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Help me choose a new desktop pc for SL (based in UK)

Emma Krokus

By Emma Krokus,
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Orca Flotta

Orca Flotta

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Emma Krokus wrote:

I was going to go for Windows 8.1 for the OS...

Why?

Afraid of saving money, having more freedom,more security, less maintenance, less trouble, being more cool? Afraid of the steep 2 days learning curve you'll have to face with a Linux distro? A new computer is the perfect way to do the jump. Step up now and be happy forever from the very moment you're firing up your new system for the first time! :smileyhappy:

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steph Arnott

steph Arnott

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"Afraid of the steep 2 days learning curve you'll have to face with a Linux distro"

Linux is too complicated to get things to run for the majority of people, until Linux make the setup and use as easy as MS then it will remain in the group of users that understand OS, I tried two or three times and the frustration was just too much.

I detest MS, but at least it is easy to work with, Linux makes me feel like I need a degree in computer science. You will most likley say it is not difficult, but to most it is. People just want to turn the computer on and do there thing and not spend hours getting stuff to function.

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Orca Flotta

Orca Flotta

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steph Arnott wrote:

Linux is too complicated to get things to run for the majority of people, until Linux make the setup and use as easy as MS then it will remain in the group of users that understand OS, I tried two or three times and the frustration was just too much.

I detest MS, but at least it is easy to work with, Linux makes me feel like I need a degree in computer science. You will most likley say it is not difficult, but to most it is. People just want to turn the computer on and do there thing and not spend hours getting stuff to function.

Oh, ugh :smileysurprised: Well, all I can tell you is that I'm the least geeky person, at least when I see all the clever people here in forum. I wanna ask you, when did you last play with Linux? Because what you're stating here sounds very true for Linux like 4 or 5 years ago. Do it nowadays with a modern distro like Mint 16 on Cinnamon desktop and it's totally different. Installation was a breeze and everyting worked right out of the box. The desktop looks and feels like a mix of Win7 and MacOS and not once did I have to use the much loathed terminal.

Particularly since I got used to Linux,  am on it since 1 year, and switched to Manjaro my life became even easier. I always get the latest nVidia drivers updated automagically and my favourite SL viewer, Singularity alpha, is already in the repository. So I download and install it with a single command. It even upgrades automatically as well. Every couple days I have a little icon on the taskbar that lights up in red and indicates new upgrades are available. I click on it when and if I want. 1 Mouseclick and the magic starts. All my software and drivers, even the kernel ... swoosh!

I gotta say I'm much more productive since I'm on Linux and spend much less time with system maintenance than ever before. Linux is ready for the primetime and does exatly what you described: People wil be able to just switch the computer on and start to work right away.

 

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Orca Flotta

Orca Flotta

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Yes, Kwakkelde, by all the great stuff Clem and team are doing, it's a friggin' shame they still cling on momma Ubuntu's skirts with its short release cycles.

Well, anyway, I decided to turn my back on Debian/Ubuntu and switched to the Arch based Manjaro. I'm feeling enough at home in Linux now, so I dared to jump. So far no complaints. It's as easy as it gets (they borrowed a  lot of the nice stuff from Mint) but still not as newbie friendly as Mint. On the upside with Arch you always have the latest updates and it's a rolling release, so I never ever need to install it again. In 2034 I will still have the most up-to-date OS and apps available for me. I doubt that my PC will last thatb long tho. So the switch was well worth it. And for when I really need the Terminal (which I'm slowly getting used to) I just look up all the commands on this super duper helpful link. And hey, that is not geeky; nobody complained about the complexity of DOS, remember? And that way hellishly complicated compared to Linux's simple  command structure.

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Orca Flotta

Orca Flotta

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steph Arnott wrote:

Maybe for now be best to partition the hard drive and see how it goes. Thanks for that info.

Yes yes! Try it first out as dual boot. Just make sure to install Win first. No need to partition the hard drive, Win and Linux will figure it out between themselves. I ran my PC in dual boot for  like half a year before I noticed I'm hardly ever on Win anymore and finally made the jump. Since I don't run any specialist software and don't even have a printer, scanner or anything exotic installed it was a very smooth transition.

Oh, and most Linux distros come with the option to run the OS from DVD before you install. Of course that is slow but a good way to see if all your hardware is supported.

For Linux there is a piece of software, named Vine, on which you can run a lot of Win software. Not all, mind ya. Since Vine isn't an emulator but a compabiity layer general consensus is that most Win software runs equally well and even faster than directly under Windows.

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Sassy Romano

Sassy Romano

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I'm not going to enter into an OS advocacy debate at all because I know that my main apps have no Linux version so straight off, it's just not a platform of choice when all my main apps are Windows based.  Dual boot is pointless in this scenario because I want to run my apps at the same time, not some at once in one environment, reboot, do something in the other without the first lot of apps and swap back.

What might be of interest for the geeks either way is to use something like Virtualbox on either Windows or Linux and then run the other OS within that.  Then you can do both at the same time, no faffing about dual booting.  If Linux is your preferred environment, run that and virtualise Windows.  If Windows is the preferred environment virtualise Linux.

Simple!

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Sassy Romano

Sassy Romano

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*shrugs* works fine for me.  VMware workstation is better if you want to run games.  SL viewer runs quite happily under VMware. 

Just introducing the option.  If you have suitable hardware and just want to run both side by side at the same time with little effort, it's a solution.

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