of this and support all for free. Where are they making a profit here?

[badlands]

Macs are computers for people who don't know about computers They do look pretty though.

Yah i'm actually a bit of a techy and prefer Windows because it allows you to have more controll over the small things. Mac is kind of plug and play, which is cool, but I prefer the added ability to tweak everything all the time. I hear Ubuntu is better for this than windows which is why I was intirested.

Then you will like Ubuntu. You will have control over the most minute details of your system. There will be a learning curve of course. Some windows applications will run over linux with emulation (WINE). But as far as web browsers and office productivity stuff linux has its own native applications. Most modern hardware is completely compatible with linux (drivers etc). Ubuntu will autodetect these things. There are thousands of games for linux now a days. I'm not a big gamer but I do keep a copy of Unreal Tournament 2004 install on my computer. Runs fine. Ubuntu comes with package management that is very easy to deal with. You can use the graphical interface to install most things.

As far as speed it is comparable to Windows Xp. Like windows you will want to so some tweaking. Disable unneeded services, set or disable desktop effects, profile boot process, start services in preload, install preload if you have a good amount of ram. You will have complete control.

Here you are http://releases.ubuntu.com/9.04/
Computer virii and spyware will be a thing of the past for you.

[RRK]

Another thing though is I just odn't like their interface, particularly the maximizing windows thing, i for some reason like to have the window cover the whole screen but I can't figure out how to do that with the mac.

There is not a default button to make a window full screen it is a zoom button which toggles between the size that the user defines and the size that the program defined. You can change the action to force full screen with a share ware program.

[badlands]

OS X has all the power of any Unix system with the added advantage of not needing to know the intricacies. It's not limited by it's ease of use. You can open up a terminal window and Unix fu your way to nerd nirvana if you want to. Just because they have gotten ease of use right people want to say it's not customizable or powerful which is not true.

I know..I'm just a hater. Macs are even Single Unix Specific while and Linux and BSD are not. But GNU/Linux is free.

Ubuntu is an ethic or humanist philosophy focusing on people's allegiances and relations with each other. The word has its origin in the Bantu languages of southern Africa. Ubuntu is seen as a classical African concept. The Ubuntu operating system was named for this principle.

[sgreger1]

Oh god this is sounding too good to be true. I just hate how I buy a laptop and it seems to run slow as a snail after 1 year and I know it's because of the many security ecploits of windows that allowed all these random malware shit on my laptop.

I just want something witha slick interface that I can customize and not worry about viruses. Also, since I am a jew bastard, I also want it for cheap/free sinec I already shelled out the $1200 for my wife's mac.
I don't actually play any PC games anymore but was jsut curious. I usually just use it to search the web. Also, the ONLY game I have on my laptop right now is Unreal Tournament 2004. Lol I LOVE that game!

[badlands]

Oh god this is sounding too good to be true. I just hate how I buy a laptop and it seems to run slow as a snail after 1 year and I know it's because of the many security ecploits of windows that allowed all these random malware shit on my laptop.

I just want something witha slick interface that I can customize and not worry about viruses. I don't actually play any PC games anymore but was jsut curious. Also, the ONLY game I have on my laptop right now is Unreal Tournament 2004. Lol I LOVE that game!

anything you want to see working, i'll screen shot for you.

[sgreger1]

Does it use the start menu system like PC or is it more of a MAc type interface?


If you have a screenshot of the desktop or wherever you start the programs from that'd be awesome.


Also, I noticed in the link you provided it has an image CD you can make yourself to kind of give it a test run. Would you suggest doing this before I completely reformatt everything and uninstall windows? Or should I just wipe the hard drive but leave windows on a seperate partition just incase I want to go back to it another time?