... in with the doors. Or put in another way why and how I ditched Windows (Vista) for Linux. Vista the worst operating system from MS ever. It eats resources like candies. Come on, on new double core systems it drags and drags for a bit of shiny graphics...
The partitioning did not go too well - GParted live CD was working for 5-6 hours (It was actually reporting half that time as elapsed, it was counting in real time) only to say 0 out of 1 operations completed and then do the same thing again...
Then as I was killing time I discovered that it is very erratic when dealing with NTFS partitions (now you tell me instead of a big bold disclaimed as a wallpaper).So I took the plunge and rebooted the laptop.
Calamity.It couldn't boot and couldn't reach the secret partition where the restoration image was located (Oh no why provide restoration CDs when we can charge for them £35 when requested and let them wait up to 28 days?).
So Linux all the way. No dual boot. Well installing Linux was another adventure on its own. Equipped with a couple of DVDs from computer magazines I have tried a number of distros:
PCLinuxOS: Great, plays DVDs out of the bix, but no wireless card was supported.Great: would be fun trying to fetch all the required packages from the netcafe...
XUbuntu: No DVD support, wireless card detected but could not connect to the wireless network...
Fedora: I expected that to work, but during the installation the setup was asking to install the installation disk - didn't recognize that was itself...
Open Suse: Managed to 'misplace' the disk somewhere within the house. have the cover but not the disk.Superb.
Sabayon: very impressive! I would rather to give Ubuntu a try but beggars can't be choosers.
[The verdict]
Sabayon did install, could connect in my wireless, but it typically takes 5-6 attempts to do so. Still haven't figured why.
DVDs and media: Well apart from mp3s, video files and DVD are not supported out of the box. Had some luck only with Ogle for DVDs but all the rest players refuce to work. Currently looking into the video/codecs.
[The feeling]
It is gonna be a long curve till I get everything (I would settle with most) working, given that even digital cameras and external USB drives refuse to work (The motto why me comes to mind...).
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3 comments:
try linux mint, it's based on ubuntu but a very nicely polished system, codecs pre-installed
http://www.linuxmint.com
You should have given PcLinuxOS more time. Its not difficult to install win wireless drivers with ndiswrapper. If that was the only complaint you had with it.
Try PCLinuxOS again. I've found it to be by far the most "complete" desktop experience around (Windows included). The Wifi 'issue' can be annoying at first, but ndiswrapper is easy to setup and use with the pclinuxos control panel. Just point it to your cdrom/folder with your windows drivers and bingo!
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