Is Linux Right For Me?

Message

some-guy · #1 Post by **some-guy** » Wed 11 Jun 2008, 04:34

Okay so this may be a wall of text but please bare with me, like everyone I just want the most of out of my computer, but I'd like it with simplicity. So my questions are: How would Puppy run with a ~2.4GHz processor and 4GB of RAM? Does the graphic card matter (because I have a GeForce 5something series)? I can't burn a Live CD because Vista says my CD Drive driver is corrupted, when I know it isn't! So will I be able to run Live from a USB drive if my BIOS lets me? And finally, how easy is it to get used to and have it up and running? Thanks for your help, and here's hoping to be a part of the Puppy users' community.

Lobster · #2 Post by **Lobster** » Wed 11 Jun 2008, 05:43

Puppy will run fine on your setup . . .

Try the simple steps here for converting from Windows
http://rhinoweb.us/

You will need access to a working CD Burner . . .

If you can not burn a CD on another system . . .
Barry will send you one at a nominal fee
http://puppylinux.com/download/index.html

some-guy · #3 Post by **some-guy** » Wed 11 Jun 2008, 06:01

Lobster wrote:Puppy will run fine on your setup . . .

Try the simple steps here for converting from Windows
http://rhinoweb.us/

You will need access to a working CD Burner . . .

If you can not burn a CD on another system . . .
Barry will send you one at a nominal fee
http://puppylinux.com/download/index.html

Thank you, I can burn it on my mom's laptop.

Lobster · #4 Post by **Lobster** » Wed 11 Jun 2008, 06:14

Bruce B · #5 Post by **Bruce B** » Wed 11 Jun 2008, 06:34

some-guy,

Welcome!

I wouln't have asked the same question. My question would be along these lines:

* What can Vista do for me?

or

* What can Vista do for me that XP doesn't?

A lot of the Windows user market, especially corporations and gamers are strictly decided that XP serves them as well or better than Vista could.

If you bought Vista, you must have thought it would be doing something worthwhile in your behalf. On this premise, I'd recommend taking an inventory of how well and it what ways Vista is serving you.

However, my fundamental purpose in this post is to enforce the concept that we are not dealing with an either/or situation - it can just as well be an and/and situation. Meaning, you can have both if you want.

Bruce

Bruce B · #6 Post by **Bruce B** » Wed 11 Jun 2008, 06:48

Dear Lobster the chaste,

You're obviously an advocate. Being one myself, I feel powerless to chastise you. Worse I fail to see that you deserve to chastisement, the reason being, that your advocacy might be a manifestation of chastity itself.

Bruce

Cheers to the open, honest and wholesome!

Trobin · #7 Post by **Trobin** » Thu 12 Jun 2008, 05:52

What can Vista do for me?

one thing Vista did for me was straighten out my hard drive after linux screwed it up.

alienjeff · #8 Post by **alienjeff** » Thu 12 Jun 2008, 16:52

Now that's a first! But at what cost?

Trobin · #9 Post by **Trobin** » Thu 12 Jun 2008, 18:11

No cost. The company I worked for when Vista was launched gave me a free copy.

Didn't even lose any of the data I had on that hard drive. not even the linux stuff.

alienjeff · #10 Post by **alienjeff** » Thu 12 Jun 2008, 18:13

I don't categorize an OS that regularly "phones home" and reports the doings of the end user to be "free" in any sense of the word.

Bruce B · #11 Post by **Bruce B** » Thu 12 Jun 2008, 18:48

Trobin,

You haven't stated how Linux messed things up, or how Vista fixed things.

I consider Vista fragile. Fragile enough, that I'd not even resize the partition its on. In fact I wouldn't mess with Vista at all.

If I wanted for some reason to have a Vista / Linux machine, I'd put a second drive on it for Linux and leave Vista untouched, except for installing a boot manager on the MBR. If Vista is too fragile for that, which it might be (???), I'd blame Vista, I suppose.

Beyond that, if I messed with Vista, using Linux or any of its tools, and it didn't work after, I'd wonder what I did to it, and probably end up blaming myself, for doing something I shouldn't have done to Vista.

Bruce

Trobin · #12 Post by **Trobin** » Thu 12 Jun 2008, 23:34

I believe it was my experiments with GRML linux, to try out the swpeak functions that did it. I don't think GRML linux and a NTFS formatted drive play nice tyogether.

