*nix - Linspire 5

Oh I'm getting cheesed off with all this *nix nonsense...

I've tried Vector and am now trying Linspire 5...
I can't even unzip things ffs!!!
Then I'm going to have to try and configure a wireless card,,,

Please someone help me before I turn into Gates' slave!!!

 

Personally I don't care much for Linspire. But I've not used it for more than 10 minutes or so, so I can't say much for support.

I (among others) have had great success with Ubuntu. It's very well thought out, complete with nice utilities to unzip/untar/unrar things for you, and the Synaptic package manager to let you install new packages should you need them. The defaults are sensible, not much tweaking is required to get things into a functional state. A *lot* of wireless card drivers are inluded on the install.

There is also a great little script called automatix which installs a bunch of useful things like the latest version of Firefox, Flash plugin, windows video codecs and much much more.

I was very frustrated when I first tried Linux - it was like trying to write with my left hand for a while. But, once you get the "hang" of it, then you can really make great use of it.

 

Never heard of Vector and Linspire 5 sucks, now called Freespire, and they charge for drivers and proggies.

As to wi-fi, check this out. Oh, Ubuntu seems nice.

 

I can't see why Linspire sucks - a few clicks and it installs itself (unlike Vector and WinXP, which you have to hold it's hand)
I'm happy with both of them looks and performance wise but have had no luck with the wirless networking, althoughI'm still trying...

I can't get a hang off Ark at the moment - I managed to unzip one file but need to extract a *.tar.tar file and it just wont do it!!!

Just to try and gain some sympathy (yeah yeah - it lies between shit and syphilis in the dictionary...) I'm installing this on a dedicated Folding machine for our team

 

Welcome to the reason why Linux hasn't become mainstream--lack of user friendliness.


No need to be Bill's lapdog--get a Mac

 

Ohh, I've got an almost dedicated folding box - it runs Gentoo Installation? Well, lets say it doesn't have an installer. At all. You copy the files over yourself from a LiveCD, and chroot into the newly copied files to configure it. Gentoo installs are FUN - and once you've got it down you can do one in about 30 minutes if you're speedy. And it's all highly optimised - nothing is installed unless you specifically say so. And everything is compiled from source optimised for your hardware. My box has only 3 packages - folding, sshd and my network card drivers. It takes all of about 20 seconds to boot up, and it's really, really fast.

Right now I'm running a LiveCD which demonstrates Xgl ... man, this stuff is exciting. A fully hardware accelerated desktop - open source.
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=xgl
Right now it may only have a few slightly silly effects (like wobbley windows and bouncing menus) but it gives you scope for so much innovation!

As for user friendliness - since Ubuntu has come on the scene developers have been more aware of their usability. What's really required is a lot of in depth but generic research into user interation - the results of which will be made public. But it's certainly moving towards a real market....

 

Latest Gentoo now has an installer

 

But you don't have to use it

 

Just tried the Gentoo LiveCD...
I do like a GUI to play with!!! It didn't do anything with the wireless card either, so still no good for me