"Can the ordinary computer user ditch Windows for Linux? The question came up when I decided that my six-year-old version of Microsoft's Windows operating system had to be replaced. My Sony Vaio computer was still too young for the trash heap. And I was hesitant to spend $200 on the Windows XP operating system, especially with Microsoft planning to launch XP's replacement, Vista, in January. So, I decided to give the operating systems that run on Linux technology a try."
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Member since:2005-12-02
Member since:2006-04-21
In my experience the performance of any Unix-like system varies widely according to distribution, even on the same hardware.
On this laptop SuSE 10.0 works wonderfully, FreeBSD 6.0 works apart from suspend modes and the wireless, and NetBSD 3.0 wouldn't even boot properly. Gentoo and Debian (more or less) work fine on my desktop, Solaris fails miserably on both but dislikes my laptop less. (Weird!)
Once you have an OS that can be sourced from multiple suppliers, it's much more like the tired old metaphor of buying a car. Any car, from all but the criminally negligent, gets you from A to B; but some are a joy, some are noisy, some drink petrol/gas, and some are a real pain. And not everyone will agree which is which.
Member since:2005-07-28
Perhaps but, I have to ask one simple question -- what versions of these distros did he try? I don't know what version are contained in the "...For Dummies" books but, I would imagine that they are not the latest and greatest. For example, a quick look on Amazon show the 6th edition is available (7th edition will be out May 22). In it, it lists Fedora Core 3 as one of the systems on the DVD. Perhaps, if he had been able to get a more recent version of one of those distros, his experience would have been better.
Member since:
2006-04-21
Really? Perhaps I'm misinformed. Though the article itself does say that some parts of the Vaio hardware are not well supported.
These days, video hardware not working properly (beyond, perhaps, lack of 3D hardware acceleration) is a pretty embarassing showstopper.