Puppy Linux worked well enough with the exception of displaying error mesaages at power off.

I might have deleted the pup_save file and started over if the diagnostic stuff in Vista hadn't detected the NTFS error and ran checkdsk at boot up.

I don't think of Vista as being fragile. I do think Microsoft spent to much erffort on putting everything but the Out house sink in as well as the eye candy that sets it apart from XP.

I've resized partitions, deleted partitions, and formatted partitions in Vista with no problems.

I'm not saying that Vista is the best OS around. I've yet to find the perfect all round Operating System. And sometimes I suppose I do think that Microsoft is being unfairly criticised.

Bruce B · #13 Post by **Bruce B** » Fri 13 Jun 2008, 00:29

Trobin,

If it was your Vista, I wouldn't touch it. If it were mine, I might.

About unfair criticism and fragility

I don't have reason to think NTFS is fragile, but I treat it as such due to the secrecy around it (lack of open specs). In other words, I'd rather not mess with it.

As far as the OS is concerned I could measure fragility on the basis of how easy is it to mess up, when YOU didn't do anything that should have caused it to mess up. One example that comes to mind is, I recently read of people having problems with infinite reboots because they applied Service Pack 1.

However, a fragility I really speak of is deliberate design fragility. It started with XP. The fragility is being hostile to hardware changes.

Certain kinds of unspecified hardware changes or upgrades on your part can trigger operating system calculations to the effect of it deactivating, and putting you in a position of being considered a possible pirate. Then you need to contact and convince your vendor otherwise to get it activated again.

With Linux there is no such design concept. A hardware change may be seamless. If not, it is strictly a matter of resolving technical issues associated with the hardware change.

--------------------

In conclusion: I understand that some people like Windows. Some people value fairness even if they don't like Windows much. In your case I think both.

For this reason, I outlined somewhat why I think Windows Vista (and XP) is fragile.

Although it's a bit worse than my outline, in candor, I think it's fragile enough, that I wouldn't even use it normally, if normal means using their browser set at its defaults.

If you think differently, especially if you think unfair comments were made, please let me know.

Bruce

Lobster · #14 Post by **Lobster** » Fri 13 Jun 2008, 04:06

And sometimes I suppose I do think that Microsoft is being unfairly criticised.

I would suggest that XP and Vista (running on a modern machine with 2Gig of RAM) are fine proprietary distros on first run. 3 months later the rust sets in. How much malware will be slowing your system to mean 5 minute booting time? Who apart from MS, NSA and a host of commercial interests have access to your data? How much functioning 'old' hardware needs upgrading? Why are Windows users wary and weary of their computers? Drudge and sludge.

If people need to dual boot or prefer any OS including the bloat of some Linux, that is fine. I was using my Mac yesterday. I don't get it. OSX 10 based on BSD is slow and ponderous compared to Puppy. Most OS are. Once you learn how to run free and quick, wearing a collar no matter the diamonds, just feels like being owned . . .

Puppy runs free

#15 Post by **Flash** » Fri 13 Jun 2008, 04:23

Just for the record, I have two computers with Windows 2000 on them, partitioned with NTFS, ext2 and Linux swap partitions. I regularly convert wav files to mp3 with multisession Puppy on both computers, saving the mp3 files to the NTFS partitions so as to be able to access the files with Windows too. So far, nothing bad has happened.

A few times Windows showed a file in a folder but couldn't access that file, even to delete it. The problem was solved by booting Puppy, deleting the file, then recreating it. It's been a while since it happened, so I forget the exact details of how I recreated the file. I think I might have used Puppy to put it on a USB flash stick before deleting it from the hard disk, then booted Windows and copied the file from the USB flash stick to the destination folder.

Trobin · #16 Post by **Trobin** » Fri 13 Jun 2008, 06:00

I would suggest that XP and Vista (running on a modern machine with 2Gig of RAM) are fine proprietary distros on first run. 3 months later the rust sets in.

However if you run firewalls, antispiware, antiviral software regularily then the rust can be polished away.

As for speed, yes Puppy is faster once booted. On my system I haven't noticed much difference in the length of time it takes to boot Puppy or Vista, and my system is very low end when it comes to the recommended stats Vista needs to run.

