Pick My OS!

  • Thread starter Thread starter skip0110
  • 14 comments
  • 571 views
skip0110

skip0110

Messages
5,178
United States
Worcester, MA
Messages
skip0110
Well, I have a 40 gig hard drive. 10 gig of it is dedicated to Fedora Core 2. Until about 30 minutes ago, I have Windows XP Pro on the other 30 gig. Due to a stupid and irresponsible bout of experimentation, Windows won't boot anymore...so now I am looking for something to fill the newly liberated 30 gig. It should be something interesting, something with possibilites, somethihng that I will learn from.

Here are the ideas that I had:

1) Windows again - maybe, maybe not. All I ever do on it is play Vice City. I could do better things with my time.
2) Xandros OS OCE - tried to install this, but it wont boot--maybe I should invest more time into getting it to work?
3) Gentoo - Nope, already did that for a couple of months.
4) FreeBSD - this is seriously in the running -- any experiences with it? Any interesting capabilities? Is it fast?
or
5) Solaris 9 - I could apply for a free student license for it. Is it worth it? Is the hardware support good?

Voice your opinion, or if there were any I shoudl have mentioned but did not....
 
Solaris is a waste of time. The X86 port is worthless.

FreeBSD is the best operating system, but not the best destkop operating system.

Gentoo isn't the Linux distro I would choose - you should at least give Mandrake a look. I'm going to be doing that at home.

Xandros? What?

Windows is Windows. Personally I wouldn't pay for it, but if it came with your computer (already paid for it) you might as well use it. Just make sure you have all the patches installed, virus software, and a hardware network router.
 
LoudMusic
Solaris is a waste of time. The X86 port is worthless.
Click to expand...
Ok, well thats the end of that idea. I didn't know--having only used Solaris 8 on school machines for a short time.
FreeBSD is the best operating system, but not the best destkop operating system.

Gentoo isn't the Linux distro I would choose - you should at least give Mandrake a look. I'm going to be doing that at home.

Xandros? What?

Windows is Windows. Personally I wouldn't pay for it, but if it came with your computer (already paid for it) you might as well use it. Just make sure you have all the patches installed, virus software, and a hardware network router.
Click to expand...
Xandros is a debian-based system using KDE and Crossover Office. It's claim to fame is that it is supposedly very compatible with Windows networks. Not that I really ever deal with Windows networking.

I have never used Mandrake, so that is something I want to try. And although FreeBSD might not be the best desktop OS, I would be installing it to learn something...or at least have a little project getting it working. So looks like I'll spilt the 30 gig 50/50 between BSD and Mandrake. 👍 Thanks for the advice, Loud.

And, yes, I did get Windows with my computer, but I think I lost the CD. One way or the other, I can't find it. And Burnout, games are not all that important to me.
 
skip0110
Ok, well thats the end of that idea. I didn't know--having only used Solaris 8 on school machines for a short time.

Xandros is a debian-based system using KDE and Crossover Office. It's claim to fame is that it is supposedly very compatible with Windows networks. Not that I really ever deal with Windows networking.

I have never used Mandrake, so that is something I want to try. And although FreeBSD might not be the best desktop OS, I would be installing it to learn something...or at least have a little project getting it working. So looks like I'll spilt the 30 gig 50/50 between BSD and Mandrake. 👍 Thanks for the advice, Loud.

And, yes, I did get Windows with my computer, but I think I lost the CD. One way or the other, I can't find it. And Burnout, games are not all that important to me.
Click to expand...
👍

I only play one game, only reason I had mentioned it was you saying something about GTA.

'sall good. I plan on installing some version of Linux when I get my 120GB HD.
 
There are several distributions of Linux that use the "Live CD" method - I strongly suggest playing with those before going to the trouble of formatting and installing it for a more permanent configuration.

The CDs give you pretty good hardware support and functionality, but don't expect it to be as good as an installed version. Play with it for a couple weeks and decide if you are going to like it before you start playing with your hard drive.
 
LoudMusic
There are several distributions of Linux that use the "Live CD" method - I strongly suggest playing with those before going to the trouble of formatting and installing it for a more permanent configuration.

The CDs give you pretty good hardware support and functionality, but don't expect it to be as good as an installed version. Play with it for a couple weeks and decide if you are going to like it before you start playing with your hard drive.
Click to expand...
I have used several Live CDs, have a few sitting next to me. I also have Lindows live. I have a few distros sitting on cds next to me aswell. I have installed these before, but never used them so uninstalled them, because I only have a 20GB HD. When I get a 120GB, that wont really matter.
 
Thanks for the tip, Shannon. But right now, I'm focused on getting this b*stard child of a *NIX to work, FreeBSD.

Last night and today combined I spent probably 4 hours trying to get it to work. Unfortunately, I chose the net install, but with speeds of 36 kbps, I was very dissapointed with their servers. Normally I can see download speeds up to 600 kbps on my connection, and almost always above 300 kbps assuming the server is good enough. I installed is sucessfully once, only to disocver that GRUB won't recognize a UFS2 partition--so I said OK, I'll use the FreeBSD bootloader. But it wouldn't install; it kept loosing the connection to the FTP server; and I was getting terribly pissed off with the installer (understandable, after staring at it for 3+ hours).

OK, forget it I said, I'll go back to Fedora Core 2 and burn those CD install discs. Nope, apparently FreeBSD had already taken over my MBR. Still OK--being the (reasonably) bright person that I am, I backed up my MBR on a floppy. So I revert back to the old MBR, it goes into GRUB OK, and I select the right OS, and


...blammo "No Operating System Found." I guess FreeBSD changed my partition table too or something? Oh well, I gave up, wiped the disc, installed an old Fedora Core 1 I had sittign around, and I'll try again tomorrow with the CD install discs.

Damnit, BSD, I'll get you yet! :trouble:
 
Does anyone read this/care? Oh well, I'll bore you all with an update anywho.

FreeBSD installed. And of all the OSes I've used, (including Windows) it is the only one to correctly perform ACPI CPU throttling!

Still, I have a lot left to do. right now I am using twm, not exactly the best window manager. I need better fonts too. No idea if the sound card is working/detected.
 
toyomatt84
DOS? :D
Click to expand...
:lol: You know, I actually thought about installing a pathetically out of date version of windows...say windows 3.1, just for nostalgia's sake. I wonder kow it would handle modern hardware?
 
Well, I can tell ya' that trying to run Old School Games like Heretic on my XP system is a nightmare. It can't handle how new the components are, so I get sound lag. It's quite funny, though.

You should get Windows 3.1 and see how fast it boots. I doubt it's anything more than a few seconds. :D
 

Latest Posts

Back