Linux as 2nd OS???

T4i

Must say as a Linux virgin i'm quite impressed. Not quite as fast as what I thought, but I've not really done anything too tasky.

Just got my 7600GT PCI-e working properly, Audigy works fine, NIC works fine.

Thanks again for the advice....

wolfman

Yeah, I've never found it to be much faster if at all. Especially when relating to responsiveness I still think XP is marginally faster.

Just a matter of picking which apps you like. As a few recommendations (I use KDE), Amarok (jukebox software) is excellent, XMMS too. K3B is my preferred cd burning software, although Gnome Baker is still good. EasyTAG for doing ID3/Ogg tags.

Of the media players I just use Kaffeine, although MPlayer is probably the best (worth installing). VLC offers an ease to use alternative.

Firefox of course. Great in that you can have one profile and it can be used in Windows or Linux. Thunderbird too.

I still prefer the firewalls (Kerio!) in XP although currently use Firestarter in Ubuntu.

And I've yet to find a decent replacement for DVD Decrypter and AutoGK. DVD Decrypter can be run via Wine although I don't think AutoGK can (stably at least).

And don't forget Automatix. Not quite a necessary as it was originally for me. But handy for quickly installing any necessary codecs and other random apps.

T4i

Thanks wolfman, some really good advice for me there.

:beer:

Thenotsowyzewun

If you want it to be more responsive, you'll need to get XGL or AIXGL configured (Ubuntu 6.10 - the latest one, already has AIXGL setup) - this is to take all the graphics processing off the CPU (X11 makes it do a lot of work the graphics card should be doing), also make sure you have the right Kernel installed for your system's CPU, e.g. you'll need a SMP Kernel for an SMP (Dual Core) processor to use both its cores. Thirdly, if you want to make it really nippy, rebuild the kernel with only the options you need enabled.

Linux is alot faster than Windows, it just has a lot of unnecessary processes going on (as does Windows) under it's default setup (this is to maximize compatibility with different people's systems).

Careful you don't get too hooked though !