peppers wrote:
phazmatis wrote:
User: "But I still can't play my DVDs without learning how to use the command line.".
Command lines are not all that often required for normal stuff anymore, at least not much more that I have to use DOS. This is a common misconception from people who have not tried out Linux themselves. once more my recommendation is mint.
Linux can run "Live" from the cd without the need to install it try it out yourself b4 you comment on it again.
Actually, I'm running Ubuntu 9.04 right now. I'd also be running linux on my desktop, but linux has this nice habit of installing just fine and then giving me a blank screen once I try to boot it from the actual hard drive. I've tried Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, and Slackware, with identical results. Probably my motherboard or graphics card are not supported, but I'm not going to replace hardware to get linux working. Oh, I tried the common linux boot options, and none of them fix the problem. I'll just stick with XP, which installs all of my drivers without any trouble.
I'm using 64-bit linux, and there are problems associated with that. For example, all of the flash player plugins are either 32-bit exclusive or require all sorts of contortions to install them. Someone makes an install script, but the next version of ubuntu breaks them. Ubuntu 9.04 finally got the video working in this laptop, it was a nightmare of restricted drivers that didn't install correctly before.
Windows 7 is still pretty bad. Web browsers freeze up for 30 seconds at a time any time I open too many (4 or more) youtube pages (on a dual-core 3.2ghz desktop this should not be happening). Games run at one half the framerate as in XP. And even when I lower the graphics settings in games, and bring the framerate up to 60+, the games jerk and lag like they did in Vista. XP runs them fine.
I use linux for online banking because windows security is a joke. XP, Vista, 7,.. I don't trust any of them. The only secure windows PC is behind an actual firewall (not a crappy residential router that will happily pass any forged packet marked "192.168.1.4" along to your desktop), running a non-Norton (and non-McAfee) antivirus with COMODO firewall (or some other competent firewall) set on "paranoid mode". And then don't ever use flash, acrobat, javascript, etc.............