Originally posted by Fabrizo@Jan. 30 2003, 9:03 am
My thoughts on the different OS's:
Win2k - good performance, little memory usage, wonderful stability, good to use as a server, and has the ability to run basicly everything xp/win98se/me can.
WinXP - lacks a real DOS, eats up too much memory, but is currently the most used m$ OS for new comps which makes it so it gets the most upgrades and attention from that company.
Linux + BeOS - havn't tried them yet.
Just to follow up.
Win2K does run flawlessly, however it doesn't run everything - there are some programs (I've been finding recently) that don't operate properly at all in the 2K environment, but work fine in 98 and XP. But it does run a majority of mainstream apps.
WinXP lacks a real DOS, but so does Win2K.
Linux - clustering them together is like clustering all MS products together, unfortunately. I'm finding this out very quickly, as I just moved to Linux on my laptop. They all run from the same kernel, roughly, but how they use that kernel is an entirely different matter.
Redhat, Debian, FreeBSD - they're all aimed at a particular market, as in running servers, etc. They're hardly geared towards people just getting into Linux, and as many admins have been saying recently (about Redhat, in particular), they've been overlooking and avoiding their shortcomings (ie, adding new hardware, intuitiveness, etc.)
Then there's a bunch of versions that are geared towards the more 'casual' (if you could use that term) user. Items like SuSe, and Mandrake, which allow you to install in a folder, rather than a partition, use a variety of bootloaders, and setting up is quite easy (SuSe implements something called YaST2 - it makes setting up Linux very straightforward, and Mandrake has something similar). I'm currently learning/using Mandrake 9 - it's autodetection and setup are light years ahead of RedHat's.
Why would anyone really want to switch to Linux? Well, if you want to get away from MS and can't afford a Mac... everything you need to run Linux is free, and there are forums aplenty for help (if you have the patience). After installing Mandrake, all I added was Netscape 7.01 and AOL's AIM (just because those are what I like and am used to). They're optimized for a variety of processors (even the K6, I speak from 1st hand experience), and because they're trying to gather more support, there is loads of information to get you going.
That's just my 2c.
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Falstaff, you never addressed the superior graphics capabilities and enhanced experience you referred to. I really do want to know.