Alternative Operating System

fwor

esuhl wrote: »

There's no "perfect" answer that suits everyone

Agreed - one other thing you might want to try if you haven't already is altering the filesystem "swappiness" to make it less inclined to use swap if you have plenty of RAM?

You can do this temporarily, or the permanent way is to add the line "vm.swappiness=10" to /etc/sysctl.conf - the lower the number, the less inclined the system will be to swap stuff out to disk.

stilltheone

814man wrote: »

Hi all
So took me about about 40 minutes to download and install Ubuntu. No tech knowledge needed and I'm loving it - very fast and responsive.
Thanks for all advice, why didn’t I do this before?

Still think that you should install XP first and then install Ubuntu using the Windows Installer. That way you'll be covered for most eventualities.

S0litaire

stilltheone wrote: »

Still think that you should install XP first and then install Ubuntu using the Windows Installer. That way you'll be covered for most eventualities.

Let's see how the OP goes with Ubuntu for a week or so

Once they work out what they can and can't do on it, then we can come back to installing XP if they need it...

Kernel_Sanders

23n1th wrote: »

Are you sure? I've been informed many times on this forum that linux is way too hard for people with no tech knowledge you must be mistaken linux is wayyyyy too hard!

:)OK well I'm sure that's no longer the case as I've read that the Ubuntu interface is very user-friendly compared to the Linux that I tried to get to grips with years ago. All that coding and 'mounting' things was a little overwhelming so I'm hoping things will have changed dramatically since then.

SteveJH200

Linux Mint is easy to download,and is extremely simple to use. There are loads of alternative systems out there to try anyway - take a look http://distrowatch.com/

Kernel_Sanders

SteveJH200 wrote: »

Linux Mint is easy to download,and is extremely simple to use. There are loads of alternative systems out there to try anyway - take a look http://distrowatch.com/

Does it support flash, e.g. the Shockwave Flash plug-in that some webcam sites use? Also, would you recommend that somebody who has only used Windows should try that before they tackle Ubuntu?

danny0085

Here a video tutorial how to install linux step by step without deleting Windows

tips-linux.net/en/linux-ubuntu/linux-distribution/install-ubuntu

SteveJH200

Kernel_Sanders wrote: »

Does it support flash, e.g. the Shockwave Flash plug-in that some webcam sites use? Also, would you recommend that somebody who has only used Windows should try that before they tackle Ubuntu?

I think it supports Flash - I have used skype without any problems. To me, Linux and Ubuntu are both worth trying although I prefer Linux Mint out of the two. I'm one of those people who will try anything anyway - I have been used to Windows for many years so I got excited when I had the opportunity to try something new. I have also tried Joli and that was interesting too. It breathes life into old computers that have difficulty running Windows.

gaming_guy

..............

debitcardmayhem

gaming_guy wrote: »

the x86 (32 bit) versions of Debian/Ubuntu/Mint all support flash (I think mint has in preinstalled)

The x64 (64bit) versions of the above distros support either the native 64bit beta version of flash player (which can be buggy and insecure) or you can run the 32bit version of flash in a 64 bit browser (which I've never tried doing). However, it looks like adobe doesn't really care about 64bit users as they pulled it from the download site for a while - link

Yeah and also if you want to use BBC iplayer that needs Adobe Air which really is a pain on 64 bit linux (to get it working) thanks beeb another waste of my licence fee. But hey Linux is still good , and since my lappy is a core i5 2410 I can run 32 bit under Virtualbox for iplayer. It also runs passably on a netbook with an atom too.