New Kid In Town
by stephentony
I've used Windows from 3.1 through to XP. I bought the new operating systems, and in order to run them, in some instances, a new computer. Things came to a head right around the holidays. I was reading the system requirements for Vista, and could not believe what it needs to run properly. Microsoft has a real racket going and people are too afraid to dump Windows. What else would they use? They use it at work and home and they're afraid there is no other way! Combined with the bloated OS and all the bloated software, and the never ending security issues, I decided that enough was enough.
I told my wife that I was dumping Windows and she laughed for about 10 minutes. I've been saying this for the past few years, but assumed that any Linux OS would be too difficult for me to install. This time I decided to put in a little work reading about Linux, and discovered the wonderful Live CD's.
After more reading, and CD burning, I decided to go with what I thought would be the easiest install. I went with Freespire. It was easy to install and auto detected everything, including my WiFi card. The problem was that after seeing distros like Ubuntu, Mepis, and last but not least, PCLinuxOS, I felt like I was getting a bit of a watered down Linux experience. Freespire is great, but I wanted something else. I'm not sure if that makes sense. I just felt that with all of the positives in moving to the Linux OS, the fact was that in order to really appreciate it, I was going to have to do some work.
When I decided to go with PCLinuxOS (not an easy decision) I burned the Windows drivers for my Broadcom wireless card to a CD. After all of the horror stories I read on different web sites about getting a Linux OS up and running, I was shocked to find that it was much easier than I had read. The drivers loaded flawlessly and I had my Internet connection up and running in less than 5 minutes.
I had the same experience with the Synaptic Package Manager. This was a nightmare? I understand that different flavors of Linux pose different challenges, but some of this stuff you read is like urban legend if you ask me. Anyway, I've been running with PCLinuxOS for 6 days now and I'm having a blast! I feel like a kid on Christmas day. Windows is off both my desktop (I'm running Ubuntu) and my laptop (PCLinuxOS), and I have no want or need to go back. I thought I would go through serious Windows withdrawal, but it has not happened. I don't need anyone to tell me that on every level this is what an OS is supposed to be. I know it in my gut. Just like I always knew there had to be a better way than Windows. My wife has a Mac, but she was very interested when I showed her both operating systems. She loved both and is not laughing anymore. I'm glad to be here!