Who apart from MS, NSA and a host of commercial interests have access to your data?

I'm not convinced that Microsoft has access to my data. As for the gov't, NSA, a whole interests, do you really think that they can't get the info just because you're running a flavour of Linux?

Puppy runs free

Yes Puppy runs free but sometimes there is some truth to that saying that there is no such thing as a free lunch.

Bruce B · #17 Post by **Bruce B** » Fri 13 Jun 2008, 06:32

Trobin,

I think we should take a second look at the little snippet below.

Trobin wrote:I'm not convinced that Microsoft has access to my data.

1) Are you convinced that Microsoft uses people's computers to clandestinely and frequently connect with headquarters?

2) Are you convinced that the data sent to headquarters is encrypted and nobody except headquarters knows what is being collected.

3) Are you convinced that it has been observed that significantly more data is being collected than necessary for the purported purpose of making sure YOU'RE not the pirate?

4) Are you convinced that the data accessed is in fact YOUR DATA?

----------------

Can I help?

Bruce

Lobster · #18 Post by **Lobster** » Fri 13 Jun 2008, 08:22

However if you run firewalls, antispiware, antiviral software regularily then the rust can be polished away.

To me that is part of the rust rot . . .
I fact I was spending 30% of my time keeping Windows XP secure and I was losing . . . malware was targeting the update facilities of some anti-spyware I was using - just too much trouble.

For the first year of Puppy I ran without a firewall (I don't think there was one) and the paranoia went . . .

This is were your 'deleted' files are kept by MS
http://www.microsuck.com/content/ms-hidden-files.shtml

I am glad Vista saved your system. I am glad if people like or prefer Vista. I think the kludge and fudge is now proving too sticky even for the thing MS do best - marketing. Time will tell.
Puppy Viz (released about the same time as Vista) seemed to me preferable.

When Wine 1 comes out we can run all the 'necessary' bloat but I still prefer to find and support the alternatives.

The thing is this, as I keep reminding people: you can have Vista on your system and run Puppy from CD.

Puppy will save on an NTFS disk one file (a few more for faster booting) or on the CD or on a USB keydrive.

With Puppy you have choice . . .

Bruce B · #19 Post by **Bruce B** » Fri 13 Jun 2008, 09:35

Lobster,

In all fairness, I must say my XP / Vista has been great. No problems, aggravation, or anything of the sort.

I suppose that's because I decided not to have an XP / Vista experience.

Bruce

Trobin · #20 Post by **Trobin** » Fri 13 Jun 2008, 16:16

1) Are you convinced that Microsoft uses people's computers to clandestinely and frequently connect with headquarters?

2) Are you convinced that the data sent to headquarters is encrypted and nobody except headquarters knows what is being collected.

I'm aware that Microsoft collects data on the hardware in my computer as part of the activation process.

3) Are you convinced that it has been observed that significantly more data is being collected than necessary for the purported purpose of making sure YOU'RE not the pirate?

Of that I am not convinced.

I have no problem with Microsoft wanting to know the hardware specifications of my computer so that my copy of Vista/XP is tied to one specific computer. However the tone of the comments I've seen here, as well as elsewhere, seem to indicate that Microsoft wants to access the data that I put into my computer, letteras, spreadsheets, emails, etc. Of that I am not convinced.

We are probably the most watched populace in the history of this world. I use the web to go see what's happening. Someone at my ISP could be sitting in front of his monitor checking to see that I'm not breaking the terms that allow me to use his service, or hogging resources by downloading a movie. I type this message on my home computer, click on submit and the mesage is sent to the forum to be posted for all to see. How many computers/servers will it be passed through, and how many copies might be made, before it reaches it destination. What are the odds that a copy of this message will be passed through NSA's monitoring programs?

Letting Microsoft know what hardware is in my computer seems like a drop in the bucket compared to what could happen if some minor functionary, out to get brownie points, misrepresents a message.

If I really wanted to use XP/Vista without MS having access to the data, then I would simply not activate. Both will give warning messages, so I could back up all my data, wipe my hard drive, and reinstall before the OS deactivates.

It doesn't matter what OS you run. The only secure computer is the one kept in a locked room with no access to the Internet.

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Is Linux Right For Me?

Is Linux Right For Me?