The easiest distro i found was Sabayon, but this one requires a lil'more use of ram.
What i personaly don't like about linux:
- The GUI of programs (aMule i.e.)
- Permissions: why can't i be admin of my computer? (security reasons? i'm an home user, no one else touch my pc)
- File explorer
- Loading is too slow
- Incompabilities
- No autocad
- No photoshop (gimp is far from photoshop. Where are the personalized palletes?)
- Command line

What i like:
- Python (runs on win 2)
- live experiment
- Free
=)

Unlike on Windows, Linux allows you to totally change the GUI. Gnome, KDE and XFCE are all popular window managers that control what everything looks like, You can then completely customise those further, to make everything look exactly as you want it. Surely all this control is better than Windows' choice of blue, silver or green?



There is nothing stopping you granting yourself root privileges. However, if you give yourself root access then you have full power to screw everything up. Every file that controls the fundamentals of the operating system is suddenly open to you. Believe me, you will at some point do something wrong, and having root access at the time will make that cataclysmic. The other main reason you don't get root access from the start is to protect you from yourself. It sets boundaries (all your stuff goes in home - don't litter the rest of the drive with it ) and makes you think about what you are doing when you have to switch to root to run a command.



Like everything in Linux - if you don't like it, download a different one. There are loads of different file managers out there, usually tied to a certain window manager. I have KDE and currently have two file explorers installed - Konqueror and Dolphin.



Of what - applications or the whole system? The system boot is certainly much faster with Linux than Windows. My laptop takes 30 seconds from me pushing the power button to me seeing my desktop, and 10 seconds of that is GRUB giving me the option of booting to a different OS. If I boot into Windows, I can be sat here for 5 minutes. Applications load just as fast, if not faster, with Linux in my experience. Even running applications under WINE I don't notice a performance drop.



Hardware or software? Software is easy - pretty much every Linux app lets you import and export proprietary formats like Microsoft Office. Problem solved. Hardware is a little more tricky. However, it is really down to the hardware manufacturers to come up with the drivers. They provide them for Windows, occasionally for Mac and pretty much never for Linux. There are community drivers out there and most things now are plug and play (my mouse, camera and scanner all requested drivers in Windows, but in Linux they are plug and play). If people keep pressurising the hardware vendors then maybe they will see sense and write Linux and Mac drivers.



Specific software is always a problem for people. There are free alternatives though, that will usually read and write the same formats. Run a search and take a look - someone else will have had the same problem and come up with the software to solve it. The GIMP, I must admit, is rubbish, but it is improving. I also heard they are doing a complete UI overhaul. Finally!



Last time I checked there was one of those on Windows - but very few people ever use it. I use the command line on Linux quite a bit, but only because it is usually faster for repetitive tasks than clicking around a GUI. Everything you want to do with the command line is well documented and is easy after a while.

True, but windows has a template system too, KDE, Gnome, xFCE are all tools, they will not work side by side. This happens in windows too. (kde,gnome and xfce can work side by side, but you need tricks.)


Did you ever tried to loggin as root?
Sometimes you have to be root to solve some problems, the solution of windows is easy, log in as admin.
Solution of linux is: Get on the command line, logg as root, give urself the priviledges, log out, log in with your account and make the changes.



I wasn't talking about the aspect of the explorer, but all those folders that are needed to run a simple program


For me linux loading is very slow, it keeps finding for objects (kde environment is loading,mouse driver is loading...) . With windows i'm sure that i enter my desktop in 30 seconds maximum.
Loading of linux reminds me the loading of that game "The Sims".



Hardware incompability is hard to solve on linux, is not hard if you have drivers for it, but still it's harder to install on linux than at windows.
Yes, you don't have problems with mouse and camera and all that stuff, but what about a sound card incompability? Or a graphic card incompability?
Yes, for windows you the drivers also, but they are faster to appear.



Specific software is what most of people use.
There are no alternatives for Auto-cad, try to find it yourself, see what you get.



My father can easily use cmd (command line on windows), can you tell me if he would find difficults using the linux command line? You know what? Don't answer, of course not...
Tell me, any other person at your family uses your laptop?
Or you are the owner of it so only you use it?
Just wondering.

Greetz
~
João Lopes

No real tricks are needed - clicking a menu item at login lets you switch between window managers. Windows gives me a choice of 9x style or XP style, or to buy an extra piece of random software to get my PC to look how I want it to. Why should I pay extra?



To run a command as root I type sudo command or su command. My parents, who are not exactly tech-savvy, can do that. With Windows I have to stop what I'm doing, save, quit, log out, turn the PC off, reboot while holding F2, select "Safe Mode with Networking" from a text menu, and wait to be logged in. And even after all that I still don't have full true control!



Installing a driver on Linux is 4 clicks of a mouse button (sometimes even less now). Installing a driver on Windows requires CDs, manuals and all sorts of stuff.
For the record, across 4 PCs I have installed Linux on (that I use) I have never had a problem with sound or graphics. The most I had to do was install a package to get widescreen resolutions on my laptop - but that is well documented and supported. Windows requires a myriad of CDs for both sound and graphics.



I found this, along with the usual Sourceforge stuff and free design apps.



I am the only person that uses my laptop. However there is a desktop in my house running Linux that is used by the entire family. They all say it is easier to use than Windows, looks better and is faster, along with a load of other positive comments.

Although the GIMP is far from Photoshop, you can do most of the things you can do in Photoshop in the GIMP. Sure it may require more manual work, but this adds to the experience. Plus, a lot of Photoshop users are into brush work, of which the GIMP can provide a lot of experience in, or at least to me it has.


Have you tried Mandriva (perferrably 2007; 2008 isn't all that great) or other Mandriva-based distros? Through experience, Mandriva has been the fastest performing distro i've used. It may not have a good of a repository as Ubuntu, but the performance was nice. Of course, you may not notice a difference in performance in computers faster than the one i'm using, or i should say, on computers with more RAM than the one i'm using. 'Cause i've seen Kubuntu perform quite fast on my friend's laptop. My friend allowed me to switch the operating system to Linux when Windows "somehow" failed him and after re-installing Windows, Windows wouldn't let me get passed the Windows verification (you know, that thing that says different hardware has been detected). Although their computer experience has changed, there has been no complaint from them, and their daily computer life hasn't changed.


Ever since i've heard about AutoCAD and have seen pictures of it, i tried searching for free alternatives. Note, i heard about AutoCAD years ago. On my personal search for an open-source AutoCAD program, i found a few alternatives. However, i didn't bookmark the sites, nor did i download the programs. I guess Blender (the open-source 3D modeling program) caught my eye and made me lose interest in these AutoCAD alternatives.

But as a quicky search, you may want to check out QCad

Well i had never heard about QCad, i need to try, autocad is a very must need to engineering. My parents can use linux, my sister hates it. the reason? amsn isn't good enough for her lol.
At my pc i have: FreeBSD, Win Xp, Win vista x64 (don't ask me why) and Kubunto.
free bsd for tryouts, win xp for autocad and kubunto for personal use. But think about the gamers. where are they on linux? (i'm talking about popular games)

I looked into this a while ago and found that there are some Linux games out there that are worth playing! OpenArena is one of my favourites at the moment, Warzone 2100 is also quite good. If you look hard enough you will find a few good games out there.

Now, for running Windows games (I assume thats what you mean by "popular") you can use WINE. It certainly doesn't work for all games and applications, but quite a few will work well. I was quite surprised by the number of new games that worked when I first looked through their database.